I fully admit that I have been guilty of apologizing on my blog for not blogging, as if I was letting myself and everyone in the world down for not writing a post every day, week, or month. However, when I started reading posts with these apologies at the top, I found them to be really distracting from the content that I had clicked to read- drawing attention to the fact that someone had been away from their blog and felt guilty, which I may not have noticed if they hadn't written anything!
While blogging consistency does lead to increased traffic, the only one who sets expectations about how often you should blog is you. Therefore, apologizing for not doing something that only you have expectations about actually highlights the fact that you set unreasonable expectations for yourself, and frankly, that makes you look bad. Instead, just blog when you want to blog, and don't blog when you don't want to blog. If you don't want to show how long it's been since your last post, just remove the date in your layout or post template. If people are really concerned, they'll write you and ask how you're doing, but not blogging isn't a crime or a public offense that you need to apologize for.
I had this weird expectation that I should blog all the time, or at least once a week, or for every single client, or else I was letting my business and my clients down. Once I stopped feeling guilty about blogging infrequently, it actually made it easier to get back to the blog when I had some free time. It was no longer an obligation that weighed me down and took me away from the core parts of my business, and it became more enjoyable because I wasn't pumping out posts full of crap just to have content up. I started spending more time writing quality posts that were inspired by something meaningful, in ways that weren't just helpful to me, but also to my audience. Yes, blogging is a great SEO tool and marketing piece for your business, but if you're so busy serving clients offline that you don't have time to create more content online, there's certainly nothing wrong with that!
Anne Ruthmann is an editorial & event photographer in New York City. She spent 10 years practicing marketing & management in corporate and non-profit businesses before pursuing her passion for photography in 2004 as an independent small business. She loves helping others find creative and smart solutions to business problems. Stay in touch on Twitter or Facebook.
I had this weird expectation that I should blog all the time, or at least once a week, or for every single client, or else I was letting my business and my clients down. Once I stopped feeling guilty about blogging infrequently, it actually made it easier to get back to the blog when I had some free time. It was no longer an obligation that weighed me down and took me away from the core parts of my business, and it became more enjoyable because I wasn't pumping out posts full of crap just to have content up. I started spending more time writing quality posts that were inspired by something meaningful, in ways that weren't just helpful to me, but also to my audience. Yes, blogging is a great SEO tool and marketing piece for your business, but if you're so busy serving clients offline that you don't have time to create more content online, there's certainly nothing wrong with that!
Anne Ruthmann is an editorial & event photographer in New York City. She spent 10 years practicing marketing & management in corporate and non-profit businesses before pursuing her passion for photography in 2004 as an independent small business. She loves helping others find creative and smart solutions to business problems. Stay in touch on Twitter or Facebook.
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