Blogging vs authority | Bloggers Lair | Yakezie Forums

I've lately been thinking a lot about the future of my food blog. While it has experienced some phenomenal growth in the second year (compared to the first year), it hasn't been performing as well as I would like. I'm not so deluded to think that it is really anybody's fault other than my own, which is why I've been trying to come up with a new plan.

The obvious strategy is to write more. I started out writing three posts per week, one for each of three categories: Recipes, Tips & Tricks, & Food of the Week. I eventually dropped the Food of the Week posts because not one of them is in my Top 100 list for traffic and they took longer for me to write. For a while, I was putting up only ~400 words per week on the site. Since Sam's 5000 word challenge last year, I've been putting more effort into those posts and now my twice/week posting schedule is producing more like 1000 words per week and slowly increasing.To get more growth, I should be posting more often and longer.

The problem, I'm just not sure I can commit to the kind of rigorous schedule needed to research and write more of these kinds of posts. An alternative strategy I've been playing with is working to build authority on the site with shorter posts on more topics. I'm still going to write longer Tips & Tricks posts and longer recipe posts, but my plan is to put out more total content by also writing shorter informative posts on more topics. I'm thinking 2-3 posts per week on other topics useful to my target demographic of people learning their way around a home kitchen.

I finally started up a column I've been meaning to write for over a year called ABC's of Utensils where I'm picking a different kitchen utensil or gadget each week and explaining it's use. Today was "B is for boning knife." For the life of me, I can't think of more than 250-350 words to write in these posts. But then again, the wikipedia entry on the topic is only 139 words long!

Aside from this, I've got Food News which will bring up anything new in the world of food, like my thoughts on the new flavors of Lays chips. And I'm thinking of bringing back Food of the Week but try to concentrate on less common foods that non-professional chefs may be less familiar with. Food Network's reality show Chopped is a great resource for that. :)

What do you think of this strategy? Do you think that adding shorter, targeted posts in addition to longer posts can help build traffic or am I just wasting my time?

I would have to imagine it's going to yield different results that vary by niche, and even by blog.  Try your strategy and see how it works.  For Money Beagle, I used to write four times per week and with work and all I've had to cut that in half, and I've not had a noticeable lag in traffic at all.  I think the number of posts is less important and that staying consistent is more important.