Is Blogging Worth It?
There are over 600 million blogs in the world today, with an estimated 2 million posted a day. There is no doubt that blogs bring huge value to businesses; Content Marketing is an industry worth $400 billion which is growing each year. However, many businesses are still unsure how often they should be posting blogs. Our own blog will shed some light on this!
Blogs can add to the value of a business in two main ways; search engine optimisation (SEO) and increasing the brand power of a company. Search engines crawl the web and assess how much “meaningful” content a website holds, and this is used to rank the website in terms of how close to the top of a web search it will be. Research by Hubspot found that companies who publish 16 blog posts a month gained 3.5 times more traffic than companies which only blogged less than four times a month[1].
Research has shown that blogging can increase both B2B and B2C sales. B2C companies who posted 11 or more blogs a month received four times more traffic than websites which only produced between four and five. This occurs on a smaller scale for B2B companies, who received 3.75 times the leads of companies who blogged three or less times a month[2].
Is There Such Thing as Too Much?
The answer to the question of blog frequency is not set in stone; it depends on company size, industry, and sales strategy. It also depends on blog quality; there are certain tactics which you can use to make sure that your blogs are of the maximum potential effectiveness. The blogs should be integrated into your website, be consistently published, and be of high quality. There is no point in putting out 10 blogs worth of substandard content rather than one well researched, informative, and relevant article. Remember, blogs don’t just drive traffic, but add credibility to your company. People also don’t like being overloaded with information; Hubspot found that when they increased their new posts to daily an increased number of people unsubscribed from their newsletter[3].
Make Sure You Know Why You Are Posting
If your goal is to generate organic traffic and clicks for your website, then it is best to blog frequently. This can be a time-consuming task for small businesses; this is why many choose to outsource their blogging so as to be able to keep up with this frequency without compromising quality. However, search engines don’t just search for frequency of posts. It is possible that you can increase your search engine optimisation by frequently updating posts. These can be posted between three and five times a week, depending on size.
If you are focussing on building up brand awareness, then it is not as important to post as frequently. These blogs are to give your company a chance to provide helpful information to whoever your target audience is. This content should be as varied as possible; it could be a “behind the scenes look” at your company, an “employee of the month”, or an in-depth explanation of one of your products. Leaders in the industry suggest that these blogs could be posted between one and four times a week, depending on size.
It can be a struggle to post frequently and still maintain relevance. To get inspiration you can try looking at similar blogs, and also check frequent search engine results relating to the field. You can also approach blogging from both ends of technical expertise in your field; highly specialist pieces which explore the product or service in detail, along with introductory pieces which introduce you to a newer and less-experienced audience. Ideally, this last type of content will always be relevant if your blog is generating traffic; it is known as “evergreen”. It is very SEO friendly; this means that blogs you posted years ago can still be generating clicks.
In terms of how frequently one should post blogs, there is no one definitive answer. Like all important business decisions, it is something which requires you to refer to your model and strategies and should be constantly reviewed. It is always worth using measurement metrics to see how effective your blogs are, and consulting experts to ascertain whether or not your posting strategy needs reviewing.
If you need help to create a successful brand strategy that will achieve growth for your business, get in touch with Mint. Creative Marketing.
Sources
[1] Carmicheal, Kayla. “How Often Should You (Or Your Company) Blog? [New Data]”. Blog.Hubspot.Com, 2020, https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/blogging-frequency-benchmarks.
[2] Brenner, Michael. “How Often Should You Blog? [Blog Post Frequency RESEARCH]”. Marketing Insider Group, 2020, https://marketinginsidergroup.com/content-marketing/how-often-should-you-blog-blog-post-frequency-research/.
[3] Patel, Neil. “5 Simple Steps That’ll Help You Determine How Often You Need To Blog”. Neil Patel, 2020, https://neilpatel.com/blog/5-simple-steps-thatll-help-you-determine-how-often-you-need-to-blog/.
