Starting a blog

[nEquity]

Hi all,

Ive been getting into starting and running my own websites lately. And I have a question about when in the start up phase.

When starting a blog and the visitors are only very few and far between trickling in, in the early stages, is itworth updating content at all. Because lots of future material that could be better used when it is busy will be wasted. So Im just wondering what is the best tactic to take. To hold off, or keep updating even when visitor numbers are low.

Im thinking maybe its important to still update to show the few hits that do come its constantly updated and keep them coming back? And maybe search engines like sites that are being updated a lot?

[Clinton]

Because lots of future material that could be better used when it is busy will be wasted.

I wouldn't see it as being wasted. This is the quality stuff that will get and keep your visitors and give people reasons to link to you.

[hooperman]

If you have something valuable to say, I think you should just write about it. Obviously, don't blow all your material in one go so you've always got some new stuff coming out regularly. Sometimes I have loads of ideas for posts and actually have time to write them fully and so I have a stack ready for publishing. It's tempting to just publish them all in one go but better to spread them out (you can schedule their publication if you're using Wordpress). Better to put one out a week than 5 in one day and then nothing for a month.

I wouldn't worry about posting stuff when there's no apparent audience, because when visitors do arrive and if they like the first article they read, they'll look around for more. The article linked here, for example, is maybe 5 years old, and it's still a good read.

[tke71709]

People go to blogs to read content, if you don't put your content up because you don't have any visitors then you won't get any visitors to come to your blog to read your content.

See what I'm saying?

[DomainMagnate]

it's a catch 22, if you don't update it frequently it'll never get to a level where there are many visitors

But basically yeah a couple good posts a week are enough, no need to post every day at first

[Michelle]

Your best stuff will attract more people faster due to word of mouth, links, social bookmarking etc... Be sure to offer ways for people to share the content: Tweet buttons etc.

Those who find you later down the track will dig deep for all the past information if your current content is good, just make sure your site is easy to navigate to the previous content: well defined categories, tags and a 'most popular' posts widget can help with that.

[ztyler90]

Hi all,

Ive been getting into starting and running my own websites lately. And I have a question about when in the start up phase.

When starting a blog and the visitors are only very few and far between trickling in, in the early stages, is itworth updating content at all. Because lots of future material that could be better used when it is busy will be wasted. So Im just wondering what is the best tactic to take. To hold off, or keep updating even when visitor numbers are low.

Im thinking maybe its important to still update to show the few hits that do come its constantly updated and keep them coming back? And maybe search engines like sites that are being updated a lot?

I'd say you should post the content anyways. Remember, you can always re-post your articles later down the road.