There are plenty of buzzwords and phrases when it comes to blogging. But one of them that I really believe in is simple: Quality over quantity.
If you’re not sure about what “Quality over Quantity” means, keep reading.
A few years ago, I became so annoyed about a common blogging question that I wrote a post about it. I called it, “Stop Asking This Common Blogging Question!” Yes, I heard the question that often. I still hear it.
I found it to be a question many newbie bloggers ask.
“How many times a week should I publish?”
On the surface, you may not find anything wrong with it. It sounds innocent enough. But the problem is it implies two unfortunate things that aren’t true.
The first is that there’s a magic blogging frequency that works for everyone. There isn’t. Some bloggers can make a success of it posting once or twice a week. Others post a few times per day. No two blog audiences are identical, so what works for one won’t necessarily work for another.
But the second is at least as important. It implies that if there were a magic frequency, that everyone would be able to just make that schedule work for themselves. It doesn’t work that way, either.
Everyone has their own lives, their own pressures and their own committments.
I proposed, back in 2016, that bloggers should ask a better question…of themselves. That question, I said, is, “How many times a week can I blog?”
As a blogger, you should determine what you can and can’t accomplish and start there. The more you push yourself, the more you’re likely to burn out. If that happens, there’s a great chance your blog will fail.
If you can determine what you’re capable of producing in a week, you can find a schedule that works for you and start building.
‘Quality over quantity’ is always an important rule to remember.
Once you know how many posts you can produce, start there.
But you have to take stock in your content. You have to make sure that when you crank out your content, your priority is always making it the best content you can.
Some of us fall into the unfortunate habit of trying to fill your next slot. And we work to fill the slot even if the content isn’t as good (or complete or well-written) as it should be.
You decide you can produce three posts a week, for example, and you write three posts. But two of the three are mediocre at best.
That’s not going to help your audience find a reason to keep coming back for more.
Maybe you’re better off trying to create two posts per week and using the time you’d spend on the third in making those two that much better.
It has been almost a year since I made the decision to stop daily blogging. Last July, I decided I’d take the weekends off, so to speak.
Actually, I still write on weekends; but I spend the weekends trying to get further ahead in the coming week’s posts. By taking more time on those five posts, I have more time to edit and re-edit. I have more time to make sure I’m making my point.
I reached a point where I felt like I was more worried about filling seven slots a week than making sure I had seven well-written posts per week.
Maybe none of my readers back then felt that way. I hope they didn’t.
But I did. I felt I focused on quantity over quality, not the other way around.
I felt like I was trying to run on an endless conveyor belt, churning out post after post without a break.
And maybe, just maybe, I made the right decision.
Looking back over the past 11 months compared with the same time period the year before, Google Analytics tells an interesting story.
I did experience a small drop in unique visitors and sessions. But I see an increase in page views, the number of pages people look at per visit and the length of time they stay per visit.
I’d like to think that’s a good sign. Maybe my content is better. And maybe that means people are staying longer because they’re enjoying it a bit more.
I believe that’s the case. I hope you do as well.
And I hope that if you blog, you always remember to focus on quality over quanity.
That’s always the right choice.
