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Reasons (Not) to Blog on Weekends

23 Feb

Posted by Alex as Insights

weekend blogging The weekend is here, and many bloggers are warming their chairs before writing that weekend-post.

As many of you probably already did, I noticed that traffic tends to drop during weekends, which got me thinking whether it was smart to post articles during those days. And if so, should a blogger post articles consistent with the usual, weekday, content or make them special in some way (see par. 2 below).

To Blog or Not to Blog… on Weekends

After a little bit of contemplation I came to the following conclusions:

First of all, if your posting schedule doesn’t include weekends to begin with, it is perfectly fine, as readers get used to it, and just wouldn’t expect any posts on a weekend. (Read more in my Most Important Tip for Building a Readership article)

New visitors, on the other hand, would have plenty of content from the previous week to browse through.

Although less people are visiting, those who do will (probably) tend to be more relaxed, given the free time of the weekend, and take the time to leave a meaningful comment on the weekend post.
So, this is nice, since you have an opportunity of meaningful discussion during the weekend. Darren Rowse is describing this further it in his post, My Weekend Blog Strategy.

This is to be tested on any blog. I will try to use Google Analytics to perform weekend analysis somewhere down the road and post an article about it.

Although it is a weekend, and you probably have interests other than the blog, i.e. family, friends, studies, etc., it is crucial not to let your post quality deteriorate.
I believe it is ok to change your style on a weekend, as many post the so-called link festivals, consisting of useful or otherwise interesting links. But, don’t forget to have your personality injected into the post. Write a paragraph or two or add your opinion on the linked sites. Don’t just slap those links and consider it done. Same goes with videos and photo weekend galleries.

If you still feel that you’re posting without real feedback, keep in mind that the weekday visitor will go through all of you new posts, especially if it is a subscriber, so your weekend post will not go unnoticed.