Enough is Enough, or, Yes You Can, But You Shouldn’t!
Fresh content, fresh content… It’s one of those blogging mantras. You have to keep your blog updated. Worst case is monthly. But, better if you can do it weekly, just publish on a consistent basis, such as every Monday or some other day. Best if you can update your blog daily. Even better if you can update your blog multiple times a day.
But, there comes a point where you can have too much new content. People read more than just your blog and, even if you have the most interesting articles in the world, there is still a limit to the number that people can read in any given day. Consider as well that not everyone is going to be browsing or checking their RSS reader multiple times throughout the day; some may only check once or twice per day.
I’m thinking 10 posts per day is perhaps a good maximum. Five or less is best, but anything beyond 10 is just too much. Even ten is a stretch.
Now, if you have different categories, and a separate RSS feed for each!, then you can go more than that overall, just so long as you don’t exceed that maximum in any one category.
You see, there are two blogs I am thinking about removing from my RSS reader. They both have more than 10 posts per day, and it is a rare day that I find more than one post interesting enough to read more than the headline.
You could argue that doing so many articles allows you to reach a larger audience as, as I’ve just shown, you’ll find your mark with at least one article.
The problem is that all those others that I’m not interested in amount to clutter. Something new comes in, my RSS reader lists it, and at least on these two blogs, nine out of ten times it is not something I’m interested in.
So, I will likely remove them from my reader, and those blogs won’t have a reader for that one out of ten. That’s why it’s better to keep content at manageable levels for your readers. Just churning out masses of articles, even if they are all of a good quality, doesn’t guarantee readers.
Too much content can cost you readers just as easily as too little content can do the same.
I agree completely. I’d even go a little farther.
If a blogger routinely posts more than once a day on one blog, it’s generally too much. There are some exceptions, but not many, especially if he is producing unique, original material.
If a blog has multiple writers, that’s a different story. One blogger publishing more than once a day will have a hard time keeping my interest and a hard time maintaining the quality of his content.
Oops.
Dan, I’ve got the number of a good therapist if you need it. ;D
He or she will need therapy by the time I’m finished with him or her.
I don’t have any problems with my RSS feeds being full of too many posts.
I just subscribe to two things; Contest Blogger and dcr Tumbles…
other then that I read blogs when I get to them so I miss out on a whole lot of stuff.
Which is a good thing.
I have 50+ sites in my reader.
I have 1728 blogs in my reader but I never actually use it. I just go to the blog itself to read. I find that 3 posts per week is fine for me…I take a less is more approach. If a blog has 5 posts per day…I’ll end up missing 90% of what they write! I barely have time to write 1 post per week…hehe:)
I’d forget about many blogs if they weren’t in my reader. I find it faster to see if there’s anything new. With the reader, I don’t have to visit each site to see if they’ve posted anything. I just wait for stuff to pop up!