How Often Should I Blog?

You've either started or are thinking of starting a blog for your business and now you're left wondering, "How often should I blog?" My advice: Don't be fooled by umbrella statements like "more is better." That isn't necessarily the case. The frequency with which you post to your blog is entirely dependent on your business, your goals and your target.

That said, four times per week seems to be the magic number to aim for according to email data. Before you pass out from sticker shock, look at the results.

Increase Web Traffic

If you are a B2B or B2C company looking to generate traffic back to your blog or website, data indicates you should be blogging upwards of four times per week. Data also shows 11 or more blog posts per month will result in higher traffic if your company has 25 employees or less. Not quite four, but still a lot. And although that may seem like an overwhelming amount, know that your blogs posts don't all need to be the next great American novel. Keeping in mind the human attention span is less than a goldfish sometimes shorter is better.

The good news is, once you have an established library of content, the more significant traffic you'll receive. Surveys show that once a business publishes its 401st blog post, it experiences a significant spike in traffic - about twice the traffic of companies that have a total of 301-400 posts on their sites, in fact. That means if you blog four times per week you'll be able to maximize the value of your blog in six and a half months.  

Generate Leads

If lead generation is your game, posting four times per week will result in 4.5 times more leads than posting four or fewer monthly posts. However, companies with 25 or less generate twice as many leads when they post 11 or more times per month than if they only posted six to 10 posts per month. In this case, reaching that 401st blog post means three times more leads than companies that posted 100 times or less.

Post High Quality Consistently

Keeping all of that in mind, more important than frequency is consistency. Posting high-quality content on a regular schedule will beat out posting a ton just for the sake of posting. In fact, having a robust library of quality content can continue to drive blog traffic. According to another HubSpot study, 75 percent of their blog views — and 90 percent of blog leads — came from older posts. This shows that relevant and sticky content can actually gain value over time.

All best practices considered, the best way to approach a blog is a test and learn mindset. Create a blog calendar around a list of diverse topics and try posting with varying frequency to see if it affects metrics.

What publishing frequency works best for your blog? How did you determine that frequency?