How often should you update your blog?

So, you've got your blog set up. You've written a few posts. You've gone to a bunch of different linking, social network and promotions sites to get out the word on your blog. You've e-mailed all your friends and family and asked them to check it out.

Then you sit and wait and hope for traffic. Maybe you just want others to know what you think on certain topics. Maybe you want others to critique your writing. Or maybe you're trying to become a professional blogger. All of us have different reasons for blogging.

But the beginning can be tough for a blogger. You're not likely to get a lot of traffic. Sure, with some patience and hard work others will begin to take notice and you'll start getting some traffic. But until then, you can almost hear the crickets chirping somewhere in the distance during the night.

At this point, a lot of bloggers will decide it's time to post more stories or articles on their blog. After all, if there's more content, shouldn't more readers soon be following?

Not likely, actually. The writing is the easy part. The promotions is the hard part. Getting the word out about your blog can be one of the most time-consuming, and sometimes frustrating, tasks with which a blogger has to cope. There are things you can do, such as studying and implementing SEO, having your blog listed at online directories, linking to other blogs, etc. Truly one of the best things you can do at this point is to leave posts on other people's blogs, especially early on.

But you want to write! That's why you've got a blog, after all. Just show a little patience.

Early on in a blog's life, you probably only need to post a new article about once a week, maybe twice a week if your topic is timely. If you're not getting a lot of traffic early on, it makes little sense to keep putting up more and more articles. No one is going to see them. What little traffic you do have might check back in a few days or a week to see if you've updated, so it's not a bad idea to blog at least once a week, but lots and lots of blog posts will look like what it is: desperation. And you don't want to look desperate. It will drive away potential readers.

Once you begin to see some regular traffic, maybe a regular viewership of 20 or so a day, you can maybe post two or three times a week, if you want. But really, a couple of times a week should likely be your maximum. Keep in mind there are a lot of blogs out there, and most readers won't have the time or the inclination to want to check out your blog every single day.

Eventually, however, with some luck and hard work, you might bet one of those fortunate blogs that begins to have a readership in the thousands every day. What to do then?

I still wouldn't suggest blogging every day, that is unless you are writing a news blog of some sort that has to be up-to-the-minute on news for some industry or interest. Three to four blog posts a week should do it. Yes, your readers will want content, but keep them guessing just a bit. Even if they check in several times a day to find out what's the latest on your blog, the anticipation will keep them guessing and coming back for more.

But that's only if you have a hugely popular blog. The rest of us should probably only blog once or twice a week.

If you still have the inclination to blog every day, I suggest starting up more than one blog. Pick several different topics, then start a blog for each of them. If you grow bored with one of them after a while, you can always delete the blog.