One of the most common questions raised when beginning a blog is, “how often should I blog or publish new posts? ” In a less complex world, publishing new content several times a day would seem ideal, but rarely do businesses have enough resources to devote to such an endeavor nor do most have a captive enough audience they can entertain with such a content onslaught.
So, it is important to know what you can allocate in order to be successful by creating content for your blog. Not only that, be sure that you have researched what your audience’s reading habits and interests are, in ensure that you’re making the most with the time that you do devote. Below are the 4 ways to be sure that you’re creating content as often as you must in order to be successful in your blogging venture.
Be Consistent
Consistency has to be the most important part of blogging. Whether you intend on creating new content every day, week, or month, it is important to continue to be consistent with it. If your plan is to post once a month, post on the same day every month. Believe it or not, Google begins to take presidency to ensure that it crawls your website for new content on that day because it will begin to see a pattern. Amazing, isn’t it? If Google or other search engines are able to discover your posting schedule, your posts are likely to appear in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Page) much more quickly. Of course, this depends on the quality of your content, low-quality content will never help you rank higher – regardless of frequency.
Be Realistic
Whether you are writing all of your content yourself, hiring an intern, or utilizing a third party company, you need to know what you will be capable of rolling out when it comes to creating new content. When creating the content within your own business, it is always a good idea to write the first couple of posts that you have added to your editorial calendar, time how long each one takes to complete, and average it all together to get an idea of how long future blog posts will take. This makes it possible to be realistic about the amount of time you need to dedicate to creating new content for your blog.
Get as many people within your company involved in writing blog posts. Allowing for different voices and talents to be displayed on your blog makes it more possible to roll out more content on a consistent basis. Everything is better when you have help, right?
Lastly, if you are taking advantage of a third party company to write your content for you, understand the budget that you have to allocate to the task. Essentially, be realistic in what you’re willing to pay and the results that you wish to see from your money spent.
Check out the Competition
Some of the best research to discover your ideal posting frequency will be to take a look at what your competition has working for them. If their blog has been around for a while, it is very likely that they have figured out what works best when delivering content within your industry. If you find that they are posting every week on Monday and you currently do not have the resources to do the same in the beginning, make goals to get there. Start with every other week and build up to being able to post every week.
Be sure, however, to not attempt replicating a company outside of your industry, it is smart to learn from those that are doing what you do already, but doing it best.
Test, Test, Test
In the world of inbound/content marketing, you learn that you must constantly test yourself when you’re getting started to see what works best. Maybe you overestimated your audience’s interest in new daily content? You have to give it a try, at times, to figure that our for yourself. Try publishing on different days and at different times and see what difference it makes. Eventually, you will find the perfect rhythm to satisfy your company and your audience.
When asking, “How often should I blog?”
When you’re just getting started with a blog, even the most basic tasks can seem daunting – especially if you’re blogging for the first time. When it comes to frequency, however, don’t spend too much time fretting over getting it perfect. Find a schedule that works for you and your audience, and go for it. The worst thing you can do is publish inconsistently, so just make sure you choose a frequency you can keep up with. The more frequently you publish, the greater the chances of improving your SEO, so try to publish as often as possible – without sounding like a broken record.