HOW OFTEN SHOULD YOU BE POSTING TO YOUR BLOG?
We talk about it here on the blog all the time. Consistency is the rock solid foundation of traffic. If you’re trying to build your readership you’ve got to choose a couple of days a week to start posting on and stick to it. Its as simple as that.
A lot of businesses owners and bloggers, when they’re just getting started, really struggle with how often they should be pushing out content to their site. Everybody is constantly talking about how critical content is, it’s not surprising that this subject becomes a hang up for people.
Yes, content is the life force of a blog. But, it’s not the amount of content that determines success or failure. It’s the quality of content.
When you’re planning your blog the most important question to ask yourself is “how can I consistently publish A-FREAKING-MAZING stuff?”. If you look at your schedule, if you get real about how long it actually takes you to write up something awesome, and you find that once a week is all you can handle…that’s totally fine.
As long as your content is amazing, you don’t have to crank out 6 posts a week. You don’t even need to do 3 posts a week to see really encouraging growth from your blog.
I’ve worked with super successful ladies who publish once a week and rely on their blog for 90% of their sales leads. I once worked with a woman who has been publishing a post a day for a year and wasn’t getting any traction at all.
The bottom line? Posting frequency doesn’t matter as much as you’d think. Consistency is more important. Quality is more important. Putting your honest, genuine self into your posts is more important.
Posting frequency doesn’t matter as much as you’d think. Consistency is more important. Quality is more important. #mompreneur #girlboss
— Olivia Derby (@OliviaRDerby) May 5, 2016
That being said, (here comes the data. Woohoo data!) if we look at the landscape that’s out there right now, we can find some patterns that suggest a pretty good answer to the question: “How often should I be posting to my blog?”.
WHEN PEOPLE VISIT YOUR SITE
For the most technical answer, start by looking at your Analytics. You should probably be posting on the days that most people are visiting your site. When returning visitors pop over to your little corner of the internet, finding something new, that wasn’t there before, is going to get them to stay longer.
It makes sense right? You want people to spend more time with your content so that you get more opportunities to connect with them, and ultimately, convince them to become customers.
How do you find out which days people are visiting you? Start by clicking over to Google Analytics.
If you don’t have any traffic yet because you’ve just taken the leap and recently published your blog, don’t worry. Click here to get right to the recommendations for new bloggers.
TIP: Download the Analytics app. I love it and watch it more religiously than Dance Moms.
STEP 1: SET THE DATE RANGE TO FIND YOUR IDEAL POSTING TIMES
From the drop down menu on the right side of the screen set a date spanning an average month (or less if you don’t have a full month to work with) for your blog.
STEP 2: MY DASHBOARD
On the left side, there is a navigation bar that allows you to click through to different reports. Choose “Dashboards” → “Private” → “My Dashboard”.
Here you can check out how many users visited your site on which days. By hovering over points on the graph you can see exactly the number that visited your site on which day.
Note which days your spikes tend to land on. All of my major spikes occur on Tuesdays and Wednesday. Usually, I post on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays which shows me that I might need to readjust my schedule.
If you’ve got big spikes on just 2 days, and have been publishing content on 3 days, you might be able to pull back on the number of posts you’re putting out.
For more tips on making Facebook drive sales for your business, check out this post.
STEP 3: THE APP
Another easy way to check your high traffic days is through the “Overview” tab in the Analytics app. Tap “Overview”, set your date range, and check out the “Behavior” chart. Days and times marked with dark blue indicate the highest concentrations of traffic to your site. The light blue indicates the lowest amounts of traffic, and the middle blue represents something in between.
WHEN PEOPLE CHECK OUT YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA
Another good way to decide how often you should be posting is to look at your social media channels. Most of us publish a new article and then head straight over to social to let our fans know. Find out the days of the week that attract the most impressions and engagement on these networks and use that to help make your decision.
Take a look through your Facebook Insights and find out when you’re receiving the most reach on your posts and the most engagement.
Look for patterns that repeat over time and use that to influence not only your blog post schedule, but your social media posts as well.
For me, Thursdays and Fridays give me the best reach on Facebook, so I know I want to be sharing my own content, and my newest posts on those days.
Are you using Twitter analytics yet? You really really should be. Check out analytics.twitter.com and log in to see some really powerful stats about your twitter account.
Take a look at your engagement rate and hover over the biggest spikes on the graph. The days that do the best should be the days you’re tweeting about your newest, coolest, most convertingy-est (Convertingy-est: A fancy new word that means “Stuff that gets bunches and bunches of conversions!”) links.
START WITH 3 TIMES A WEEK
If you’re just getting started, traffic might not be much of an indicator for you. A good way to start testing a content plan is to commit to posting 3 articles a week that totally rock.
You want to pick a schedule that works for you so that you can get those posts out on the same days, every week, for the foreseeable future. Bonus points if you can publish them all around the same time of day.
Loyal readers will be more likely to visit regularly and consistently if they can anticipate when your content comes out.
Readers will be more likely to visit regularly and consistently if they can anticipate when your content comes out. #mompreneurs #girlboss
— Olivia Derby (@OliviaRDerby) May 4, 2016
Focus on creating consistency on your blog, great content that gets people coming back, and a schedule that works for your life. When you do that, your audience, your traffic, and the business you’re getting from your blog will help you refine your schedule.
LOOK AT THE BIG PICTURE
Keep in mind, the numbers you’re seeing from social media and Google depend on a lot of different factors. Things like your social media schedule, promotions you’ve done, and other engagement building activities can drive traffic to your site totally independent of your new blog posts.
Set aside some time to experiment with your posting schedule to find a frequency that produces fabulous content, works with your routine, and gets your readers coming back for more.
Need some more help? Download this free content calendar template to help plan your monthly posts.
Download the Mini Content Calendar
Fill out the form below to get the free Mini Content Calendar.