There was a time, not too long ago in fact, that I was publishing content, like full blog posts, once a day. It didn’t feel like I was achieving if I hadn’t and many a time I would publish multiple posts on one day to ‘catch up’.
At the time, I was feeling like I was a success. I was publishing regular content and that was key right?
Late last year, after almost 365 posts, I decided to take the gas off the pedal. And whilst it felt against the grain to slow down and stop posting content regularly, I had good reason and felt a sense of relief once I let myself off the daily task.
So why did I stop? Why didn’t I carry on creating content all day every day? Surely it would help with SEO and blog growth?
The truth of the matter is, you need not to create content every day in order to grow, create a brand and engage with new and current followers.
Forcing yourself to create sub-standard posts in order to keep your post up to date daily may be adding content, but can damage your site rather than aid it.
And that’s what I was doing. I was forcing myself to brainstorm and think of content for every day of the year. And damn it was exhausting. I would open up my laptop with a sense of dread – what in hell was I going to conjure up now in order to publish something for the day?
This was all whilst I was under the illusion that this regular, fairly monotomus content was stabilizing my site into a hub of useful, damn good content that EVERYONE would want to read.
I was going to be successful by creating this daily content.
Errrrrr, no. Unless I was unemployed and contentiously wrote post after post, fiddling and editing 20 odd posts before I found one I was proud of. And I certainly wasn’t doing that.
I was creating content that was below par. It was neither terrible or fantastic, just average and I myself now, wouldn’t be too happy to post. I was also publishing pre-generated content from other providers too, just to keep up with my new regime.
And whilst at the time I wasn’t completely happy with the content I was producing and publishing, nor was I happy with the pre-generated crap that I was constantly editing to my style, and to make bloody sense, again I was blinded by the idea this is what was needed to be successful.
So what did I learn?
After those 365 posts or a whole year of posting daily, I learnt that my content is worth a whole lot more than a shoddy post every day. I take my imaginary hat off to anyone that manages to produce stunning, creditworthy content every bloody day. It takes a huge amount of work, dedication and skill to consistently produce great content. Creating content every day, in general, is hard work besides it being good or not!
Ive come to realise that I need to forget, to some degree, what makes good SEO and what might work for some, doesn’t work for me. I want to produce content for me more so than anyone else. It has to be something I am proud to have my name against, and worthy of being front page of my site.
Gone are the schedules and from now on, I’m putting my content first.
I urge anyone who is thinking more about keeping a steady stream of content, rather than the content itself, it’s not worth it. My blog is not a chore, nor a get rich scheme, its a place to spend my creativity, start a conversation and hopefully share some wisdom, big or small.
Why not read these posts too –
Blog Post necessities – Do your posts have them?
Social media scheduling – My top tips
Creating your own bank of engaging Instagram hashtags
