On Posting Frequency

What is the ideal posting frequency? That is the 1 million dollar question for bloggers. Most people will tell you that quality comes before quantity. I agree with that, but only to a certain extent.
Quality must be there, that is beyond discussion. But if you are trying to build a popular blog, so must quantity. Sometime ago Darren wrote an article titled “34 Reasons Why Readers Unsubscribe from Your Blog.” Surprisingly enough, the main reason for unsubscribing was “Too many posts.”
Why is this a surprise? First of all because the vast majority of the popular blogs have a very high posting frequency (e.g., TechCrunch, Lifehacker, Problogger, Engadget). We are talking about two, three or even more posts every day.
Could it be that when people mention “Too many posts” they are actually referring to extravagant numbers above the ones that we see on such popular blogs? Maybe.
RSS readers certainly help us to keep track of our favorite websites and blogs, without the need of visiting them. But what if people want get all the information related to a certain topic from one single location? That is, what if instead of collecting 10 or 20 RSS feeds from different productivity blogs they just prefer to grab the Lifehacker’s feed?
Secondly, only a small percentage of the Internet population uses RSS. The others bookmark and visit the websites directly. Once again, the majority of people will probably just choose one or two “authority” websites instead of surfing a myriad of smaller ones.
Perhaps this theory applies only to some niches and audiences, but you should take it in consideration. The bottom line is: if you are trying to build a popular blog, you should make sure that you are covering all the facets of your niche. This will inevitably require a high posting frequency, but it will also ensure that visitors get the feeling that they can find “pretty much everything they need” on your blog.