February 28, 2023 11:39 am

JenniferEWC
How often should you blog? You're not going to like this, but it depends.
 

If you're a solopreneur (meaning you do everything in your business, or you only outsource a few things), once a month is enough.

It may be different if you have a team. For example, if you have a team of 4 and you can each write one post a month, you could add 4 new posts every month without any stress to any one team member.

If you have a larger team and/or can afford to hire someone to just focus on producing new content for your blog, you can add a new post every day.

As I said, it depends. What is common to all of the situations I've outlined is that the blogs in question need to be updated regularly. As Jude and Chris Wharton put it in The Website Handbook: "A website isn't a painting. It needs adding to and tweaking regularly for it to perform to its full potential" (p. 78).

An easy way add to your website is to post new blog posts - these have several additional benefits for your site and your business. To name a few, new blog posts

  • give you something new to share,
  • give your readers new information and support,
  • drive traffic to your site (great for SEO and sales), and
  • help establish your credibility.

What do you want your blog to do for you?

You may think the answer to this one is obvious, but it's not.

Increase traffic

If you really want to push traffic to your site, you need to post frequently - up to daily. Posts for this goal would tend to be short and would likely include a lot of listicles.

In case you're not familiar with the term listicle (you've almost certainly read dozens if not hundreds of the things, unless, of course, you're new to the internet), have a look at what HubSpot says about them in How to write a listicle. These are quick to write and consume. They may also have a short shelf life.

Establish credibility

If you'd rather use your blog to establish your credibility, you need to write more in depth pieces - that means posts that are more than 1,000 words long.

These take longer to write, so eat up more of your time. They also take longer to read. Most of your blog's followers are not going to commit to reading 1k to 2k words from you every day, even if you could maintain that rate of content production.

For credibility-building bloggers, I'd aim for writing one to two posts per month (certainly not more than one per week). The good news about these longer posts is that they tend of have very long self lives or to be evergreen.

Decide how often to blog

We've established you need to blog regularly; next, you need to decide on your blogging schedule. Start by looking at your own schedule and writing habits.

I know solopreneurs who blog weekly, and they never seem to struggle with the pace they've set themselves. I also know others who have to push to get one post out per month.

When you're setting your schedule you need to be realistic about what you (and your team, if you have one) can accomplish not only this month, while you're excited about it, but also several months from now when you could be busy or dealing with new challenges.

To help you take a realistic look at how often you can blog, consider these questions:

  • How long did it take you to write your last blog post?
  • How often can you find that amount of time?
  • Do you get excited about writing, or is it something you tend to keep moving to the bottom of your to-do-list?
  • Do you have a plan for generating topics for blog posts?
  • Do you have a strategy for sharing your blog posts (driving traffic to your site via your posts)? Do you know how much time that will take?

Sharing your blog posts

I want to take a minute to look at that last point in more detail - how long does it take to implement your sharing strategy?

Many websites have the option to automatically share new posts via social media. This is a starting point, but it shouldn't be the only time you share the post. Other places and times to share include:

  • in your newsletter,
  • on social media, and
  • in conversation when people ask questions on a topic you've written about.

Sharing your post in conversation when someone asks you a question you don't have time to answer in detail (as I discuss in "Does blogging still work?"), doesn't require any preparation on your part beyond writing and publishing the post.

However, sharing on social media will require that you create a graphic to go with the post and draft the post (to save time on this, you can edit an excerpt from the blog post itself). How long does it take you to create a graphic in Canva?

Sharing in your newsletter may only require the link, but you'll need time to write a few sentences introducing the post and giving your subscribers a reason to read it.

Also, remember that you can share each of your blog posts (especially the evergreen ones) multiple times on social media. Thanks to the algorithm, only a tiny percentage of your followers will see each of your posts. Posting repeatedly (with tweaks to the copy and/or images) will increase the reach of the blog post.

Need some help?

Check out my Entrepreneurs' Blogging Club (EBC) - it gives you the tools, support, and accountability you need to blog consistently (whatever that looks like for you). In the EBC, you get:

  • a monthly workshop and coaching session with me
  • access to past workshops
  • access to all of my standalone resources for bloggers - like my Magic Ideas Generator and my workbook, How to Write with Writer's Block.
  • WhatsApp group support 
  • at least 6 co-writing session per month

Each quarter, I run a free taster session for the EBC, you can sign up for the next one here: https://ewc.coach/ebc-taster-session/


About the Author

I help entrepreneurs get their books out of their heads and into print!

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