Finding Your Perfect Blog Frequency
One of the most common questions clients ask me when it comes to their blogs is, “How often should I be posting to my blog?” However this might be the wrong question to ask. It’s definitely important to choose a blog frequency that is manageable for you, but the real goal is not one frequency over another, it’s being consistent with the frequency.
If your only goal with your blog is to boost your presence on search engines such as Google, also known as SEO (search engine optimization), your readership will suffer. Think of your blog as an SEO enhancement — it must fit organically with the rest of your site, and provide added value to your readers and customers.
How Often Can You Manage?
First, figure out a frequency you are able to maintain without fail. A blog post can take anywhere from one to three hours to write, edit and post, depending on your writing experience. Whether you can realistically manage to post once a week or once a month doesn’t matter — simply pick the one that you can post consistently. If you post sporadically, it is a recipe for disaster on your blog.
A good way to figure out how often you can reliably post is to take a few months to prepare a few posts and keep them in draft mode. This way, you can get a realistic idea of how long it takes to develop a post, giving you a better idea of how many you will be able to post each month. If you’re able to keep up with weekly posting, that’s fantastic. However, if it will be a struggle, then go with a less frequent posting schedule and stick to it consistently. The key is to be realistic with your resources and expectations of yourself, your time and budget if you are outsourcing the writing.
A Note on Content
When planning content, make sure that your topics align with concerns that your customers will have about your industry. The goal of your content is to position you as an industry expert and someone that your customers look to for advice on common concerns. You can accomplish this through your blog by consistently providing useful information.
Don’t stress too much about the length of your posts. The message is far more important than the word count. If your message can be effectively communicated in 100 words (see Seth Godin’s blog for examples of short, hard-hitting posts), then that works! If you need 1500 words to get your message across, that can work too (Jeff Bullas is a great example of someone who posts highly informative and popular longer posts). However, don’t be wordy just for the sake of creating a longer post — this is a surefire way to lose your reader.
Lastly, if you can’t keep up a blog yourself consistently, but you think that a blog would be a valuable addition to your site, don’t forget that ghostwriting is an option. There are skilled professionals who can take your message via email or a short phone conversation and turn it into dynamic content for you to post on a regular basis.
