How often do you post? Not too long ago, a friend and I argued about the right frequency of blogging posts. I’m much more diligent with my posting. On a good month, I could make 3 to 5 posts. When I’m really knackered, I aim for 2. Not my friend Tim.

“I try to post at least 10 articles a week!” he declared triumphantly.

“10? Don’t you do anything else besides write?”

“I’m prolific and diligent. I never run out of things to say.”

“So how many people read your website now?”

Silence.

To protect Tim’s dignity, I won’t even post his answer here. Let’s just say that if Tim’s traffic is anything to go by, blogging posts frequency is clearly not what’s important, at least not in the eyes of Google and in the eyes of readers.

So, how often should you post?

According to Grizzly, post at a frequency that keeps bots coming back to your site at a decent rate.

According to Guy Kawasaki and Darren Rowse, it’s better to post only when you have something worth posting about than to post entries on schedule.

Lorelle VanFossen agrees, even though she’s more prolific with her posting and manages to post an entry a day, unless something really critical happens.

If that still leaves you uncertain about blogging posts frequency, here are a few things to keep in mind.

• The number of your posts does not affect your Page Rank. The number of incoming links does.
• Put quality over quantity. If you’re writing for repeat visitors, don’t hit them in the head with too much information, irrelevant information, or crap. They need a reason to keep visiting your site - information overload isn’t one of them.
• Comments matter. Quality content almost always encourages visitors to speak up, so pay attention to your content. If your entries get a lot of comments, you can keep the bot occupied even without any new posts.

How about you? What’s the frequency of your blogging posts?

Ready to take what you know about blogging posts frequency and use it to turbo-charge your IM efforts? Click here to find out how to do it right!

Hi
You haven’t heard from me for a few months, because I’ve been crazy
busy building the foundation for an amazing new company, called
Directions University.

Directions U is a new site, and combines both online and offline
marketing strategies to help YOU build YOUR business in a whole new
direction! And, to add a whole new dynamic to your learning,…

A few weeks ago, the World Health upped the swine flue to a staggering Phase 6, and not surprisingly, everyone was talking about it. A friend who’s running a health blog and uses Twitter (among other sources) for blogging popular topics called me up, sounding frantic. “I’ve been infected!”

“What?!?” The first thing on my mind was, of course, H1N1. I asked my friend how she got it.

“Not me, silly. My laptop. I was following a trending topic and got directed to a malware site.”

Apparently, spammers have been throwing up fake tweets that include a trending topic. When you search what the topic means to learn more about it, you get a huge volume of links thrown at you, making it extremely easy to accidentally click your way to a malware site.

According to Claire, the most common links to watch for are Twitterbest.mp and Zasaden.mp. Here’s how it’s possible to get infected yourself.

• You will see lots of tweets with the links in them.
• Once you click on a link, you’re then taken to a page where you’re asked to upgrade your Flash player or one or the other video software.
• You see nothing wrong with a free upgrade, so you initiate the download.
• The malware installs itself.
• You’ll see an error message, informing you that you have a virus and that you need the Fast Anti-Virus 2009 (or whatever it is they’re calling them these days) to remove it.

The goal of the scam? To get you to fork over $89 for a fake anti-virus program. A similar scam is being perpetrated via pictures searched over Twitter.

Does this mean you should give up using Twitter to help you in blogging popular stories? Not at all! I’ve always believed Twitter’s Trending Topics is a useful tool for researchers and marketers… and I still do.

The best - and to my mind the only - way to avoid being scammed is to be cautious of the links you click on. More generally and most importantly, never download anything from unknown sites. Trending Topics are a valuable tool for driving traffic to your site, but remember, anything that’s popular is most likely subject to being gamed. You can bet a month’s paycheck any trending topic you find is half-filled with coattail-riders, bandwagon-jumpers, and spammers who use the keywords to get onto the front page.

If you really enjoyed this article and would like to know more about blogging popular topics and how it can help you, click here!

One of the dirty (or not-so-dirty, depending on where you’re coming from) secrets of many professional bloggers is that they don’t actually write their material themselves. They outsource some, if not all, of their writing. It’s a pretty smart and sound business model. But here’s the catch - outsourcing your blogging to a blog assistant may not be the dream arrangement you believe it to be.

My friend, Damien, keeps a pretty funny blog on cheeseburgers. One day, Damien received tons of emails from friends and acquaintances. “What’s with the weird English?”

Damien hurriedly checked his blog - this was one of his most popular, mind you, and he didn’t want to lose his readership. The comments were spot on; his blog was suddenly sounding “foreign”.

One line goes: You can adapt the size of the patty as per requirements to lead to your desired satisfaction.

Here’s another line: Cheeseburger is an admissible alternative to a roast beef topping bun if there is a deficiency of said ingredient.

To say that Damien was flustered would be an understatement. He fired his blog assistant so fast he left skid marks on the keyboard!

So, should you outsource your writing like Damien did (and still does)? I don’t see why not, provided you do it right.

• Start with a survey of overseas and local talents. In general, overseas writers cost less but if your blog requires a little oomph, that extra dollar or two is definitely worth paying.
• Outsource a small test project. The minimum will depend on what service you’re using. Elance, GetaFreelancer, or RentACoder, for example, set different ceilings. The test project should give you a feel for your blog assistant’s writing style.
• Give your blog assistant detailed instructions in the form of training videos and post samples, so he or she can get a “feel” for the writing style you need.
• Check on your assistant’s articles. If the content isn’t what you need, it’s time to start from Step 2 all over again. If the content is exactly what you need, then by all means, give your blog assistant free rein to manage your blog for you.

There! That definitely sounds doable, doesn’t it? What about you? Have you been outsourcing portions of your online life, too?

And this is just one small, tip of the iceberg, topic compared to what my partner, Gina Gaudio-Graves, and I teach in our FREE 30-Day IM Challenge! If you’re looking for a treasure trove of information to help jumpstart your business, and get it running the right way, join us today!