Not a traditional blog entry today, but a question about this blog. I really hope you can help me figure this out. I don’t want to annoy people by blogging too much or too little (and frankly, I don’t want to kill myself writing either), so why don’t you tell me?
Thanks in advance for your answer.
gerard.cc 
June 24, 2011 at 14:05
As often as you have anything you want to say! I’m not so bothered by how often, and I’d hate it if you were writing because you felt you had to – I just like reading it!
June 24, 2011 at 14:34
Hi Sarah,
Thanks for being concerned :-). But it’s not a chore, far from it, and I do find it’s good to have a rhythm and deadlines, otherwise it’s easy to put off and nothing ever gets written. And I guess there is no shortage of topics I guess, although I can imagine that some people find airlines, etc off-topic, but in the end they are all different manifestations of the same problems we see in cycling or the bike industry.
June 24, 2011 at 14:51
Agree with Sarah. I learn something from you regularly. Make it easy on yourself. Even if you just do a short blurb, please do address any issues or controversies that may arise during the TdF–I look to you for clarity and wisdom. Thanks for making the effort.
June 24, 2011 at 15:12
Dear Gerard,
IMHO I think you should write 3x times per week. That way you can have bigger/better topics and so those can have your focus throughout the week. I’m not saying you write too much or about things that doesnt matter but at least that way makes you seat and write your in depth opinion.
Best,
Miguel
June 24, 2011 at 15:33
Hi Gerard,
So you need deadlines… what about short entrys from Monday to Thursday and a big one on Fridays? This way you don’t kill yourself writing, keep the interest on the blog and let us comment the big one all over the weekend.
Cheers
June 24, 2011 at 18:37
Hm, that’s an interesting idea, I like it. Only problem is that making sure i have four short ones and one long one on Friday may be even tougher than just blogging five times a week. But thanks for the suggestion.
June 24, 2011 at 16:01
Gerard, blog when you have something to say. I am not fussed about frequency.
June 24, 2011 at 16:40
Regularly enough there is reason to look, infrequently enough it is not a chore and you have something to say. Worthy topics don’t come on a schedule, and you’re not a newspaper columnist who has column inches you must fill.
June 24, 2011 at 18:38
I guess that’s a bit the issue, when it is not on a schedule people stop looking for it (at least I would). Of course the email subscription solves that, but not everybody wants that intrusion.
June 24, 2011 at 16:52
I agree with the others.
As long as your blog isn’t about US politics. LOL
June 24, 2011 at 18:36
Ah, darn, I had such a good one on the 1% doctrine
June 25, 2011 at 03:56
For a somebody like you, the more you post, the more you’ll get read, up to a threshold of about 3 posts a day, five to seven days a week.
So, if you have a lot to say, you shouldn’t hold back. Quality and quantity both count. If you post a lot, everyone’s not going to study everything you write, but that doesn’t mean a large quantity of posts would be a waste.
As a nobody blogger, I’ve analyzed things a lot, and read things here and there. I also assume that other people are like me when it comes to reading a blog.
Whatever you do, consistency and having a niche are key.
If a blogger posts daily, and I like their niche, I tend to make daily trips to their blog. The less frequent they post, the less frequent I make trips to their blog. If they post very infrequent, it becomes out of sight, out of mind.
Actually, I currently use a RSS reader to keep track of blogs, but the last paragraph describes how I’ve operated in the past, and occasionally revert back to.
Here’s a couple of finance bloggers who are successful. They both post about 3 times a day Mon-Fri, and some on the weekend.
Mish: http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/
Ritholtz: http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/
Ritholtz is getting about 60,000 visits a day Mon-Fri:
http://www.sitemeter.com/?a=stats&s=sm2ritholtz&r=12
Here’s some stats for drudgereport.com to show that, like for Ritholtz, traffic tends to drop off on the weekends.
http://www.quantcast.com/drudgereport.com#traffic
So it’s Mon-Friday that people are really surfing blogs and news sites; however, posting on the weekends would help support that weekly traffic.
Anyway, I would estimate that if you were to post several times a day, five days a week, you would grow to about 3000 to 8000 visits a day after several years.
Lubos the physicist, who posts several times a day, is at about 4000 visits a day:
http://www.sitemeter.com/?a=stats&s=s24lumidek&r=12
This guy, who I don’t like, because he’s a racist, over the last few years has grown from about 4000 visits to about 8000 visits a day. He gets promoted off of a certain web news site:
http://www.sitemeter.com/?a=stats&s=s16voxday&r=12
There you go, Gerald. Two cents from a wannabe. Most successful bloggers are professionals who feed off of their success as a professional.
I hit on cyclingnews.com, velonews.com, and velonation.com several times a day, but I’m only recently starting to find some cycling blogs that I care about. People (me included) want to hear from pros who have something interesting to say, and who can say it in an interesting way.
Physicist Peter Woit has slowed down his posting, and he doesn’t post on a specific schedule, but I’d think he still gets a decent amount of traffic. In Google RSS reader, it shows he has about 10,000 subscribers.
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=3804
You got the name, it’s about how much time you have. If you watch your stats, over time you’ll get a feel for return on investment, if you’re putting lots of time in it.
Leaving on a technical note, the more links in your posts, the more search engine traffic you’ll get, which will help people discover your blog.
I forgot how I found your blog. I think it was from a cyclingnews.com article where you were talking about doping, where you were naming names, in particular, naming the big guy. It appears you deleted some of those posts.
Feel free to delete this post. It’s rather lengthy and pedantic.
June 25, 2011 at 09:27
Hi Jo Jo, Thanks for the comments. I know there isn’t a right or wrong answer, one should blog as often as one has something interesting to say (obviously that’s rather subjective) and as often as people want to read it. It was to gauge the latter that I used the poll for. Of course with most answers getting roughly the same number of votes, it’s still not clear-cut.
As for my posts on doping, I have not deleted anything. The cyclingnews interview was an interview with them, so I never put it on my site. Maybe I should, as an archive.
June 26, 2011 at 18:54
I left my feedback for 3x per week.
Just an idea for a future blog – How do you think the release of Ultegra di2 will impact consumer bike sales and bike designs?
June 27, 2011 at 09:04
Good idea