Keep it fresh

Give some thought to the rhythm of your blog: both the frequency of posts and their lengths. The people making money and landing book deals work at their sites. Marie Javins, for example, spends at least an hour each day, wedged around her travels, essay-writing and day job editing comics. Those earning five-figures and up usually blog full-time. But few have that luxury in the beginning, so aim for a regular posting pace, whether that's thrice daily or once a week.

Web Marketer Stephan Spencer weighs in: "frequency is not nearly as important as recency. A couple weeks of inactivity makes the reader feel like nobody's home. Conversely, having the latest post be only a day old makes the blog appear 'fresh'."

Business and marketing writer Seth Godin points out that some genres – including a writer's blog – don't require the same freshness as a newsy blog. So consider your topic, goals and meatspace schedule, when setting your editorial calendar.

For years, conventional wisdom has pushed for daily updates. Here Eric Kintz, Hewlett-Packard's VP for Global Marketing Strategy & Excellence, denounces that habit for 10 quite solid reasons. He concludes:

If you want to be a top 50 Technorati blogger, you will most probably still need to post several times a day. But for the rest of us, we should think seriously about the added value of frequent blogging. Actually, according to Technorati, only 11% of all blogs update weekly or more. What will matter more and more is what you write and how you engage, not how often you write.

Here BlogClout's Ankesh Kothari gives four tips for determining your blog frequency. His rule of thumb about product-endorsement stands out: "only publish a blatantly promotional post after 4 good quality posts." Also notable was this advice: "60-80% of your time should go on your blog promotion. Not writing. So if you can only put in 5 hours a week, and it takes 1 hour to write a decent post, than follow a weekly publishing schedule".

Frequent updates don't merely reward a loyal audience. They boost a site's street-credit among search engines like Google and Yahoo. This, in turns, means your blog appears higher on the results page when people search, potentially garnering more clicks. Google, in particular, has a deeply secret, ever-changing 200-point algorithm that governs PageRank (more on search engine optimization later in the course).

Much like Plato's cave, bloggers watch the shadows on the wall and patch together theories about the workings of this world. Most experts agree that "recency" – a horrible jargony word – plays a key role. But so do inbound links from other sites ... encouraged by being part of a community and original content, strongly crafted.

Without a doubt, quality will take you further that empty, babbling quantity. But blogging requires a delicate balance of time and technique: geek skills, writing chops and marketing savvy. As the course progresses, we'll explore ways to attract audiences, build and participate in communities and use social media networks to spread the word. For now, we recommend students post 2-3 times each week to workshop their skills.