Do templates and publishing schedules matter?

[fairyhedgehog]

We all go to a lot of trouble to make our blogs look good and most of us give some thought to publishing schedules as well but I'm wondering how much this really matters.

I read all but one of my blogs in Google Reader on my iGoogle homepage, so I only see the blog layout when I comment. It doesn't matter whether the blogger posts often or rarely: I will always see when they have posted.

Do other people use RSS readers like this? How should this affect our blogging?

[ishan]

People use RSS readers like this. But there are many who either do not subscribe via RSS/EMail or not aware of it. So, they visit blogs regularly to find new posts.

For them, Template/Theme and Schedule are important.

1. A regular schedule tells readers when they can expect new posts and they visit accordingly. If you post randomly, they will not visit that regularly.
2. Making a blog look good is a big trouble what worth it. It took me more than a month to tweak every little component of a basic design to add drop-down menus, content after posts, a custom footer and a nice logo to a free theme but its worth the time when you hear good things from your readers.

Bottom Line: People do use RSS like these but many don't use RSS at all!

[fairyhedgehog]

That's useful to know, ishan. I've played around with my blog to get it to look as nice as I can but I've been wondering if I was wasting my time.

Now I need to get a schedule in place. I was going for 'almost every day' at first but then I was ill and couldn't keep up. Maybe I need to go back to that.

[Bloggeries]

Re Schedule - Depends on volume and dedication of your readers. I have a few blogs that are updated routinely at ~same hours and I"m always there looking for a new update. If your readership grows you need to keep the goods coming. That said it's hard at first without much response as you feel you're just blogging into a big void.

[ishan]

Originally Posted by fairyhedgehog

That's useful to know, ishan. I've played around with my blog to get it to look as nice as I can but I've been wondering if I was wasting my time.

Now I need to get a schedule in place. I was going for 'almost every day' at first but then I was ill and couldn't keep up. Maybe I need to go back to that.

"Almost every day" in beginning is not very good. I now uise 3-4 per week. This gives every post 1-2 days at top which increases number of comments. You can later change schedule to daily when more visitors start coming in.(After informing readers about it)

[fairyhedgehog]

Originally Posted by ishan

"Almost every day" in beginning is not very good. I now uise 3-4 per week. This gives every post 1-2 days at top which increases number of comments. You can later change schedule to daily when more visitors start coming in.(After informing readers about it)

I hadn't thought of that. Thanks!

[go85]

Also, don't forget that there are a lot of people who don't sit at their computer for hours and hours each day (unlike us webmasters/bloggers), so even if they check blogs using their RSS readers, they may only check their computer at certain times of the day, which may include checking when they are expecting a new post from a certain blog.

[gg1609]

I personally think that the blog theme influences how long the visitro is on your blog. I've split tested this will similar blogs, 1 with default theme and 1 relevant to blog, the more relvant theme had more visitors and they stayed longer.

[QuirkyJessi]

While your subscribers might not be seeing your template all the time, what about all those people that are just now finding your site? Don't you want to make a good impression on them? Don't judge a book by its cover, but we all know that a lot of people do, so you want to have the best appearance in hopes of drawing in readers to look around more. Who knows, maybe they'll become subscribers, too?

[rjleaman]

I do think it's important to have a good-looking site - as Jessi says, you have to consider those readers who are not yet subscribers, and what kind of impression you'll make on them - but it doesn't need to be super-fancy. Given a choice between tweaking the template and creating great content, you should go for the content every time. As for the schedule, the most important thing is to try to be as consistent as possible. It doesn't meant that you have to post at the same time every day, or even that you have to post always on Tuesdays and Thursdays - just that readers have some sense of the volume of posts they can expect from you, and that there will be a steady supply of new reading material. So, for example, you really can't go weeks and weeks without posting something new *unless* that's the pattern you've set from the beginning. Consistency is more important than frequency, I've discovered, in the big scheme of things.