3 min read

How Often Does a Blog Need to Be Updated?

“Is there a perfect blog posting schedule I should follow?” Often I think new bloggers are asking the question because they’re really wanting to know how much of a time commitment is involved. If it is more about commitment to you, then you need to evaluate starting a blog to begin with. Starting a

“Is there a perfect blog posting schedule I should follow?”

Often I think new bloggers are asking the question because they’re really wanting to know how much of a time commitment is involved.

If it is more about commitment to you, then you need to evaluate starting a blog to begin with.

Starting a blog on the side is time consuming. It takes a ton of hard work. Don’t let anyone tell you anything different. Is it worth it? Absolutely. Is it easy? Nope.

How Often Does a Blog Need to Be Updated?

Before I give you my opinion, let me share with you the two extreme posting strategies some bloggers have.

Posting too little might prevent you from growing.

One group of people only want to add something to their blog when they are inspired. They only write when inspiration kicks in. This sounds great in theory, but doesn’t work in the practical realm.

Most successful writers will tell you the importance of writing even when you are not inspired. Sometimes inspiration comes after starting. As you overcome the resistance, inspiration shows up. It’s a funny thing.

If you only write when fully inspired, you will not post very often. When you stop posting:

  • Visitors see your blog as a ghost town – When new content is not being added it gives the impression that not much is happening on your blog.
  • Google may slow down on sending you traffic – I have seen this first hand in recent months. The search traffic on my self-development blog has dropped over the past two months because I’ve placed a greater focus on just creating podcasts from old content and haven’t added fresh new content to the site. My podcast numbers have grown pretty significantly but my search traffic has declined.

Posting too often might hurt you.

This may or may not be true for you, but this is something to think about. I will be the first to say that I would rather post too much than too little. Mainly because you never know which post will resonate with your audience or with the search engines.

I have a blog post I wrote about 3 years ago that took me all of about 30 minutes to write. I simply answered a basic question most job seekers have. To date, that one post has garnered over 1 million views.

However, if you are only posting for posting sake, you very well might be publishing less than quality content. Adding value should always be your goal over just posting words on the web.

“Adding value should always be your goal over just posting words on the web.” Tweet this

A great example of posting too much comes from Darren Rowse at Problogger. In a series of posts called Misconceptions New Bloggers Have, he said:

I once surveyed readers here on ProBlogger about the reasons they unsubscribed from RSS feeds, and the number one answer was “posting too much.” Respondents expressed that they developed “burnout” and would unsubscribe if a blog became too “noisy.” —Darren Rowse

So, what is the ideal posting schedule to grow a blog? Here is my answer:

There is no one size fits all answer. Consistency matters. In the end, you want your followers to consistently see value and you want the search engines to consistently see life.

At the same time, there is tremendous value in consistency as a writer. Most successful authors write something every day. Some writers set a goal of writing a certain number of words daily. Even if they do not have a specific plan for what to do with those words, they write.

The best advice I could give would be to:

“Write everyday but intentionally choose not to post everyday.” tweet this

There are many benefits to writing everyday, but here are a few:

  • You have extra posts to publish when life gets busy – Having unpublished written post allow you to better pace yourself. This way you are not always writing and posting the same day. Getting a few days or weeks ahead can be a great strategy.
  • You have extra posts for guest posting – Most of my guest post are blog posts I was originally going to publish on my own blog. After writing it I thought, “this would be a great post on so and so’s blog.” I then send it to them and if they choose not to publish, I publish on my own site. This way my guest posts are always just as good as the content I publish for myself.
  • You can come back to half-finished post and add the wow factor – Instead of posting a low-quality post, get some initial words on the page, let it brew, and come back and add more value to what you originally wrote.
  • You can consistently face the resistance and build your writing muscles – One of the best ways I have discovered for overcoming the resistance is to face it head on daily. Strengthening your daily discipline of writing and creating can be one of the best business skills you can develop as a blogger and writer.

Questions: How about you? How often do you thing a blog should be updates?