The Truth About Quantity vs. Quality
“What’s more important to you: Quantity, or Quality?”
Your answer might be – it depends. It depends on what exactly we’re talking about, and in what context too. For example, would you rather have 50 average tasting bananas, or 1 banana that tastes better than any other banana you’ve ever had before.
If you’re stranded on a deserted island, then it really doesn’t matter what the dang banana tastes like – the more, the better! In other situations, you just want one, but you want it to taste really good. For some of you, maybe you just don’t like bananas at all.
Okay – banana analogy aside, I wanted to get a little more specific here and see what people thought about Quantity vs. Quality in regards to blog posts.
What’s more important to you: Quantity or Quality of blog posts written on a blog?
What Most Readers Will Say
I had asked this question on my Facebook Page, and received over 20 comments all saying virtually the same thing:
Quality is more important.
And that totally makes sense. We only want to read things that are worth our time and are useful, moving, noteworthy, unique, relevant, well thought out, etc. – especially when it’s the kind of information that’s supposed to help us improve some aspect of our businesses or our lives.
Here are a few notable quotes from those who responded:
“Quality. I get tired of blogs filling up my reader with junk.”
“If the quality isn’t there I’m not going to spend time sifting through a whole bunch of content just to find the one or two pearls that may be hidden in there somewhere.”
“For me it’s always quality. I’m pretty busy so I’d rather a blog I read have fewer posts with great content. But what is the definition of “fewer posts”?”
Most people would much rather have 1 killer blog post a week from a blog, than 5 “ehh” blog posts
What About the Authors?
Although I totally agree that quality is more important than quantity, and I write with those intentions in mind, many authors know that quality is important, but will put quantity above it mainly for one particular reason:
Search Engines
Search engines have a mysterious way of effecting how many us of write blog posts, which can decrease the quality of an post.
The truth is, the more you write about a particular subject, the higher your website will rank in the search engines. Your Alexa ranking will drop too. And because high rankings = more traffic, sometimes quality takes a back seat to quantity.
Google tries it’s best to properly rank websites, using an algorithm that tries to take into account quality by including the quality of backlinks to a website (i.e. higher ranking sites that link to you are worth more), but I can easily see a blog with hundreds of crappy posts about a subject totally rank higher than a blog with just 4 or 5 epic blog posts.
So How Do We Find a Balance?
If you are an author of a blog (which I know many of you are), what do you think? How do you determine the balance between quantity vs. quality?
If you’re not an author of a blog, what’s your take on quantity vs. quality?
This post was meant to be thought-provoking, so I’m looking forward to reading the discussion. There are no wrong answers.
Cheers!
Posted on : March 17th, 2010
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48 Comments (Click Here to Leave a Comment Below)
Personally I always opt for quality. Whether that is in blogs I read or in Twitter accounts I follow. I have unsubscribed to far more blogs because they post a load of rubbish 3 times a day that because someone posts thoughtful, high quality articles only a few times a week (or less). Infact, I think it is these unique, high quality posts that can be great for attracting links (linkbait) and ultimately help build a blog much quicker and to greater heights than someone who posts every day simply for the sake of it.
Hey Pat,
I wasn’t sure where this post was going when I read the first paragraph, bananas? LOL BUT It’s timely you ask the question. I met you at the IBM Academy. I only recently started reading your blog; I realized you were attracting a lot of traffic and comments.
I wanted to see how you were posting (frequency). It seems like you post every 2 days and put a lot of thought into your posts and the result is quality versus posting every day just to do it “every day” It makes a lot of sense.
Take Care,
Mike
Hey Pat,
For me, quality always comes first. I don’t know if that’s the right approach or not – I don’t really have monetary metrics to back it up.
Looking at most really successful bloggers, it really does look like they often have both – but I would wager that I could stand to drop my quality a little bit. Many of the most popular blogs don’t have super amazing content – they have pretty good content, a cut above the rest, but with frequent updates and interesting links and banter thrown in.
For me, I started my blog as a way to literally just blog my thoughts – the fact that it’s grown in popularity and generating passive income now took my a bit by surprise, and I have been thinking about what I should do if I want to treat it more like a business.
From a passive income/business oriented and metrics oriented standpoint, I think it makes sense to go for quantity – posting at least 7 times a week, with perhaps hard hitting, quality posts 2-3 times a month sprinkled in.
Pat,
In my mind, if you want to build a community of people around the ideas and information on your site, you’d BETTER focus on quality. Better quality = return visitors = more loyalty. Also, when I think of quality, I consider grammar, punctuation, style and usefulness of the information. Who wants to read a brand new post about an internet marketing tactic that worked 5 years ago, but is useless today?
….not sure if you ever noticed, Pat, but in the early days of Adsense, there were several people who wrote 30-page eBooks and put them up for sale for $97, and made tens of thousands off of them. Of course, this could be attributed to a variety of things….Adsense was an easy thing to sell because people saw it, because of captivating sales copy as well, those books, even though they were short in (quantity) of pages, they sold for so high because of the perceived (quality) of the information….
Granted, just about all the ‘safeguarded secrets’ and mystery behind pushing the $97 price point are all pretty much exposed nowadays…..had people jumped in on Adsense, in the earliest days of the program, they could be sitting pretty like “Joel Comm”….essentially launching a career off of it. So, that also tells me that “Timing” is quite an important element, as well…..
I think success can be found at the intersection of “quantity”, “quality” and “timing”…..
I remember the guest post by Henri Juntilla about article marketing and him mentioning putting out 5 or so posts a day and mentioning that you shouldn’t sweat making them perfect, but just getting them done. This is an example when quality takes a back seat to quantity. As a blogger when you are newer and without an established audience then you are out screaming alone in the wilderness, desperate for some attention. Bloggers like Pat have established audiences, and so are able to tailor and refine their messages betters because they already have people’s attention.
The easy answer (and most difficult to implement) is that you don’t pick one – you have both. A high quantity of high quality posts. Easier said than done for sure, but I think it’s a good goal to have.
I would honestly have to say quality Pat. I so 3 blogs a week, some which grow into articles for other sites, but I always strive to give good information to my readers. If I’m not providing something useful, then my writing serves no purpose. Ranking high in the search engines would be awesome of course, but I want to be helpful to my readers. And I firmly believe that if what you are offering is solid advice the rest will eventually follow.
Like your banana analogy, it all really depends on what your situation. I know on my blog, the posts I put in the most time to create are generally the highest ranking on my site. However, I think the small update posts are essential to my blog because it’s more of a journal of my real estate en-devours. I try to make the small update posts valuable to my readers, but for sure the quality of them is far less.
Now a blog like this one where it’s more of an “information” blog, quality is your main goal and you have no need for posting small updates to keep your readers informed of what you are doing. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?
Important question, no doubt. I’m trying to keep up with my blog, 3x a week. I realize that that might be too little for some people or too much for others. I also realize that some people might appreciate my personal posts while others care more for my eHow progress.
I would like to stay I strive for quality over quantity most of the time but like you mentioned, definitely depends on the situation!
I’m with Eric, I think the best answer is both. For me consistency and a schedule that I don’t have to guess is important too. I know there are some fabulous blogs out there with random outstanding posts (or hilarious posts — Magazine Man’s comes to mind) but I rarely remember to check them if they don’t post on an easily identifable schedule.
Quality is more important to me. I only write 2 blog posts per week, so I try to make them good quality. I think it would be harder for me to degrade the quality than to improve it, as I am usually a perfectionist about my writing. Plus, I mainly use my blog to keep myself focused on my long-term projects. As long as it achieves that purpose, I don’t feel any pressure to provide more quantity and rank higher in search engines at this point.
Pat: this is a timely post for these days. The reason we are tempted to go for quantity over quality is that we want volume (lots of readers) and we want it now. Quality will help us develop relationships with a dedicated community of readers – but it takes time to build relationships, and Google’s/SEO’s horns keep honking in the back of our (my) brain. And we won’t see the reward of strong relationships with true fans for some time after starting.
My question: how do we keep the focus on quality and ignore (as much as possible) the call of quantity? Is there anything that can be jiggered to ‘reward’ us for producing quality content in the immediate term? (do comments provide the same mental ‘payoff’ as stat volumes)
Like anything else quality is more important. For a blog to receive more readers we need to have a quality blog in terms of the contents and also the blog design itself. But we all know it is just too hard to maintain a good quality blog.
Quality to whom? What I find high Quality may not be high Quality to someone else, especially if they’re looking for one particular topic. When you’re talking regular blog readers, yes I would totally say Quality. But, that’s also if you’re established and have a following. If not, the only way to get noticed it seems is to write a lot of Quantity for Google. Now, don’t get me wrong, I try to make all my posts Quality, but the truth is, you can’t. There will always be some blogs that turn out better than others. Some of my blogs that show up #1 in Google are little odd blogs that are interesting and fun. I write for both, Quantity and Quality. In our world, I think it’s important to be honest and say we write for both our readers and Google search. We all want our blogs to do well in all areas.
Hey Pat,
I’ve recently made a big shift in focus from quantity to quality. I’ve already noticed a higher level of engagement from people who read my blog and I’ve noticed an increase in subscribers too. And it’s definitely happening much faster than when I wrote every single day which is kind of cool. I’m definitely in the camp of quality over quantity. That being said, I think an early stage blogger in the first few months needs to do something, either post every day or write alot of guest posts. The thing is even if they write alot of guest posts, they don’t want people getting referred to their blog and not finding anything there when they arrive. So it’s kind of a balancing act as you said. But, quality seems to be the way to go if you ask me.
I am a quality man, and I don’t do quality AND quantity either. Many of my posts get up to 1500 or 2000 words and are heavy material, so I only post 2 or 3 times a week so as not to. Overwhelm my readers.
When people respond to this question they seem to default to the “lowest common denominator” in their response. Quality vs. Quantity = great content vs. crap.
I’m sure you would agree that crap should never be offered up, and perhaps the question should be “would you rather have pretty good content more often, or great content less often?”
As long as the content is witty or makes me think, is well thought out, and adds value to my day, I’m happy to read up to 2 posts per day. I probably cannot digest more quality content than that in a day from one source (taking into account the fact that I read multiple blogs, magazines, newspapers, etc). Twice a week should be bare minimum.
I’ve noticed that just about every strives for quality first, but the truth seems to be that it comes down to balance. Quality will bring back the people we want reading our blog, and quantity seems to bring us the readers that we need, and the balance between quality and quantity might just be YOUR style, whichever you choose it to be.
Great post Pat, very thought provoking.
I believe Quality is king. When thinking about content for my site, I remind myself what you and other have stated: Write for your audience. If I found my site from a Google search, would the post quality make me want to come back for more? Or, would the site look like nonsense and make me never want to see the site again? My goal is that people find the content informative and at least subscribe to my feed.
And so far, I have gone from 0 to seven. It’s a start
I aim for originality and usefulness in each post. At the same time, I’m not trying to “save the world” with each article. I’m covering a lot of topics, financial news, and reviews. Obviously each of those aren’t going to speak to everyone all the time. As long as it’s original and useful to a percentage of my audience, I’m fine with it. I aim for high quantity of those types of articles. People reading can skip what doesn’t apply. The search engines don’t skip anything.
Similar to many, I go for quality generally, but I always push myself to produce more great content. The most important thing is to keep writing, which is undeniably the hardest thing to do. So, while quality is important, I do my best to generate more quantity as well.
It’s all about following your own DNA and feel for what you think is best. There’s no point writing for quality or quantity, IF you can’t sustain it for a long, long time. I used to produce many more posts per week, but I gradually cut it down to 1-2 posts per week. That’s the point I’m comfortable right now, without sacrificing the quality.
Everyone’s life is different, and not everyone get off work at 5 pm. So, do what’s best for yourself, but don’t produce crappy posts. You might get ranked higher on Google, but what’s the point if someone just leaves after reading your headline?
Pat, I think you’re doing a good job at maintaining the quantity/quality balance. Sure great to be able to focus on what you love to do all day long! =)
Thanks for a quality post!
Why can’t we just have both. I person that strives for quality can have quantity as well I would say. Yea I am not saying that I can write 3 good post a day, but if I think about it, why can’t I. Just because someone said once that you can’t do something doesn’t mean is true right? Most of us reading this post are people that have broken the rules and have challenged the status quo, c’mon if you can provide quality, multiply it by two you can do this.
Thanks for the question, Pat. It looks like the majority vote is quality, with a sprinkling of quantity mixed in, but both are probably optimal. If I can mention some blogs I really like: @rodkirby’s blog provides great content, but also includes polls and videos that keep things fun and interesting, @websuccessdiva has great quality content but also includes great links from across the net related to her content, and @scotthyoung published fantastic quality content that keeps me coming back for more. And of course, you do a pretty good job as well
I forgot to add, @larrybrauner writes very high quality posts, which is the reason I go back time and time again to his blog.
Judging from personal experience outside of the blogging world, I’d say it’s about a balance. You need both, but how much of both is the real question here. If you go all out on quality you’re going to have a hard time keeping up on posting often enough to hold interest (at some point your quality hits a limit and taking another day just to perfect an already high quality post is a waste). On the other hand concentrating on quantity is going to produce a lot of crap.
I think each person should find their own balance. Figure out how long it takes you to write a high quality (not necessarily perfect) post. Maybe you have a talent for writing and you could do it in a couple hours, then posting 5 times a week might be no challenge for you, which is awesome.
On the other hand lets say you like to write a post, sleep on it, and rewrite it the next day, now you need a good 2 days to write a quality post. So maybe 2-3 posts a week will produce quality for you, so go with that. Then offset your lower post rate with quick single paragraph posts on something topical and recent, that’ll keep your readers looking forward to your site all the time even though you only write a serious article a couple times a week.
I just pulled all this out of my ass so if I’m making no sense I’ll crawl back into my hole. : D
Screw the search engines! Go for the community. I write for what my readers want to hear. Quantity may get me up on a search engine, but I lose my loyal readers.
Very true quality beats quantity always
I agree about community ruling vs. just putting out search engine fodder, it is a delicate balance though because you want some quantity in keywords etc. but quality in your articles. Good post!
For me, quality is more important than quantity. But we still have to consider the latter factor. Perhaps in terms of creating posts, two to three high-quality posts would provide a good balance between the two factors.
Why stress over the dichotomy of quality vs. quantity? Write a LOT of really great posts!!!
I like this post, Pat – and I would like to say that I think you have achieved an excellent balance of quality and quantity. I seem to get bombarded with posts from problogger, which has excellent quality – most of the time. But I just can’t keep up with it. But your posts come through at a rate that I can read and implement changes where necessary or make comments, and feel I have absorbed the information before the next post comes through. Also, I enjoy reading your posts because you have chosen to be so transparent and a ‘real’ person that I look forward to what you have to say next!
Anyway, I know this question wasn’t about critiquing what you are doing, but your posting is a fine example of a balance of quality and quantity which I think is the key.
I still have heaps of work to do with my blog to create a community of followers, but I can see how with my topic of weight loss, that it is important to not only provide excellent quality, but to post often enough to be a support mechanism for people but not too often as to become overwhelming. Hopefully that makes sense!
Cheers, Lisa
I go for quality because even if you have a lot of blogposts but not quality enough then it will be ignored. Yes you may have lots of blogposts and you rank high in the search engine but were you able to create a community of loyal customers? So, I really think its best to strive for quality blogposts and quality relationship with your readers.
Quality, hands down. It takes time to build an audience, no matter how much content you put up all at once. Our society is “bigger, faster, more…NOW.” But those things burn out quickly. Create quality, market the heck out of it (don’t depend just on search engines), and readers will come. Or not. But if you all you have is quantity and no quality, readers will come and leave, quickly. You haven’t built trust, you haven’t built relationships. Those readers won’t be back.
I’m all about search engine rankings, but the quality of my posts are much more important to me – hands down.
I want to write about topics that I care about and can add value to. I also want to build a following of people who really value and look forward to my viewpoints. If this means that I have lower search engine rankings, but a group of solid followers interested who find value in my content, then I’m happy.
The Truth about Quality or Quantity.
This is really a question about context. The field in which the decision –give me quality or give me quantity happens. For example, are ten poorly written posts containing killer information better than one very well written post containing useful information? Are 100 flat warm beers, better than one fresh icy cold, ready to open beer?
It depends on what you’re measuring.
And what we’re usually measuring is…What’s in it for me?
The decision is always about getting what we want, when we want it and how we want it according to our needs at that moment…and that will always be measured on a sliding scale between quality and quantity.
But that’s not the end of the matter…
The most important decision any of us can make is using our time and resources to make sure we can get both quality and quantity because we never really know what’s needed in the moment.
And about those beers…I chose the 100 flat warm beers. They made excellent fire extinguishers. The kids are safe. And the back porch can be rebuilt.
It really depends on how you define quality. Is it only quality when a tip is shared or is it quality by provoking thought and conversation? Perhaps quality is good spelling and grammar? I bet what is really needed is consistency. Regular posts written with a similar style and quality will satisfy readers.
Hi Pat,
Strange series of coincidences (from our MBA example from Dumbing it down post do now)
I’m in the process of finishing an article about this topic too.
My thesis: once quantity demand is met, then quality demand increases.
On a totally unrelated note, the balance picture looks like a hidden Mickey.
Hehe
Wait, google does what now?
Pat … don’t know what happened … finger accidentally hit the wrong key and voila! the comment vanished before I could finish it
but it was getting rather lengthy and as I was keying away I thought it would make for a good post so will take the liberty of posting my “reply” at “home” 
but the short of the long of it is: “it depends” …. lol
There is no doubt in my mnd one long 2000 word post which actually provides useful information is way more useful than 5x 400 word posts which waffle. In fact even if the 5 posts had the same content (overall) as the one 2000 word post I would prefer the one post becasuse a) its easier to read and less disjointed and b) better for the search engines. I don’t blog regularly – but when I do I try to make it useful – all the most useful blogs I follow have the same approach – some wont blog for months but when they do …
[...] I was just visiting over there this morning, and was keying away my comment to his post and question What’s more important to you: Quantity, or Quality?” when my flying fingers hit the wrong key and voila! The whole comment [...]
High quality is probably the most important but I also like brevity and well structured easy reading texts. Then again, I suppose that’s a part of the quality label too. Definitely also depends on the niche your blog’s in of course.
Interesting read.
In my humble opinion, quality beats all. I do understand the fine line that bloggers must walk to educate and entertain readers while at the same time appease the Google monster, but after once being a CBR (compulsive blog reader), these days I’d much rather spend a few minutes on an awesome post filled with valuable nuggets of knowledge.
Definitely quality is more important to me… if you have one good content, and you have a lot followers that one content could be equivalent to 5. For a blog reader like me, I usually follow blogs that make sense or at least provides useful information.
Why not do both – on the blog where I have the biggest following, all of my most popular posts – in terms of traffic, comments, and search engine appeal – are “series” articles. I write an epic article/post, doing everything I can to make it the highest quality, then break it down into more easily-digestible chunks. I then publish the segments once every day or two, until all of the content is published. The biggest downside to this is that the links are somewhat diluted and the commenting can get fragmented, but I (1) make it clear which post is the first in the series to encourage links to point to that first post, which improves the ranking for that post more than the others, and (2) lock the comments on the early installments, encouraging people to comment on the final segment.
quality is more important than quantity…surely but most times bloggers get bugged about having lots of posts per week..(am guilty too)..thats ends in lots of junk a few quality..
personally i rather have quality once in a week than quantity of junk daily ..
[...] that actually discourages creativity. Pat Flynn recently wrote a post showing how most readers prefer quality of a blog post over quantity. And I’m inclined to [...]
My blog is not epic, but I try to post only tings that are of quality interest to my self first and then I have to think would anyone else really give a ‘crap’ if I can’t honestly say yes to either then what is the point in hitting publish.