Content is essential for search engine optimization. It’s what gives search engines the information they need to assess your website, and it’s what your users are looking for. In short, quality content is how you improve rankings. And whether you’re blogging for a living or simply incorporating a blog into your business website, most of your content will probably come from your blog. Intuition says that more blog posts equal more traffic equals better rankings. But is quantity all that matters, or does quality win out? The answer to how often you should blog for SEO depends on a variety of factors.
How often you should blog for SEO depends on your marketing goals
Everyone knows that content marketing is important for SEO, but it can be important in different ways for different businesses. You can use blog posts to boost traffic to your website if you notice that other marketing types are failing at that. Or you can use them to build up your brand at times when traffic is not an issue. Finally, if your blog is your business, then blogging needs to do both of those things, but you have to determine your goal in advance. This will affect both how often you publish posts and what those posts are about.
Blogging for Traffic
When you’re blogging to attract traffic the answer is simple – more is more. You need to post quality content as often as you possibly can. Some major websites that rely on blogging post as often as several times a day. Of course, if you’re working alone or with only a small team of writers, that may not be possible. So you’ll need to decide how much time you can dedicate to blogging and how many quality posts you can create and publish in that time. Time your posts well – if you’re launching a product, for example, and want more people to know about it, increase the frequency of posting around the launch date.
Blogging for brand awareness
If you’re trying you build a brand through blogging, quality and content matter more than quantity and frequency. In this case, it’s far more essential to choose the right topic and represent your brand well. So think only about writing well. Some blogs that adopt this strategy post as infrequently as once every two weeks. If you’re not already a big name in your niche, this will be too little, but at least you don’t have to worry about publishing daily.
How often you should blog for SEO depends on your resources
Blogging is probably not the only thing you do. It’s just one part of running your business, so it can’t take up all of your resources. Instead, you need to consider how many employees you have and how much time they need to spend on working on other things. This will, of course, limit how much effort you can invest in blogging. It would be unrealistic to, for example, plan on publishing 10 posts a day if you’re working alone and only have 10 hours to spend on the job.
So take stock of the resources at your disposal and figure out how much you can feasibly blog without sacrificing other important tasks. Be realistic when doing this – you’ll only hurt yourself if you bite off more than you can chew.
How often you should blog for SEO depends on your audience
You should always keep in mind that you’re not blogging for yourself – you’re blogging for an audience. If you want your blog to be successful, your audience needs to like it. So what you should be thinking about is what your users want and how often they want it.
To get the answer to that, you’ll need to analyze how your users react to your content. Which topics get the most hits? How much time does the average user spend reading your blog? How often do they return to check for new posts? The answers to these questions can help you decide how often you need to blog to satisfy your audience.
Factors other than the frequency of posting will affect the success of your blog
The success of your blog doesn’t just depend on how often you post. A multitude of factors play a role in the amount and quality of traffic you’ll attract. Among the most important ones are:
- Content quality: Publishing short posts multiple times a day that add no value to your website accomplishes nothing. Your content needs to be good to have an impact. You have to choose suitable topics, use the right keywords, employ on-page SEO tactics, write engaging posts, etc.
- Consistency: Publishing 20 posts in a week and then taking a break for a month is not a good strategy. There should be a rhythm to your posting – you should post in intervals, roughly the same amount every week.
- Competition: If you don’t have a lot of competition, you can get away with fewer posts. But if you’re in a very competitive niche, you may need to up the tempo. Research your main competitors – how often do they blog?
How often should you blog for SEO on average?
There is no set answer to how often you should blog for SEO – it all depends on your website and your resources. But we know from research that 11+ posts per month give the best results for SEO. Fewer than that, and you might not see improvement.
Of course, this is only on average. If you have a strategy that works with more occasional posts than that, you should stick with it. Experiment until you find the sweet spot for your blog!
