The key to maintaining a great author website is consistency. That probably sounds funny coming from someone who just took a one week vacation that spanned 2 whole weeks, but it’s still true.
When I am not vacationing or playing hookey from my work, I try to stick to a fairly consistent blog schedule. I post once a week and usually by the end of Monday. It’s not a lot. There are others who post 5 days a week from Monday to Friday. But it is the amount I have chosen. I have a lot of other things that take up my time, so once a week is what works for me.
This blog is not how I earn my living. People who blog five days a week are usually making a living at it, or else they are superhuman multi-taskers capable of stopping time so they can produce a decent blog post, write a novel, and still have time read 20 books a month.
Since I am not a blogger by profession, I don’t need to blog a lot but I still need consistency. If my readers were to find nothing new every time they checked my blog they might eventually stop checking in with me. So to keep my readers coming back and still have time in the week to get everything else done, I decided on a once a week schedule.
To determine you’re own schedule, you need to think about what you are trying to do and how often it needs to be done. For a blog I recommend no less than once a week and for other new website content no less than once a month–and if you are going to play hookey, post about it so people don’t assume you have disappeared.
Another thing to be consistent with is the content. If a blog goes all over the place it will rarely hits the mark with the reader and will be harder to keep them coming back. But if one theme or topic is chosen for the blog, the audience that is attracted will still find the blog just as interesting week after week. Notice how I have chosen the area of marketing for writers with fairly little deviation. Marketing is something I have learned and enjoy teaching to others.
Pick something you know about and enjoy talking about. Fill a need that you feel is lacking if possible. Choose a specific topic over a broad topic, but make sure it’s something you can write about endlessly. Once you have your topic be consistent. You don’t have to post on the exact same thing week in and week out–create your own brand of consistency that will draw the readers in and keep them coming back. Know your audience, give them what they expect from you, and they will always be loyal.