It can be difficult to know how often to update a business blog. Some successful bloggers write posts once a month; others write new blog posts five days a week or even more. Following is some insight that can help any new entrepreneur know when and how to create new content in order to gain traffic and sales.

Your Schedule

Experts may not agree on how often you should update your blog but they do all agree that you need to update your blog at regular intervals. If you start off updating your blog three times a week, you cannot scale back to creating weekly or even bi-weekly updates without suffering for it. Readers will come to expect content at regular times and a blog that started off well but has been left alone for some time will reflect negatively on your company. Furthermore, each of your blog posts needs to be high quality. Grammar mistakes, misspelled words and/or outdated information will tell potential customers that you don't care about your image and thus can't be trusted to provide high quality products and/or services.

Analyze your schedule carefully to determine just how often you can realistically update your blog. If you want to create regular updates but don't actually have time to do so, you may want to consider using curated or aggregate content. Alternatively, you could opt to work with a professional content marketing company that can not only provide top quality, up to date content but help you market it on social media channels as well.

Your Target Audience

Your target audience is an important determining factor in how often you update your blog. If you are appealing to business professionals who expect informative, in-depth content, then posting content once a month may suffice. However, your monthly post would need to be an original piece of content that is well over 1,500 or even 2,000 words. It would contain information and/or resources that one would not be able to find anywhere else. Alternatively, those who are focused on providing the latest news about events and trends will probably want to create content on a very regular basis. This content would not need to be long as the priority is for it to be fresh.

The Need for Promote New Blog Posts

When blogging, it is always better to start off slow. You will need time to not only create winning content but promote it as well. This is an important point that many aspiring bloggers overlook when starting a new blog. Creating top quality, original content is extremely important but it is  not a guarantee on its own that your blog will gain followers. When starting out, you need to devote even more time to promoting your blog than to regularly updating it. Your blog promotion methods may include:

  • Creating guest posts for other, better-known blogs
  • Marketing your content on social media channels
  • Getting backlinks from reputable news websites and other authoritative websites
  • Creating lead magnets to build an email subscription list

The “Freshness Factor”

There is a common misconception that new content will generate traffic while older content will become useless after some time. However, this is not necessarily true. Hubspot recently discovered that over 70% of all its website traffic came from posts that were more than a month old. Freshness is a ranking factor in Google and the search engine does often promote brand new content over older content; however, the “fresh content boost” is usually temporary and authoritative, well-written posts often trump new content long-term.

If you have a blog that has been up and running for a couple of years, check the metrics carefully to see what type of content is getting the most views. Look over this content carefully to see if it needs to be improved or updated. Even well-written blog posts can become outdated due to business developments, technological advances or other factors. Updating old blog content in conjunction with new blog posts is an effective way to not only gain more traffic but also boost your standing in Google.

In Summary

If you aren't sure how often you should create new blog posts for your blog, consider the factors outlined above. Be realistic about your time, priorities, goals and obligations so you don't set out an unrealistic schedule that you can't adhere to. You need time to not only create or find good blog content but also promote it and keep it updated. Once you decide on a blog schedule, stick to it as much as possible. Doing so will prove to potential customers that you are serious about your work and business and can be trusted to provide top quality content at regular intervals.

If you are new to blogging or have been blogging for some time and are unsatisfied with the results, get in touch with us at your convenience. Brandgy offers website design, online marketing and branding services that can help you reach your target audience in the most effective manner possible.