For five years in a row I’ve been posting on average 3-4 times a week. I just went with this posting schedule frequency because that’s what I had in me. But as I get older, I’m beginning to lose a little steam in my enthusiasm for writing a lot as frequently. Search engine traffic makes up 70%+ of my traffic, so the incremental return of publishing a new article isn’t as great anymore.
I’ve been thinking about going down to a two times a week publishing schedule for the summer. Seasonal online traffic trends are pretty evident once you get to a certain amount. If people are away, why bother writing as much?
There used to be a certain amount of guilt if I didn’t keep up with my publishing frequency. When I left my job in 2012, there definitely wasn’t an option to publish less because I had so much more time. But now, I don’t feel like I have anything to prove anymore. I’ve reached my traffic and revenue targets and I’m happy with the way things are.
HOW MUCH MONEY IS ENOUGH ONLINE?
The internet is great because there is an unlimited amount of traffic and revenue you can receive. We’ve already asked the question, “How Much Income Do You Need To Make Online To Be Happy?” Many people had many different answers. The one curiosity is, what if you are already happy? Any more income earned online would just seem like gravy. And you don’t want to eat too much gravy for fear of a heart attack.
Just 10 years ago, there was no way in hell I’d ever imagine not having to work a day job due to the internet. And just five years ago, I never would have imagine making more online than a Wall Street VP without selling anything except for my book on negotiations. But even when I was working in Corporate America, I stopped having the desire to make much more than X amount because that would require more effort, more risk, and probably a move away from San Francisco, my favorite city in the whole wide world.
There will always be sites larger than mine, just like there will always be sites larger than yours no matter how big you grow. Perhaps it’s because I went from traveling for 10 weeks a year in 2012 and 2013, to now only just taking my first 10-day trip overseas this year in June that I’m restless in asking what’s the point of everything again. Perhaps I need to ratchet things down with my online consulting gig and explore new things.
It seems like the more you make online, the more you want to see how much more you make. That doesn’t seem like a very healthy endeavor after a while. I’ve never been much into credit card review posts because it seems weird to aggressively hawk an instrument which has created so much crushing debt in America. But wouldn’t it be fun to see how much your platform can generate? What a shame not to realize its full money-making potential.
QUITTING IS NOT AN OPTION
The most befuddling thing is when I see folks simply shut down their sites completely, instead of just delay their posting frequency. It doesn’t cost much to keep a site up, so why shut it down? Even if you don’t post for a month, why not just keep the website up to be found by new people on the web. You might just get your second wind after a couple months rest.
Now that it’s been five years on Financial Samurai, I’m looking forward to the next five years. I just wonder how things will be different. There’s no more desire to strive to be the best because I’m happy with the balance.
STARTING A MONEY MAKING BLOG
It’s been over six years since I started Financial Samurai and I’m actually earning a good passive and active income stream online now. My online presence has allowed me to pursue other things, such as consulting for various financial tech startups as well.
I never thought I’d be able to quit my job in 2012 just three years after starting Financial Samurai. But by starting one financial crisis day in 2009, Financial Samurai actually makes more than my entire passive income total that took 15 years to build. If you enjoy writing, creating, connecting with people online, and enjoying more freedom, learn how you can set up a WordPress blog in 15 minutes like this one.
Leverage the 3+ billion internet users and build your brand online. You never know where the journey will take you! This post has been updated for 2017 and beyond.
Regards,
Sam
I’ve managed to keep up with my posting frequency of twice a week so far, but I’ve cut back on my amount of commenting because I’ve been rather busy and stressed out the last couple months. I look forward to ramping up my commenting again though when things quiet down a bit more for me.
I always wanted to be able to publish three times a week, but I realized quickly that wasn’t going to be very easy for me. We all have our limits and I wanted to focus on maintaining my site longterm at a slower pace versus burn myself out too quickly by trying to do too much too fast.
I think you’re smart to dial things down a notch right now and give yourself a break. You can always increase your frequency again at any time! And I agree – traffic slows down a lot over the summer. My rankings have slipped some, so I don’t want to get too slack, but they typically come back in the Fall.
Good job keeping up your posting schedule all these years. It’s not worth killing yourself, feeling stressed, and being unhappy to post more or do more. Blogging is supposed to be fun, especially if it’s just a hobby!
It’s interesting how the same questions of when enough is enough be it working or blogging. Generally such words are due to burn out, or perhaps even the desire to do something new.
Enough is when there’s nothing left to give. Go at your own paste and enjoy!
Ah – I know exactly what you mean. I started working with niche sites last fall, and have had a lot of success lately – now I just want to see how fast my online income can pay my monthly bills – which is wild because just 6 months ago, I was making next to nothing – I may have been able to cover my internet and cell phone bill for the entire year off my online income, and cover expenses related to my online ventures and not much else. Now I’m daydreaming about how much I can earn and how quickly I can pay off my house if things keep going as they are.
Nice job on the niche sites. Are they private? I thought the whole niche site building thing was out given Google’s latest changes over the past 12 months? If not, maybe I need to get cracking too!
I dropped my posting on My Money Design down to once a week over a year ago and it has been one of the best things I ever did. Not only do I feel like the content better but I also was able to stop stressing myself out over nothing.
Good stuff. I post on Yakezie once a week now, and edit any guest posts from the community who’d like to contribute. I love the pace. Relaxing! Not very profitable, but relaxing :)
I think it’s great that you took a step back and realized that your site can support you without you pulling it by the ears, so to speak. I hope you are able to take more time for yourself. Hopefully, I can remember this lesson when I’m a veteran blogger! For now, my traffic falls off each day I don’t have a new post :-)
Give it five years, and I’m sure you’ll be in a great position!
Yep, Google becomes your biggest reader at some point between .5 and 5 years. (Well, mine at least.)
I think one of the reasons you should keep posting 3-4 times a week is you have some of the best stuff out there, I am one who enjoys the read. I guess if you post 2-3 times, I’ll be just fine, but I know how hard it is to write just 2-3 times a week when life, work, and play happen.
Thanks Steven, but it’s hard to do and I’ve got to recharge. I just wrote a post on Being Smart Enough To Be Dumb Enough that is 3,000 words and took forever to write. I think I’m done for the rest of the week with two posts. They take a lot out of me.
Thanks for reading!
I’ve definitely cut back from posting 3 times a week to 2 (sometimes only once a week if I’m crunched for time.) I’ve realized that the posts that receive the most traffic, at least for my site, are old ones so I’m not in such a frantic hurry to publish something if I don’t have the time or can’t think of anything interesting. ;)
The interesting thing about new projects is that after a while the shiny “newness” of it starts to fade away. I think that in the online world everything is amplified even more than normal. For example, having a blog for 5 years is an eternity online, but having a regular job for 5 years, while impressive in this day and age, is not as big of an accomplishment.
My blog has evolved a lot over the short time I’ve been at it. At first the shiny newness of it all made me want to go out and try to do everything all the time. But I realized that all the social media platforms and SEO crap were really just crap at this point in time. I needed to focus on the 80% of the project that mattered the most and let the other 20% sort itself out or wait for it to become important enough to fit back into the 80% that I felt was the most important.
Content and commenting have been by far more important than anything else for me. As for managing the Twitter, Facebook, G+ and Pinterest accounts for it… Those just aren’t as important for me. There have been times where I didn’t feel like I had the time so I had to comment less so that I could still keep up with what was more important, the writing.
This is actually called the Pareto Principle or the 80-20 rule. Perhaps you just need to decide what the important 80% you want to focus on is.
Indeed. I dig the Pareto principle and try to follow the principle. Hope your blogging journey is going well.
I’m only a year in and have found it relatively easy so far to maintain a posting schedule of 3-4 times per week. However, with the site in growth phase, a lot of my traffic is still generated by new posts.
However, I used to comment much more than I currently do, as repeating the same things several times over on other people’s blogs didn’t really do it for me (and I doubt it really did it for them either!!)…
The first year is the best year imo… like the honeymoon period in a romantic relationship.
If you can hang on for 3 years in the blogging world, I think you’ll do great! Good luck.
Be careful, I tried the twice a week posting a couple years ago and saw my traffic diminish. It is harder to rebuild.
OK, good to know. But what were your SEO traffic as a percentage of total traffic? I plan to do 2 meaty posts a week during the summer and then pick it up after Labor Day. I’ve always wanted to test giving posts more air time and marketing effort too.
Good one, Sam. I’d say that I don’t want you to start publishing less often but I know this is selfish (i’ll miss reading sensible and thought provoking staff). I’ve been writing The Money Principle for over three years now and know what you mean. In fact, I’m considering changes so that we don’t both expire from boredom (the site and me, I mean). I’ve also noticed that some of the more successful sites publish once in two weeks or so. Makes me wonder!
Will do Maria. I definitely think there is merit to writing more meaty posts, and publishing less often, but marketing the a little more. My enthusiasm is waning a little, so I need to do some recharging so it doesn’t fall off a cliff.
Congrats on three years!
[…] friend Sam the Financial Samurai, posting at Yakezie, asks how much is enough when it comes to blogging. We’ve been going at 2 real posts and one of these Weekenders for a while now – more […]
I’m not going to lie- I struggled posting 2-3 times that I had planned to do. Part of it was that I was 3 sites with different focuses along with a company, but the majority of it is because I ran out of things to talk about.
This is a tough one. I so often feel like I’m writing for no one but myself, and that gets discouraging. And yet, where else would I pit my work out there so people can see it?
I think it’s so much better to pull back on posting frequency than it is to shut down completely. The best thing I can think of re this discussion is the importance of keeping your audience in the loop. If you usually post 3 times a week and go down to 1 time, you need to let your audience know so that they know when to come back to your site. Consistency is one of the best practices I’ve learned when it comes to blogging.
I came super close to quitting sometime in early 2014. I was a frequent visitor of FS and I was always amazed that you could write so much quality content so consistently. It was definitely a motivator. It also helped that I finally zeroed in on what I was truly writing about!
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