How Many Articles Does Your Blog Really Need?

Introduction

Blogging can be a tough business to break into because not all of us are natural writers. Being a programmer myself, I spend most of my time writing code for robots. This is not exactly the same as writing articles or documents for humans. Even then, my experience with writing is on the technical side. So everything is black and white, straight to the point. There is no storytelling or setting the stage when writing about technical subject matter. This is one of the many reasons why I wanted to get into blogging because I feel that it could help me with my writing skills. Writing for people is a lot different than for robots so I hope that I learn something from all of this.

No matter how much I write, I always wonder how many articles it takes before my blog actually makes it. In today’s society of instant gratification, we have been ingrained to expect results right away. The idea of patience is slowly but surely dwindling away. We used to be able to wait for things to come to us. Remember the phrase, “good things will come to those who wait”? 

Call it the increase in today’s competition and technology. I think that these two factors are causing people to expect things faster and faster. Unfortunately, we cannot expect our blogs to become overnight success stories just like that. We have to put in a lot of work and effort into it. Just like any other endeavor in our life, I do think that we need to just take a step back and look at where we are. When the traffic gets hit hard, we start to worry.

One question that we ask ourselves is, how many articles do I need to write before my blog becomes successful? That is a very tough question to answer. This really depends on a lot of factors that I will go over in this article. Many of these factors depend on you, yourself. How motivated you are to preserve even when things are looking bad will determine if your blog makes it or not.

Is There a Magic Number of How Many Articles to Write Before I Make It?

I wish that it were that simple. I wish that we could just know how many articles it takes before you succeed. Really, who knows? Unless you have knowledge no one else knows, you might just be a drop in a bucket like everyone else. Let us take a look at what can determine how many articles it takes for you.

Your Niche and Competition Determine How Hard It Is to Be Successful

These two factors, niche and competition are a couple of the strongest ones that will definitely tell you if you need to write a lot or not. If you choose a good niche with little competition, you might only need to publish an article once a week or less. Again, I say this with a grain of salt because it is just an example.

Look at the other side, if your niche is super-saturated and very competitive, then you have your work cutout for you. You will need to churn out articles like there is no tomorrow and that can be very hard to keep up as it is very time-consuming. People say that they like a challenge, but you are competing with so many people in this situation. 

This is why I have been mentioning having realistic expectations. The setup for disappointment is tough and this is why you have to slug through days where you cannot write anything and your traffic drops. Just hang in there, your golden article that will bring tons of people to your door is just one publish away.

Why Does Your Niche Matter?

Your niche matters a lot because the narrower the niche, the less there is to write about. There are cases where the niche is so small that you end up writing about something completely brand new. You are basically inventing a new niche. Since there are currently no searches for this new niche, you will need to rely on other sources of traffic for your blog. These alternative traffic sources include social media and backlinks from other website.

Why Does Your Competition Matter?

Competition matters a lot and most topics will have competition eventually. What might end up happening is that you find a niche that no one has done yet. However, you have no interest or knowledge in that niche and therefore there is no point in writing about it. You could try to do some research into that unknown niche but it is better if you come into blogging with tons of knowledge ready to share.

Having to deal with competition to write lots of articles is really, really hard. The web never sleeps and when you wake up the next day, several articles on your niche have already been published. Then you start to feel the regret of not publishing an article yesterday. You cannot get yourself down over that. No matter what you do in life, someone will always beat you to the punch. 

You just have to carve yourself a slice of that pie. Even a sliver will do when competition is that steep. This is why you should really enjoy the journey that you are embarking on. Even if the competition outranks you and takes your traffic, they cannot take away the fulfillment you get out of writing. Remember that, this is the only thing that you will keep no matter how hard things get. No matter how many articles you have written, your journey is your own and unique to yourself.

So when you look at blogging in this light, you tend to see competition in another way. Think of competition as motivation instead of a hindrance. You will never feel like writing again if you view your competition as something that is in your way. Consider them more as a guide who keeps you active and inspired to write more.

Your Personal Drive Will Determine How Long You Will Last

This is why a successful blog has more to do with your personal ambition and outlook in life more than your niche or competition. If you are really serious about cranking those articles out, then you will find a way even if you hit writer’s block and run out of stuff to write about. This is especially important if you are running your whole blog by yourself and have to spend time doing everything on your own. This means setting aside time for everything. That includes checking traffic, e-mails, comments, researching, writing, every single thing. 

As your blog grows and needs more time and attention, you should come up with a weekly schedule of what activities to do on certain days. Once you make it and can slow on churning articles out, you should have some breathing room to do other things. This will be a nice place to reach because we can all take a break from writing, no matter how much we love it.

Your Amount of Knowledge Will Determine How Much You Will Write

The more that you know, the more that you will write. Chances are, we have the same knowledge as the next guy. Now we may know some things that are different than others. So this might put a damper on the uniqueness of your content. That does not mean that you should still not write. Your knowledge is still as valuable as the next guy’s. Even if the other guy has already written about a topic before you. Besides, how much of the web is 100% original anyway? We all have opinions and thoughts that are similar to everyone else’s.

The points that I am making in this article is not to discourage you from writing but rather show you the reality of it. Better that you know how blogging really is before you dive deep into it. That is why I constantly talk about having realistic expectations before you start. This is why blogging is fun. You can talk about whatever you want even if someone has already done it before. Why should that stop? Why should anyone stop you?

This is your blog, talk about whatever you want.

Your Ability to Research New Ideas Will Determine How Long You Can Keep Writing

The more that you research, the more that you will write. When you research for long enough, you will make some discoveries that you have never even realized before. The reason why is that the longer that we blog, the more that we not only share with others, but what we learn from others too. Blogging is not a one-way street where we just simply share knowledge with people. You will learn more about your niche from others also. When you research, you are trying to see if there is something out there that you might be able to write about, leveraging the knowledge that you already possess.

This is why blogging has a community feeling to it. You share and people contact you and respond to what you have shared. Knowing that your articles have reached and moved others is very exciting. It is always fun receiving messages from others and knowing that someone actually read what you wrote. So the more that you research, the more that you will write and possibly strike a chord with someone.

There is No Magic Number of Articles to Write

At the end of the day, there is no magic number of articles that you need to write. Things are changing everyday and no one can say for sure that you will make it after a certain number of articles. The only thing that we know is that you have to keep going and stay motivated for the long-run. The good part is that once you have a good routing going, you will not worry about having to hit a certain number of articles and expecting a lot of traffic.

You Have to Keep Going Until You Make It

You pretty much just have to keep trying until you find that one topic that gets you the traffic that you want. This could take awhile and be very discouraging since even with keyword research, the keywords that you are going after may or may not be successful. Some articles that you write will make and some will not. That is why you have to be willing to accept the fact that you will have times where you feel that you wrote an article for nothing. Remember, we are just talking about search engine traffic. You can still promote your articles on other websites and social media. Even though I focus so much on talking about search engines, you still have other ways to get your voice heard. Some blogs have hundreds, thousands or more articles and they still keep going.

You Have to Accept Fluctuations in Traffic

When one of your articles makes it and you see an influx of traffic, you feel on cloud nine. Hopefully get a good wave of traffic that lasts a while. Tough to say how long the wave will last. What you can do is update that article and make sure that it stays on top and keeps traffic coming in. Every wave eventually ends and you might lose traffic if that article starts to wane. So you need to accept that traffic comes and goes like ebb and flow. 

Traffic is a funny thing. When we get lots of it, it motivates us to keep pushing forward because we see results and want more. Now that we know that we can get that traffic, we know that we are doing something right. However, the opposite is also true. When traffic takes a dip, it can be pretty hard to deal with. We feel like we spent all of this time writing about the wrong stuff or writing something that is not good enough compared to everyone else. There is a lot of physiological stuff that goes on the mind when blogging. This is simply not merely just getting words out there and hoping someone reads them.

There is so much more at work here, you really have to experience it yourself to know what it feels like. The beginning of your blogging journey might be the scariest part because you are unsure of what will happen and if you will succeed or not. People do not know how much they need to write before they start seeing results. The unpredictability is why so many people still get into blogging. No matter how much stuff is already out there, there is some amount of sporadic randomness going on. This makes it so that anyone who wants to blog, can.

The web is set up so that everyone has a chance to succeed. The sooner that you start the better, but it is never too late to blog. We just need to know what our definitions of “success” are.

You Will Have Good Days and Bad Days

Just like life, blogging will have days that go well and days that are less desirable. This is why so many people take breaks for extended periods of time. Sometimes just a few days, a week, or even months. The amount of time that you take off depends on what is happening with your blog at that moment in time. Chances are that you are stopping for a while because your blog might have taken a hit or is not as strong as it once was. Things happen in life, it is what it is. Also, nothing lasts forever, your blog might just become another archive in the Internet Wayback Machine. Even if your blog gets commemorated into a time capsule, you had fun writing it right?

Take those memories of writing your blog and either come back or move on. Blogging is just another experience in life. Every experience that you have in life will be used in your future endeavors. That is something more important than the blog itself. How will you use what you learned from blogging to your next opportunity? So even several bad days that end your blog can still be turned into a positive.

You Need to Keep the Quality of Your Articles High Even If They Take Longer to Write

Since there is no magic number of how many articles you need to write for your blog to succeed, you might feel compelled to churn out stuff just to get your article count up. This is a mistake because this will only hurt your blog if you emphasize quantity over quality. 

Just think about what having millions of articles on your blog would entail. How would your users be able to go through all of that? How could you write that many articles without repeating yourself? Having fewer articles of higher quality means that people will come back to you even if it takes longer to write good stuff. People will hold your blog in higher regard if they know that you are producing a quality article. So do not think of blogging as a certain set of numbers that you have to have. There is no set word count that you have to hit, a certain number of articles to write, a minimum number of impressions or clicks to achieve, or a goal for backlinks. 

You will know these things as you go on your journey. That is why it is called a journey. You will discover things as you blog that will help you know what you need to do or not to do.

Do Not Forget to Put Your Unique Spin and Personality Into Your Articles

After writing so many articles, your personality is what sets you apart from others. Almost any topic out there has already been done so what else can we do to differentiate ourselves from everyone else? Even the slightest or most subtle differences in our writing can make our opinions and thoughts so different from one another. Sometimes people read your article because they want to see your personality more than the actual content that you write.

Perhaps your storytelling is what brings people in since you are more than likely saying something that is already out there. When you take this into consideration, you should really think about how to mix yourself into the topic. 

Summary

Writing is a very important part of blogging and we always wonder how many articles it takes to make it. How many articles that you have depends on many factors including niche, competition, personal drive, knowledge, and research. The combination of all of these factors contribute to how long your blog will last. Some factors you control like your niche,  personal drive, personality, and knowledge. You must capitalize them as much as you can.

However, the one factor, competition is something that is out of your control. Definitely competition can be a soul crusher because there is only so much traffic to go around. Your ability to capture that traffic depends on how many others are chasing it also and how well you can reel it in.

At the end of the day, there is no magic number of articles to write. You just have to keep going and learning along the way. Your traffic will spike and drop constantly and you will have days that make you want to just stop and walk away. Nothing is harder than accepting that something is not working out. You will never know how far you can go unless you try.

If you are a good storyteller, then you might be able to tell the same stuff that has already been done in an interesting and engaging way. You simply cannot just tell people something. You need to tell them something in a way that will keep their ears open until the end.

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