Dilution of readership

A few weeks ago I went on a hot streak and found myself posting daily, and in some cases twi a day for a period of about two weeks. What I saw was, as could be expected, that my daily hits increased the longer the hot streak continued. Yet, at the same time, several comments I received said that daily posting was too much. There were not aimed at me in any personal way, but rather more comments in relation to questions I raised in my posts.

Intrigued by these comments, and also by my seemingly hard-fought climb towards blogging success, I decided to run a control experiment. Over the last week – two weeks I have purposefully posted less, often only once or twice a week. (Ok, secretly I just had no time on a few of the days, but hey, you don’t need to know that… oh wait…bugger)

What I have seen, kind of confirms what you would have first assumed. My daily visits went down… and quite dramatically. While during my hot streak I was heading towards the 100 hits a day, as soon as I skipped a day of posting, the hits dropped way down low. I mean around 20.

I had at least hoped that the slow down would be gradual, but as is, it appears to be anything but. That being said, two weekends ago, in the mid-point of my now declared experiment, I had three record-breaking days in a row, with the Sunday, yes Sunday of all day – a day which is normally my quietest seeing a massive (for me) 282 people drop by to say hello.

After that we dropped right back down into the 30-40 range. This is, it would seem, my comfort zone, and I am happy to have reached such a consistent level.

The truth is, I am not concerned by Blog visits or stats. I may mention them a lot, but it is more because there is a lot that can be written about them. (Don’t hate me!)

What I am currently puzzled by, is the question of which is better, for there seems to be no rhyme or reason to my blog stats. Some days I post twice and get nothing, other days I post nothing and get a lot. I use the same promotion tactics for each post I write. I put it down to the mysteries of the web.

Yet, to bring this post back to the original topic I had in my head, and the point that relates to the title. I am beginning to believe that posting every day has more potential for problems than posting on a regular schedule, say 2 or 3 times a week.

Why? The answer was actually suggested to my by a very good friend of mine. They said that posting every day, especially if on some days you are simply posting because you feel obliged to, you risk diluting your message, and in turn, diluting your readership.

I would rather have 40 visitors a day every day, and they know that when they log on, the post I will have written is well thought out, professionally presented and about a relevant topic, rather than having 100 new visitors every day, but who only look at one post and then never come back.

I will not risk diluting my blog or demeaning my regular visitors just for the sake of a daily post.

However, it is clear to me that there is a certain schedule needed. Maybe it is just the fact of knowing what is coming. Knowing that on a particular day, a particular topic or style of post will be posted.

I post twice weekly on the ROW80 rounds, and I feel that one post and one piece of flash Fiction – on a Friday – will be more than sufficient. In essence I will be posting less than normal, but at the same time, more. Plus the schedule will give me time to prepare for the relevant posts, and allow me to ensure that what I post, in my now once a week general post, is even more relevant.

I will give this a try for a few weeks and see if there is a difference again in the visits and the breakdown of them. Let’s call it Phase 3 of my investigation.