Would you post a low quality article or rather not blog, when running out of ideas?
What would you do? All of us would have faced the blogger’s block sometime or the other. It’s a difficult situation to be in, when you have nothing to blog about or is confused because you have too many things in your head.
I’ve had similar situations and all the time, I had two questions to answer.
Should I write a not-so-good article and somehow manage to make a post for the day or should I not blog until I get a good topic to blog about?
Some bloggers have the habit of blogging everyday, and they make it a point to publish an article a day. Most of them use the timestamp feature of Wordpress to the advantage but still, the story is that, the blog will have at least a post a day. Which is really good. Regular readers are happy, Google crawlers are happy since the frequency of posts are regular and at the end the blogger is happy too.
But the problem comes when you can’t find topics to blog about. A typical bloggers block situation. There are some commonly followed easy ways to get out of the situation.
- Create a ‘best of links’ collection to other sites
- Publish a news story quoting the news item itself from another website.
But these articles can only be posted maximum once a week or your readers will find it boring. So what’s the next step to take?
Should you not blog? Go on a research to find topics for the coming days?
Most of the time, I take a little of this and a little of that. I try to find topics to blog from other similar blogs or news items and write a post almost instantly. I must admit that the quality of the posts tend to be lower in these posts compared to other well researched articles.Because the time is less and the amount of research you do is less, the quality too degrades.
A good idea though is to attempt a well written article with good link to resources. Also asking questions to readers can also trigger some momentum, if the question is relevant.
Anyhow, there wouldn’t be confusion over the fact that a daily publishing of articles on the blog is much more healthier than weekly or monthly articles. And planning in advance using the timestamp feature of Wordpress is the best way to get out of such embarrassing situations.
Wonder how many of you will agree?
sofish | October 3rd, 2007 at 6:18 am #
For the past,i would choose a topic and post a article for the day.but now only to post a good one or a MUST one!
哈哈,很多人都有这样的问题出现,不过,却很少人写出来…
Marc Eilbeck | October 3rd, 2007 at 7:41 am #
I have had this problem not so long ago and I think either way you will loose traffic and rss readers.
A Blog about Nothing | October 3rd, 2007 at 8:38 am #
I just blog off topic. Oh wait my blog has no topic
This is another great example of why A Blog about Nothing isn’t a niche blog. Because if it was I would run out of ideas really fast.
I’ll fill in with something like a flash game or a “quick tip”, or whatever that will give some value/entertainment to the reader if I’m just not in the blogging mood when it comes time to post.
Keith Dsouza | October 3rd, 2007 at 10:54 am #
Well if I do not have any ideas to write about I would rather not do it than post something that I would not like to write about.
Instead I spend the time generating ideas for better posts for the week. It is better to write one good post in a week than several bad ones.
Supernegro.com | October 3rd, 2007 at 12:26 pm #
When I run into a mental roadblock, and can’t find a related news item to use as a springboard, I tend to ask a question to the readers to ignite a conversation. But if I absolutely could not even do that, I’d post nothing. I’d rather have the “day off” than to post crap. I quickly learned this when I did a post on Whoopi joining The View - I received four e-mails asking “slow day?”.
fc | October 3rd, 2007 at 11:42 pm #
This situation is especially true and much harder for newer bloggers. For at the outset ..the first couple of months are crucial for a blogger and one has to maintain regular activity on the blog..
and since its new it has lower traffic thus cramping the options available for a mediocre post.. posing a question tot he readers for instance..who will you ask if you don’t have anyone to ask to..
just one of the things you have to deal with.. maybe just post about the lack of ideas… write about such an experience..