According to a report from Oracle Eloqua, less than 42% of content marketers produce at least one content asset each week. 62% produce at least one piece every two weeks, and 29% produce multiple pieces per week.
83% of people surveyed said their organization has a blog
24% said they publish more than 11 posts in a month.
But, how often should you publish content?
The more you post, the more likely other people are to see your posts. Additionally, Google and other search engines give favorable treatment to blogs that post more often. Fresh content is king, even if it is not the best content!
The most views for content are on Mondays. The most links come in on Thursdays. The most comments occur on the weekends. So, when should you post?
What do I do?
I will speak from experience here. I run three blogs. One of my blogs has been around for five years and boasts a healthy 20,000 visitors per month which is excellent for niche blog. This blog began by creating posts once in a while. Then, I figured out that I need to post more regularly. It became an everyday habit to post new content, although I published the content several months in advance using WordPress technology. Through constant blogging, I also learned what type of content my readers like which helped me to write even more popular content.
My newer blog is getting off the ground.
My newer blog (this one) which is about business and outsourcing did not get off to such an easy start. We don’t have personal connections with thousands of outsourcers like we do with the notaries who read our notary blog. For our notary blog, we created a thriving newsletter. It is not so easy to develop a newsletter even with a handful of subscribers for our outsourcing audience. The only tools we have which work are publishing lots of interesting content, and using social media to promote it. So far the blog is growing. But, honestly, if you publish less than six interesting posts per week, your blog will have a difficult time showing up well on Google!
What should you do?
There are people who have a blog just so they can say that they have one, and so their website can link to a blog with pretty pictures and generally dull content written by dull people who write dull blogs for a living. Many of those people are the 42% of content marketers who write about one piece per week. Even if your piece is amazing, your blog will never get any traffic unless you pump up the volume. If you don’t depend on your blog for SEO benefits or clicks, then this behavior is acceptable. But, if you want to milk the web for all its got, start finding a way to write.
What about going viral?
Having posts go viral is a science that involves connecting what you are writing about to what I call an anchor. An anchor is a well known concept, person, or company. In my industry, connecting business ideas about hiring programmers to Steve Jobs, furry kittens, or the term “success” can lead to posts going viral. Promoting content on social media at the right time of day, and on the right mediums can also help your post go viral. What makes sense is to study what types of posts that you of your writers create are the most popular. Also study using anchors as that is your ticket to having a chance. Most of the marketing blogs that I read are utilizing the “anchor” strategy on a daily basis, and if you keep your eyes open, you can see how they connect apple cider with their latest marketing scheme, or how they compare their dog’s lifestyle to some marketing concept that they are promoting. It may seem dumb to you, but the highest calibre of professionals are using this every day, and it is not a difficult concept to grasp.
Summary
If you want your blog to be successful, I recommend six pieces per week, and hopefully six really interesting diverse pieces. Keep it interesting, and don’t keep hitting the same points in every blog otherwise your readers will go elsewhere.