In Sex and Blogging: is Frequency, Length, or Regularity important?

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John Chow has been writing about good blogging habits. I especially enjoyed the one that suggests that post frequency is quite an important measure in the success of a blog. Post Length & Post Frequency.

He writes: “Nothing turns off a blog reader more than seeing a blog updated once per day for a week, then suddenly no updates at all. If you’re going to update your blog once per day (or whatever frequency you choose), then stick to it. Don’t be an on again, off again blogger. Your blog will never grow if you do that.”

Steve Pavlina also addresses this concern: “Some bloggers say it’s best to write short (250-750 word) entries and post 20x per week or more. I’ve seen that strategy work for some, but I decided to do pretty much the opposite. I usually aim for about 3-5 posts per week, but my posts are much longer (typically 1000-2000 words, sometimes longer than 5000 words, including the monster you’re reading right now). That’s because rather than throwing out lots of short tips, I prefer to write more exhaustive, in-depth articles. I find that deeper articles are better at generating links and referrals and building traffic. … I don’t believe in creating disposable content just to increase page views and ad impressions. If I’m not truly helping my visitors, I’m wasting their time.”

I’m still trying to work out my own rhythm on this blog, as you’ll see. But I’ll be trying to aim for more regular short posts, and less frequent longer ones (though I have to find the quiet space where I can spend more time thinking about those! – and that’s not easy in my house or workspace at the moment!).

Hopefully, you’ll give some feedback via comments, posts, stats and feedback on what works and what doesn’t!

DELL and YHOO: I finally sold them

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I’d been holding long positions in both DELL and Yahoo for such a long time, I watched them go up, then go down, then go up again, then go down again. Today, I decided to sell, even though I wasn’t underwater by more than 7%. I got tired of the tech ride. I actually want to see a return on my money, so I sold the positions, and am now sitting about 30% in cash right now. I’m looking at a purchasing some ETFs or some Dogs of the Dow stocks with 4.5% dividends. Undecided yet! But we’ll see.

It’s a shame since I had held Dell since 1998, and traded them once or twice over the time. I may try to get in at some point in the future, but it’s unlikely. I may have some seller’s regret, soon, esp. with upcoming launch of M$ Vista on January 30th. YHOO (click to read the story) looks like it may not do more than meet analyst’s expectations, and it’s a tough market for them nowadays, so I’m guessing (could be wrong) that there is some downside to Yahoo. Also, without speculation on a takeover, I don’t see how there can be much upside in the short term. I’m looking for a re-entry point, but I’d like to see that about $23-24, ie. can there be a sale of 10%? I wonder…

Local Businesses: We need SEO help, too!

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Our language school has been increasing our local promotions with newsletters, Halloween Parades, website development. We’ve been trying to target local visitors, both online and offline, and encourage them to come in and check out our children’s language courses.

To encourage online visitors, we need search engine submission by servicewrap.net. Most local businesses, like taxi companies, hair stylists, etc., could make much better use of online search services, to get ranked on the first several pages of search engines such as Google, MSN and Yahoo.

Having results that turn up in the top 10 positions will drive new search engine traffic to your local business. We’ll be looking at this service ourselves, as we try to attract new students into our language programs!

This post has been sponsored by Servicewrap.net.