A reader asks, “As a writer, how often should I blog?”

Oh, mercy, there are as many schools of thought on this as there on comma usage . . . but in general, you don’t want to irritate people with a barrage of irrelevant content and, at the same time, you don’t want them to forget about you.

Let’s start with content. You can write about anything, of course, or you can use your blog as a journal of sorts. Now, some people might want to hear about your daily life, some won’t. “Relevant” content is simply something of value that most of your readers want.

You can blog about the writing process, your own writing career, or something at which you have expert status—if you’re an author, what is your book about? Make yourself an expert.

Who are your readers? That’s what you have to figure out. Look at the list of those who follow your blog, and see what they have in common. Look at past posts and see which get the most hits and the most comments. This will tell you what your followers want.

Then tailor your content to that. Don’t make every post a “buy my book” pitch, but you can certainly do that once in a while, and even mention it in passing. I’ve found the best way is to have permanent buy links in the sidebar of my blog. They’re there, they’re visible, and people can click if they want.

Frequency—again, that’s up to you and what you have to talk about. If you can create enough content to blog on a daily basis, go for it! Just be sure it’s interesting to your readers and not repetitive. And, too, watch the length. A blog post of two paragraphs often isn’t worth clicking on, and one that lasts for more than 1000 words can become tiresome to read.

I recommend blogging once a week, at minimum. Or even every two weeks, if you’re short on time. Once a month just isn’t frequent enough; your readers may well move on. Seven days a week might be too much.

And be consistent. Pick a day, or two days, or whatever, and make sure your blog is live on those days, every week. Most blogging platforms allow you to schedule posts; take advantage of that. Readers will start to look at those days and be expecting your post.

It might take some time to find what works best for you, and that’s okay. Experiment, and when you find your formula, let your blog take off.

I’m now posting four days a week here at Robin Writes; I’ve done the twice a week, three times, and even once weekly. The latter just doesn’t cut it for my readers . . . Why four days? Well, I’m experimenting again! I do two posts a week related to prepping, and two related to writing (one is answering a reader-sent question, like today’s). I split up the prepping because I realized I do two separate sub-topics: prepping in general, and our “journey” in moving out to the country and being self-sufficient.

Another tip is to write your blog posts all at once. I do mine on Sundays, my day off, when I have time to actually just write. Then I upload and schedule them, and I’m all finished!

Finally, keep a list, on your desktop where you can find it, of potential topics. That way, if something doesn’t come to mind right away, you can pull from that list and whip up a post pretty quickly.