I feel that blogging puts so much pressure on us. Blogging is like high school cliques, you have to do whatever it takes to fit in with the “in-crowd” that you do things you don’t feel like doing, or like doing.
It can just get so stressful sometimes the things we have to do. How many of us think it is actually fun to build links? What about debating and researching keywords? Or even, whether or not to post on the blog today?
If you have a posting schedule set for your blog, then you pretty much have to stick with it. Blogussion should be updated once a day, and there are many days where I just don’t feel like I want to write. I understand the consequences of not writing posts, but I still manage to pull through and dish out some good content for my blog once a day because I have been doing this long enough to know what happens.
But honestly, when you really don’t want to do something, how much effort are you going to put into it? If you can’t find motivation or inspiration, how much will it matter whether or not it is quality? I commonly think “as long as something is posted, regardless of my normal quality, I will be fine.” That statement is dead wrong however.
Then that brings me to my next thought — I have to update the blog. I have to keep posting consistently. It’s a struggle quite frankly to know you have to do something you don’t feel like doing.
And that brings me to the main focus of this post. Is it worth writing content on your blog when you don’t feel like writing at all? I’m going to throw at you a couple arguments in this post debating whether or not it is worth posting on your blog because you want to do it, or because you have to do it.
Why It’s Worth the Struggle
For a variety of reasons, it’s worth the aggravation to update your blog no matter how you’re feeling. I can tell you from experience, always try as hard as you can to update your blog. It will be worth it in the end, and the sense of accomplishment can make you feel better.
1. It Will Discipline You
Discipline is something that is very important to have not just in the real world, but on your blog too. By you maintaining a consistent post schedule and keeping your goals/future in mind, you are likely to have formed a good posting habit.
That should be discipline enough for you, and if you don’t discipline yourself sometimes, then you will never get to where you want to be.
2. You Need to Keep the Consistency Going
Without that consistency upheld on your blog, it’s going to have some kind of effect on you. If your regular posting schedule is once a day, but you decided to stop posting every once in a while, it can have an impact on you for the worst. The ideas below will be presented from a pro-posting perspective.
It may be harmless, it happens here at Blogussion even, but I feel like I keep the place thriving with content more than I don’t. I can be considered lucky because laziness didn’t strike be like it does for many people after I don’t post for one day. It gets you out of whack and makes it harder to get back into the regular routine.
It’s amazing how just one day can do it, but that’s why I urge you to force yourself to do it and fight through your emotions for writing.
3. Will Give You More to Talk About
Getting through to a consistent blog frequency will make a great post on any blog in any niche. You can basically talk to your readers (who may even be fellow bloggers) and tell them what has been going on with you, why you have been struggling to come up with posts, etc.
I really think that self-reflection articles are the best articles you can write for your blog, and a problem as common as this one should do great between your readers who blog.
4. A Characteristic of a Successful Blogger
By getting through your down days and coming through with content, you have just shown off one of the best qualities you can have as a blogger. No, scratch that. You have just shown off the qualities of a successful blogger!
It always brings forth such an amazing sense of accomplishment when that publish button is hit, and I think will brighten your day once you do it.
5. Will Make a Happy Community
In the end, your readers will be happy with you. They may not know that you worked through a slump to publish a post, but their reactions towards it should be reward enough for you.
It can be quite shocking to see how much lower your traffic can be by missing out on your regular posting schedule, and that’s the result of loss of interest. The interest was lost, because your motivation to keep writing was lost. Always do your best to write at your best for the sake of a happier community!
Why It’s Not Worth the Struggle
Believe it or not, it might turn out that not publishing a post on your blog for a certain day is better for your community. The ideas below will be presented from a anti-posting perspective.
1. Will Not Produce Your Best Content
If you’re not motivated, you will not write your best. It’s not that you can’t, but because you don’t want to. If you can’t serve your community well for the day, then just don’t try to serve to them at all.
It’s kind of like the saying “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it all.” But in this case, I would say it’s “If you have nothing constructive or informative to blog, then don’t blog it.” We, your readers, would much rather hear nothing than a lame excuse for a post.
2. You Could be Doing Something You Want to do Instead
Instead of writing a post when you don’t feel like it, maybe there is something else you want to do with your time. Can it be considered justifiable if you’re not doing one important thing on your blog to just do another important thing? I sometimes feel like that, and that’s one of the reasons why this post is being published later than usual — because I had something else I could have worked on here that would be very important.
So, if you don’t want to dedicate your time to one important thing, dedicate it to the other. It will balance itself out in the end.
3. Negative Impact on You
Going back to #1 here, if you can’t get into the posting mood then you will not produce your best content! I feel like if you write something that is of poor quality, you can get hurt in numerous ways:
- Harm Your Reputation
- Fill You With Regret
- Can Create a Dislike/Disinterest for Blogging
Would you rather be known as the blogger who writes great stuff or one who just writes for the sake of writing?
After you publish something you don’t think you did your best on, aren’t you a little regretful? You basically just came up with a potentially awesome post idea, half-assed it and published it. As hard as posts can be to come up with, it’s what happened. Not exactly worth it in my eyes, just save it for another day.
If you feel more negativity towards blogging than you do positively, you will start to develop a dislike for blogging. I firmly believe that many bloggers cannot keep up with their posting schedule, which causes so much stress and aggravation they close their blog down.
These feelings of laziness can eventually come to mess up your head in terms of blogging, and I think can actually lead to the closure of your blog. Besides, if you blog part time, you really shouldn’t let a blog stress you out, right?
4. Gives You More Time to Prepare for a Post
If you can come back to the computer and write a blog post after a day away from blogging, you can definitely write a post better. The better the post, the more your community will forget about your missed days of writing, right?
5. Get the Relaxation You Want
Instead of writing a post when you don’t feel like it, you can just give in to those emotions and take a day off of your blog. Sometimes you just need some rest and relaxation, and we can all understand how writing these blog posts day after day can tire your brain out.
Which Side Convinced You the Most?
I tired to sound as convincing as possible while writing each of those arguments. I will not tell you which side I agree with the most, but I can say that I believe both sides have very valid points to them.
I would love to know your take on this! This can bring up a great debate here, and I really hope we can start one in the comments section.
17 Discussions
So, I would have to say that there are definitely benefits to sticking to a tight schedule. For instance… if Daily Blog Tips stopped putting “daily” posts readers would freak out. The same with Problogger. These blogs would be bogged down with emails and comments asking what happened!
So depending on the communities expectations, certain things have to be done. For me, I focus on having atleast 3-4 posts a week of high quality content. Always something on Monday, maybe Tuesday or Wednesday, and something for the weekenders. Usually there are 5 or 6 but I have no qualms with only 3 for a very busy week. But that is because I know my readers are only expecting that!
So in my opinion… lose the stress and write only the best content. If you can’t hack it that day then wait until the next day. Otherwise you will disappoint far more people with a really crummy post. Unless of course you are problogger!
Seth W’s last blog post..Advertise on a PR 4 Blog
I think you’re totally right, blogs that are popular will be criticized for not keeping up with their posting schedule. But you have to also keep in mind how unlikely it is for them to miss out unless it was a really good reason. How do you think they go to their position as an authority? They understood that they had to keep up a frequent post schedule for one thing, and the other is that they learned to fight through their unwillingness to write a post.
Look at John Chow’s blog, he has stated that he his blog has never not had a new post on it since the day it existed. All those years ago to now, not a day missed. How dedicated is that?
It’s good to see that you have tour posting schedule worked out there Seth, I’m glad you have gotten your community to the point where they know what to expect from you. :p
I feel evil, but it’s nice to know that you occasionally have a hard time sitting down and writing a post. Thus far, I’ve been very impressed with your’s and Janith’s ability to update Blogussion with daily content. You make it seem much easier than it actually is. It’s good to know you’re human!
My opinion: If you are dedicated to creating an active community and consistent readership then you should post exactly once per day. If you get out of the blogging routine, then your readers will get out of the reading routine. As you said, it’s hard to remain disciplined but equally challenging to get back into the routine.
Another good one. I’m curious, how many articles on average do you have in your “queue” that are ready to publish at any time?
Nick Tart’s last blog post..Improving JuniorBiz.com – JJ Entry #15
In all honesty here Nick, this post was derived from by inability to come up with an idea. I was going to let the blog go without a new post for the day, but later I realized that I was doing a lot of harm, so I went on and wrote this post based on all of those feelings!
I don’t agree with your opinion 100% though. You said …you should post exactly once per day…. It’s not necessarily how much you post a week, but what you post a week. I totally believe that a blog can be “successful” even if they only post once a week. As long as that one post that is done once a week is exceptional, then I believe that can be the equivalent of 7 posts a week.
As for your question, we have ZERO! I need to start writing them, and I will need to write about 15-20 finished articles for when I go away to Florida for a month. Better get crackin’ on that!
Its really an intense debate over there. I think it’ll really depend on each others interest. If one is really interested in blogging then I bet he posts content on his blog becoz he wants to do it. But when a blogger started his blog. After few months he gets fed up with posting on the blog but does not have any other idea but to post as he has spent money in it, posts on the blog as he has to do it to maintain the blog stable.
But if a person enters blogging, he doesn’t really likes to leave it. Specially in the case of MMO. People keep blogging just for the fact that blogs fetch them a descent amount of money. Sometimes even higher than they expect. Great debate you have created here Alex. This is really going to gain a good fame.
Harish | Blogging Kid’s last blog post..List Building – Why And How ?
I think we all start our blog because we want to. Even the people who want to do it just for the sake of money, deep down they want to blog just to blog I think.
You’re right about getting fed up with keeping up consistent posting too. After a while, you can get sick of writing onto your blog, which is the reason why I came up with this debate.
Sometimes the only thing that can get us motivated to write is in fact the money and time we have put into the blog. But that’s not such a bad thing right?
Thanks for sharing your opinion here, Harish.
Wow, tough debate, but still a great post Alex
Personally, I really enjoy blogging, and my main philosophy is that if you blog, you should enjoy it, otherwise posting will become a struggle and fail. That said, I do recognise that people don’t enjoy blogging, but still insist on starting a blog (although I’m not sure why!). For those people, I would recommend doing the posts, even if it means you get stressed out over it. For me personally, I think that if you’re going to do a job, you should do it properly. Because of that, I think partially running a failing blog and not enjoying it is FAR worse than running a reasonable blog and not enjoying it
Simon | Teenius’s last blog post..Blog Design Series: Interview With Gaya Kessler
And that’s a fine philosophy you have there Simon.
I think the reason why blogging is so popular to some people is because of how it has been labeled. So many people see blogging as an easy thing to earn from, and they may go through with it even if they don’t like it. That would be the majority of MMO blogs out there today, I think it’s safe to say!
Agreed. People see the big names such as Problogger and John Chow and try and copy them. I think that’s the main reasons for the number of:
a) MMO blogs from people who have never actually made any money online before.
b) Generally crappy blogs.
Now, I’m not saying it’s not possible for a newbie to make a good blog, far from it infact, but people expect to get rich quick and that simply doesn’t happen.
Simon | Teenius’s last blog post..Blog Design Series: Interview With Gaya Kessler
Definitely, I’m on the “stick to the schedule” side. Yes, it might affect the quality of your posts but hey you can’t produce high quality articles every day! To me, consistency is key for success.
Let’s imagine the life of a soccer player such as Cristiano Ronaldo, for example. Do you believe he would be where he is now if he stopped training because he didn’t feel like it? He woulnd’t be the great soccer player he is today, would he? Similar thing happens to blogging: you gotta keep it up, or else you’ll never get there.
Héctor | Blogging Diary’s last blog post..Engaging First-Time Visitors, How?
I like that Hector, you will have your days where you can produce your great content, and will also have your days where you can’t. But that just brings me back to something I mentioned in the post:
As hard as it is coming up with blog posts, is it really worth posting something that you can’t put your 100% into? It can almost seem like a waste of an idea, don’t you think?
I like how you related soccer and blogging, awesome comparison!
Posting because you “have to” can work once or twice but if you keep it up you’ll get too tired of this and drop posting on your blog sooner or later.
And that’s why a lot of bloggers fail!
[rq=1225,0,blog][/rq]The Wonderful World of WordPress and How I Came About to using it; The WPstory
My readers already know my posting schedule and have strong expectation from me with each post.
Even being late for a couple of hours with the publishing of a post stir comments and questions on it once it’s posted!
Although there’re some struggles from time to time, I feel that it’s really worth the efforts and time involved.
If that’s so, then you have one amazing community there! The posts here are always at different times mainly because of Janith’s and my time zone is different. But my schedule changes like every day, so that makes the posts come randomly too. I guess it’s always a surprise at Blogussion, haha.
I will usually try to publish my posts between 10am to 12am. If later than that, some readers start to ask questions…
Hi everybody, I’m new here. Thanks for being a part of this community. Cheers.
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