How Often Should You Be Blogging?
No matter the size or market of your landscaping, design, or construction business, you should be updating your company blog to help with your website traffic and leads. But with numerous variables in play, it can be difficult to determine the frequency with which you should be blogging. We're here to help provide some clarity!
The most general school of thought for blog posts is that more is better (keep in mind: this applies to blogs ONLY. Different social platforms do not have the same rule of thumb). HubSpot statistics show that for most B2C businesses, blogs that produce 16+ blogs per month perform about 4.5 times better than ones that only put out 0-4 posts per month. So yes, more posts are great. But every business is different, and not all can handle 4 blog posts or more per week. We know how hard it is to determine what strategy is best for your business. That is why we’ve developed this stylized guide comprised of top SEO sources (related: What Is SEO, anyway?) to help you create the best blog for your business.
Know your limits.
If you are interested in putting your blog on a set schedule to increase your traffic and website leads, that’s great! But do not overexert yourself or your writers and come up dry within a month. Consistency is much more important than putting out fluffed-up content that will not perform well. If you aren’t sure what you can handle, start out with at least one blog post per week. If you have less than this, you will lose SEO momentum because search engines will crawl your website less often. Studies have shown that one blog post per week can be a good way to get started because it generates a relationship with consumers while also preventing you from burning out after the first month (or if you're paying for it, this one/week is the most affordable option). If you find you can increase from there, excellent — but don’t set a schedule you can’t stick to.
Related: 5 Step Plan to Dominating Local Search.
If you reach a point where you have a schedule you can’t quite maintain, but you don’t want to lower your posting rate because your blog is performing well (for traffic, leads, or customer close rate), don’t be afraid to use outside resources. SEO content writers and bloggers can be a helpful solution to finishing that last chunk of blogs for the week.
However often you choose to post at the get-go, and we cannot stress this enough, DO NOT SACRIFICE QUALITY FOR THE SAKE OF POSTING CONTENT. A quality post with shareable content will pop up over and over again despite how old it is, so make sure you are posting for quality first, not quantity, of content.
Know your audience.
The main reason people should be going to your blog for information is because you offer them content that they cannot find elsewhere. Remember, you're trying to attract a specific audience to your company website. You are blogging (or paying for blogging) because you want to increase your search rankings - and attract specific visitors.
When you get these visitors (or begin to), you want to keep them coming back. Keep them thinking of your company as they think through their decision about their new space at home. So think of topics (or your marketing company can) that you don’t discuss in your blogs very often or perhaps ones you have a surplus of posts for. Yes, you should mainly focus on the topics that receive the most views, but don’t be afraid to switch it up and post about other aspects of your market. You never know what might be a big hit.
Do time and day matter?
According to several studies, yes. Many analysts have come up with general schedules about the best times and days to post content, and it varies from platform to platform, so make sure you have the right information for your platform before you post. These are the general guidelines for the best blog post times: Monday from 8 am - 11 am for page views and Saturday from 8 am - 11 am for increased engagement. Which day is best for you? Well, it might depend on your content or what your businesses is looking for. If your content is more geared toward audience engagement like sharing, then post on Saturday; if your content is more geared toward increasing business directly through pageviews on your website, then perhaps Monday is the day for you. Whichever you choose (and it doesn’t have to be Monday or Saturday—you can pick any day that is best suited to your schedule), try to make it consistent. This is less for your audience but more for your benefit. Studies time and time again show that search engines like a repeat, consistent posting schedule - which helps book the rankings of your website.
So what's the answer? How often should you in fact be blogging? The answer depends in the results you want.
If you're looking for an extremely aggressive increase in traffic, you need at least 8-10 blog articles a month. If you're looking for a steady increase in articles, you need about 4 per month. Anything less than 4 will results in a maintenance (at best) of your traffic.
Now we all know, traffic alone doesn't mean much. You need revenue - which comes from highly qualified leads. So just because you're writing articles doesn't mean you're well on your way. It's all about what you're writing about - does it bring in the right traffic? Read more about this here: Keyword Research, Demystified.
