Blog School – What Happens When the Blog Gets a Day of Rest?
Good morning really does feel appropriate to say today – because it truly feels like a good morning.
🇬🇧 English – you are here
🇸🇪 Svenska – läs inlägget på svenska → Bloggskolan – vad händer när bloggen får vila?
Yesterday I was out campaigning for the election. And I am actually a little proud of myself. I dared to go around completely on my own, knock on doors and talk to people.
I had many lovely conversations, and it was actually a lot of fun.
I stayed a little longer at one woman’s door. Just like me, she still had a bit of a Gothenburg accent, and we started talking about what it is like to move to a small municipality from somewhere else.
About the feeling that somehow you can continue to be “the newcomer”, no matter how many years you have lived there.
I recognised what she was describing.
But as I continued walking, I also started thinking about my own part in it. Because perhaps community is not only something we are invited into. Sometimes we also have to dare to invite ourselves in.
And that led to another thought.
I am Swedish. I speak the same language, share many of the same cultural references, and the only thing that really gives away that I come from somewhere else is probably the Gothenburg accent that still lingers.
And yet, I have sometimes felt like the person coming from the outside.
So what is it like for someone who also looks different, speaks with another accent or comes from another country?
Would inviting yourself in be enough?
I don’t know.
Perhaps some of it is about fear of what we don’t know. Perhaps it is about how communities work in smaller places. Perhaps there are completely different explanations.
But yesterday’s encounter made me think about something bigger than the election campaign itself:
Who are we waiting for to knock on our door – and who are we willing to open the door for ourselves?
When the Blog Gets a Day of Rest
I might not have brought that thought home with me if yesterday had looked like many of my other days.
I have been very productive on Malix.se for a long time. There has been something new almost every day.
And I enjoy writing. Writing itself is not the problem.
But sometimes I notice that I start thinking about the next post before the one I have just published has even had time to settle.
So now I am trying something different.
Not stopping writing. Not necessarily even writing less.
But publishing a little more slowly.
Yesterday, the blog got a day of rest. Instead, I was out in the real world, knocking on doors, meeting people and coming home with new thoughts.
And you know what?
The blog kept going anyway.
That seems like a good thing to explore in this week’s Blog School.
First, We Need to Know What We Are Looking For
It is very easy to open the statistics and look at the biggest number.
How many views did I get?
More than yesterday? Good.
Fewer than yesterday? Bad.
But during the past few months of following the statistics on Malix, I have started to understand that it is not quite that simple.
Not all traffic is the same.
I have had a lot of traffic from China, among other places, and some of that traffic behaves in ways that make it difficult for me to know how much of it actually represents people sitting down and reading my posts.
So now I try to look at several things at the same time.
I look at which posts are being viewed. I look at traffic from Sweden. I look at Facebook, the WordPress Reader and search engines. I also look at older posts to see whether they are still getting views.
And above all, I try to ask:
What are the numbers actually telling me – and what are they not telling me?
September 8 – A Normal Publishing Day
On September 8, I published School Culture and How We Treat Children.
That post received many of the day’s views. Facebook accounted for a large part of the referrals to the blog, and traffic from Sweden was also noticeably higher.
So it seems quite clear that publishing something new gives the blog a boost.
I publish, share the post and traffic increases.
That is not particularly surprising.
But the following day, I did something different.
September 9 – The Blog Gets a Day of Rest
I didn’t publish a new blog post.
And yes – traffic decreased.
I think that is important to acknowledge, because otherwise I would simply be looking for statistics that confirm what I hope to find.
Referrals from Facebook dropped considerably, and views from Sweden did too.
But the blog did not become empty.
School Culture and How We Treat Children continued to receive views. Everyday Life, ADHD and Presence received a few, and a much older post, I Took Him for the Money – 173 Kronor a Month, was read as well.
Other older posts in both Swedish and English also received some views.
So there was less traffic than the day before.
But the blog continued to get views even though I had not published anything new.
And Then There Is Google
This might be what I find most interesting right now.
When we have looked at Google Search Console, we have seen that Malix appeared around 1,800 times in Google search results during the past 28 days. A smaller number of those impressions also resulted in someone clicking through to Malix.
Those are not enormous numbers.
But they show that Malix can continue to appear in search results even on days when I do not publish anything new.
Google does not need a new post from me every morning for Malix to appear in a search.
At the same time, I am beginning to see searches that fit the things I write about today: ADHD, creating structure in everyday life, relationships and other subjects that actually belong on Malix.
That is something I want to keep following.
Blog School – What Have I Learned So Far?
This is only one single day of rest.
So I cannot conclude that the blog would do better if I published less often.
I simply don’t know yet.
But I can already say two things.
A new post clearly brings more traffic, particularly through Facebook and from Sweden.
But the blog does not die the following day if nothing new appears.
Those are two very different things.
And perhaps I have mixed them up a little myself.
I have thought that keeping the blog alive means constantly adding something new.
Now I want to find out whether that is really true.
A Small Experiment on Malix
For three weeks, I am going to try a slower publishing pace.
Not according to a strict schedule. I know myself well enough to know how that would end.
I will still write whenever I have something I want to write about.
The difference is that everything does not have to be published on the same day.
A text can be allowed to sit for a while.
A post that has already been published can remain the newest one for a little longer.
And on some days, something completely different will happen:
the blog gets a day of rest.
Then we will continue doing what we do here in Blog School:
Look at what actually happens instead of guessing.
Will I lose readers?
Will older posts get more space?
Will people continue to find Malix through Google?
What will happen to the traffic from Facebook?
And perhaps the most important question of all:
What happens to my writing when the next post does not have to be finished today?
Between the Lines
The strange thing is that my first day of letting the blog rest was not a day without content at all.
Instead, I was out campaigning. I met people and had conversations that sparked completely different thoughts.
I wrote down one of those thoughts this morning.
And perhaps there is another part of this experiment hidden somewhere in that.
If I am not constantly looking for something to write about, perhaps I will have more time to actually live what I later want to write about.
That cannot be measured in Jetpack, of course.
But it may still turn out to be one of the most important things I discover.
A Question for You
As a reader, do you notice whether a blog publishes every day?
Do you prefer something new often, or do you like having a little more time between posts?
And if you write yourself – do you sometimes feel that the next post is already waiting before the previous one has even had time to settle?
You May Also Like
If you would like to read more about how I develop the blog, try new ways of writing and attempt to understand what the statistics are actually telling me, you can continue here:
- Blog Statistics Week 35 – What Is Really Happening on Malix.se?
- When One Idea Becomes Five – and the Day Is Already Behind Schedule
- School Culture and How We Treat Children – Big Differences Between Two Schools
Follow Malix.se
Would you like to follow along while I continue this experiment with the blog?
Over the next few weeks, I will continue looking at what happens when I allow some days to be free from new posts. I will also continue sharing what I learn here in Blog School.
You can subscribe to Malix.se and receive new posts when they are published:
And no – there may not be a new post every single day anymore.
That is rather the point.
🌿 Live today, right now. Yesterday is history, and we know nothing about tomorrow.
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