This recipe will describe how to provide a steady and predictable stream of content to your readers.
When designing websites and applications, one of the ideas that developers spend a lot of time focusing on, is trying to develop habits in the people they are targeting. It is neither easy nor simple to develop or change someone else's habits. However, there is something that you can do to help your users—commit to a predictable writing schedule.
There are several criteria necessary for developing the habit in the readers to continually check of a blog:
A steady stream of quality, of new content
A predictable stream of quality, of new content
Mechanisms for alerting readers, current and new, of new content
Mechanisms for alerting readers of content are varied, and include RSS and social media These will be described in more detail in Extending your reach with social Media (Should know). The first two points are completely in the writer's control.
A blog only remains relevant as long as it is producing new content. Generally, after you write for some time, there will be several posts that regularly have high numbers of readers from searches, direct links (bookmarks or search results), and social media, but the majority of views for most writers is on their newest content. Without new content posted regularly, readership will dry up.
In addition, it is helpful to have a regular schedule for when you will publish new posts. This does not have to be a specific time; it does not need to be written on your website. However, there cannot be an expectation that readers will regularly, habitually check to see if new content has been posted.
There are any number of schedules that could potentially work; it depends on the time you have available, your style, your subject, and your personal schedule. Following are a few examples of successful blogs with different schedules:
Tom Whitby, an educational consultant and professor, posts usually about once per week. The difference is that his posts are quite long and very thorough. Posts like that take a significant time investment to write, and readers do not expect new content of that length so quickly. He is available at http://tomwhitby.wordpress.com.
Richard Byrne, a teacher and consultant from the immensely popular Free Tech 4 Teachers blog, writes several posts per day. He tends to write them in advance and schedules them to post at different times during the day. Writing about different educational tools allows him to write posts that are engaging and relatively brief, generally 2-4 paragraphs. His blog can be found at http://www.freetech4teachers.com.
Richard and Tom are on different ends of the scheduling spectrum, but they both have loyal readers. These serve as illustrations that giving readers an expectation of when to expect new content, combined with providing high quality content, helps readers to be confident that checking on the site again will be worth their time.
Keeping to a schedule like Richard's, with several posts per day, is likely not something most can commit to, especially when just beginning to blog. There are options, though.
One schedule that has worked well for me in the past is trying to write 2-3 posts per week, depending on the time and circumstances. When I was trying to write two posts per week, I would publish a shorter post on Wednesday and a longer post on the weekend. When I was trying to write three posts per week, I would publish two short posts during the week, usually on Monday and Wednesday, and a longer post on the weekends.
It may take some time and trial and error to find a schedule that works for you. Once you do, try to stick to it as a minimum for what you write as a courtesy to your readers.
Developing a writing schedule that you can really commit to takes forethought, trial, and error.
The first step is to analyze your current schedule and see when you have time to write. For example, I am a technology coordinator for a school working 6 A.M. to 3 P.M. during the week, and often do consulting and programming work in the evening. The most that I can usually write in a week is two shorter posts, one in the evening after work, and one in the morning before work, and one more in-depth post on the weekends.
Try to follow the schedule for at least 2-3 weeks. It's hard to evaluate a schedule based on the strength of one week. If it works, fabulous. If not, that's fine. Analyze what went wrong. Did you attempt to write too many posts in one week? Did you try to write at times that did not work well due to work, obligations, lack of energy, and so on? Create a new schedule based on your analysis.
Once you find a schedule that works for you, the next step is to work at it until it becomes habitual, an essential part of your routine. One way to help you do that is to put repeated reminders in your calendar. Once blogging is integrated into your routine, it becomes much easier to maintain momentum; it no longer feels like something that you must make time for.