Deciding how often you should blog for your business isn't always easy...
Weekly? Fortnightly? Monthly? Whenever the mood takes you?
When you're planning to start blogging, your ideal blog post frequency is one of the toughest questions.
Because you can spend a lot of time searching through the reams of data on the correct frequency of blogging.
Lots of people do research on this subject.
But could there not possibly be a shorter version of their findings?
Something suitable for someone who just wants a punchy answer with no messing around?
Well, yeah. There sort of is:
How often you should blog (in a nutshell)
As a very broad rule:
Writing more blog posts tends to be better than posting fewer.
Longer articles tend to be better than shorter ones.
These conclusions are not ironbound. Nor do they take into account the many factors that affect how long a blog post should be for SEO.
In general though, we can say that more frequent, longer posts are often better. But do you have the time to write a large number of lengthy articles every week?
Probably not. Plus, websites like Buzzfeed and The New York Times post over 200 articles. Per day. No one can match that.
Instead, when it comes to how often you should blog, consistency may be the best quality to strive for. Why?
Let's dial it back a little first...
Why blog?
People don't just do this stuff for fun. There are many benefits of blogging:
1) You get more chances to rank on Search Engines
The more high-quality content you have on your website, the more likely you are to grab the attention of search engines like Google.
The more posts you have, the more keywords you can include. The greater the odds are that you'll then be found by people who are searching for a company like yours.
Of course, you can't just spam out some content and hope that it ticks all the right boxes. Your blog posts should be:
High-quality – you need your articles to be well written.
Of a decent length – you don't have to aim for thousands of words, but there are many dangers of having thin content.
Relevant to your audience – if no one cares, why write it? Answer specific questions that you think, or your audience has told you, they want to know.
2) You build a community
When you're first starting writing a blog, nothing seems further from the realms of possibility than building a community through doing so.
But it's important to remember:
It can take a long time for you to get any big pay-off from blogging.
Don't be put off because you don't get instant results.
You won't immediately springboard to thousands or even a hundred interactions (comments, likes, and shares of your content on social media) in the short-term.
If you manage those numbers after a few months or even a year that's still not bad!
But you still get value early on.
Your blog will let you connect with your audience. It shows them what they have to gain by using someone with your skills and experience.
If you keep at it, and if you nurture your audience when you start to collect them, you will begin to get real value from your blog.
3) You can promote yourself via news and updates
Do you have some content that would be worthy of a press release if your business was big enough?
Didn't anyone ever tell you size (probably) doesn't matter? Tell the world!
Intersperse news about your company, business updates, or product promotions between your regular high-quality, well-researched blog posts.
Maybe risk 1 in 5 posts like this. Don't force it. Don't spam them.
4) You boost your credibility and show off your knowledge
Why should a potential customer come to you rather than your competitors?
Your blog gives you a chance to show off a little of what you know.
There is something of a dividing line between giving away all of your knowledge for free and clearly displaying what you have to offer.
But the more you blog, the more of a knowledge base you have to point to.
Your goal is to become a resource for your clients. In turn, this increases your visibility and helps build that community.
What factors affect how often you should blog?
How often should you blog for SEO purposes? How often should you blog for business or to increase sales?
Woah, woah, woah.
There are some important factors we need to consider first:
1) What resources do you have?
Creating rich and interesting content takes resources. Predominantly:
Time
Energy
Creativity
Are you strapped for any of these?
If you are, the usual alternative is to outsource to one of the many (shameless plug alert) SEO copywriting services out there. (Whereupon, you replace all those resources with the need for a different one – cash.)
Either way, your best frequency of blogging will be intimately tied to the resources you have available to devote to it.
For most, simply running their business day-to-day is a lot of work. Do you have the energy left over to write a 1000-word blog post on top of that?
How about the time to invent or decide on topics? To write a catchy title? That's on top of finding some decent images and promoting your content.
You'll probably want to actually see your friends and family once in a while too...
Remember to factor in your resources when you're planning your ideal blog post frequency. Don't exhaust yourself because you've chosen a crazy schedule.
2) What are your goals?
Your blog should be part of your overall marketing strategy.
If you're aiming to reach more customers through your blog then you probably want to blog more often.
If you are also concentrating on other marketing channels – such as paid ads – you can maybe get away with posting less often.
3) What are your competitors up to?
Exploring what your competitors are up to is a simple place to start a blog.
They might not be a content writing agency full of experts or have a highly experienced freelance content writer on board.
They might be proceeding on pure guesswork.
But it can still be helpful to check out:
How often your competitors post
How long their posts are
How much interest their posts are generating
This information can be a kind of benchmark to measure yourself against.
Of course, if you're a small business, there's no sense measuring yourself against a major international competitor.
Look at the output of a similarly-sized organisation or a business you admire.
4) What does your audience want and expect?
Once you've been blogging for a little while, you can try varying your schedule to see whether more posts or fewer might get more engagement.
Let's say you normally post fortnightly:
You've got just about enough time to write one decent article in that timeframe. Blogging is a reasonably-sized part of your marketing strategy. Your competitors post roughly on that schedule too.
It all makes you think it's probably a decent fit for you.
Now see if you can manage weekly. Did that get you more engagement? Did your audience seem keener on that schedule?
If in doubt, why not ask them?
Post a survey or a poll on social media once you've gotten a little following. See what the people who matter most have got to say.
Your ideal blog post frequency is a consistent one
There's no single fixed frequency of blogging that's perfect for everyone. How often you should blog for your business will depend on it and you.
Your resources. Your marketing strategy. Your competition. And your audience. Because make no mistake, your audience will have expectations...
Your blog is a reflection of the quality and reliability your company offers to your clients.
So, do you post randomly? Is it sometimes a short post, sometimes a long one? Sometimes perhaps it hasn't quite been checked for grammar or spelling?
What does that say about your company?
The best option when working out how often you should blog is to strive for consistency.
Because there's one lesson to learn from all those business leaders who start blogging only to give up after an article or two:
Writing a blog isn't something you will succeed with overnight. You need to work at it.
Struggling to find the time and energy to start a blog? Not sure where to begin?
Let's talk. The Maiden Standard has been providing SEO copywriting services to businesses in Bristol and beyond for over ten years.
Reach out to me at benjamindmaiden@gmail.com to talk through your blogging plans today. There's no cost and no commitment.