Is There an Ideal Blog Post Frequency? It Depends

There are few topics in the blogging world that people are more opinionated on, and less sure of, than blog post frequency.

Of course, the quick answer is the obvious one – the more content the better.

However, that sentence really should read the more quality content the better. In the early days of blogging, “the daily blog” was a thing, and with little to no competition from an SEO perspective, people were essentially able to rank with their glorified diaries.

Man, wouldn't that be nice if that were still the case?

Some bloggers like to write when they feel inspired, but others do best under a self-imposed schedule, but however you like to work, it's worth knowing what you should be working towards.

With Blog Post Frequency, It's All About Intent

As with pretty much everything in the blogging world, your blog post frequency will be guided by what you're trying to accomplish.

A celebrity news gossip site, for example, is likely only concerned with staying up-to-date and pumping out as much content as humanly possible. Whereas a travel site would have a much greater pay-off from building an in-depth city guide than news related snippets about a city (though those style articles can be good for getting backlinks).

What Do the Numbers Say?

A recent study from the Marketing Insider Group suggested that the highest results for traffic and conversions applied to sites that published 2-4 times per week, with 11 posts per month being the sweet spot. 

Again, we feel it's a bit too base to just talk about the number of posts without talking about the quality of said posts, so take it with a grain of salt.

Hubspot, which is more small business than content creator facing, recently suggested that marketers should consider whether they're trying to achieve organic traffic or brand awareness, as that would affect their approach.

Their opinion was that for true growth in organic traffic you should “publish as much optimized content as possible.” They suggested small blogs post 3-4 new articles per week and large blogs post 4-5 times a week (a mixture of new and updated posts).

For brand awareness, they said to focus more on “diversifying content and providing useful information.” Small blogs should post 1-2 new posts per week and large blogs should post 3-4 times per week (a mixture of new and updated posts).

The Numbers Don't Tell the Whole Story…

Most conversations on blog post frequency have to veer into the subjective. Sure, posting more might be better, but you also need to consider blogger burnout. What's the most you can do in a sustainable way? – that's the real question.

Not to mention, there are plenty of examples of people who are crushing it by actively ignoring blog post frequency entirely. Take Brian Dean, for example. He only has about 40 posts on his site, releases a new post perhaps every month or six weeks,  and yet he gets millions of hits a year because his content is so in-depth.

Another SEO expert, Ryan Tyler Thomas, would very much agree with Brian's approach.

We asked Ryan, “how much of a factor is blog post frequency in your opinion?”

“Frequency is not a factor. You're better off writing highly useful, highly sharable, evergreen content than writing weak content regularly. Great content takes research, it takes time, and above all it takes a editorial focus that makes it worth reading.

Don't be afraid to link and share old content from your archives when its relevant or timely again. If a topic comes back into fashion, update your high performing older posts, and put them back into circulation.

We forget, as marketers and creatives that just because we made it and have stated our point of view that not everyone had read it, and not everyone found it relevant to them when we hit publish.

Your job isn't publishing every Monday, it's publishing the best possible content and making sure it's discoverable when its needed.” – Ryan Tyler Thomas, Head of Integrated SEO, Go Squab

As always, we hope this helps you in your blogging journey.