Do I need to write a new blog post every week?

If you follow any of the leading digital evangelists they will tell you that you should be writing a new blog post every week. At least once a week. And I agree. In the same way that you should be exercising rigorously for 30 minutes a day, eating less carbs, meditating, writing a gratitude journal, and walking the dog twice daily. You’ve got that covered, right? In between work, family, and housekeeping. Right! So, for those of us that have, at one time, told ourselves chips for breakfast is better than nothing, I’m here to tell you that you DO NOT have to write a blog post every week.

There are upsides to writing a blog post every week, but they only work as part of a larger strategy and if you aren’t managing the whole, then the blog post is not as worthwhile as you might think.

It’s a “whole is only as good as the sum of its parts” thing. Allow me to hash out that thought for you a little better…

The benefits to posting a blog post every week and the reason you may not be reaping these benefits.

Let’s imagine you write a blog post every week. It’s tough going because it takes you a long time. So, you spend 6 hours blogging (adding images and links, researching, etc). You set it up to auto share on Facebook and Twitter, but it’s not getting much traffic. Why?

Well, each blog post is kind of like a new product in your store. It’s fine to bring a new product in, but if you don’t tell anyone it’s there, how will they know? It’s not enough to just send out one little post and hope people follow that through. You have to be interacting with potential customers, marketing your products and services frequently.

There is no hard and fast rule about how much time you should commit to blogging and how much time to commit to sharing, but I’ll give you some ideas at the end of this post. Test mine out and see what works for you.

Writing a blog post every week boosts your SEO

Every time you make a change to your website, including a new blog post, Google says, “Oh, this site is still alive! Their business must be doing well. We will rank them higher than this guy who hasn’t updated his site in two years.”

There really is no downfall to that. It’s not going to move you up from 25th place to 1st or anything, but it helps just a smidge. The thing is, any update is good. It doesn’t have to be a blog post every week. In fact, sometimes adding a new project that you just worked on, would be better than a blog post. After all, the more projects you post, the more likely you are to attract the right client to your website and boost your credibility amongst your audience.

Writing a blog post every week increases your chance of opening up new lines of business

If you are always thinking about what to say to your audience, you’re more likely to uncover new ideas and new ways to make money. This could give you a leg up on the competition and increase your profitability. And how can that be wrong?

Well…

On the other hand, if you are a small business or solopreneur struggling to keep up with a blog post every week, maybe now isn’t a good time to open up new lines of business! Maybe concentrating on getting your processes down is the best thing for you right now.

The bottom line is this…

Writing a new blog post every week is unrealistic for some companies. And that’s ok. If it’s a struggle for you to write a new blog post every week, don’t sweat it. It is useful in growing your business, especially if you rely on an online audience, but it is not the most important thing you could be doing in order to get people to buy your products or services. If you choose to post once a month, spend some time thinking about what your audience would like to hear from you, make a simple editorial calendar with one theme for each month and think of other things you could be sharing during that month that would take less time.

Here are some other tips and tricks that we use to make sure that we get the most of each and every blog we post.

How to maximize each blog post:

• Share it on social media. Easy one. I recommend using a social media tool so you don’t spend hours posting (and then more hours reading the latest political rant from your Aunt Sally!)
• Share it on “other” social media. Like Medium!
  There are a ton of outlets and the leaders are already saturated, so why not try out a new one? We are currently trying to up our game on LinkedIn, but for you, maybe Reddit is a better fit for you. This post from Search Engine Journal is old but still relevant.
• Use the 80/20 rule all the time. I’ll refer back to this in a minute, but you should be asking readers to take action on your information only 20% of the time. For example, “purchase my course” vs. free content and other people’s free content will be shared at a 20:80 ratio.
• Understand that sharing on social media doesn’t always have to be blog posts. In fact, that’s the opposite of “social” media. Think of other things to share that might stir your followers to comment: news stories, pages from your website, comments, tips, or tricks from someone you follow, ask questions, share photos of your team or your office… the list is endless.
• Spend 20% of your time creating and 80% sharing. This gets easier with time — we have been writing blog posts for Abask since 2011, so we have a pretty good stockpile of blog posts that can be edited and reworked to post again at a later date. There’s nothing wrong with this, as long as you follow the next rule…
• Write evergreen content. Make sure that you are writing content that stays relevant by avoiding any mention of current events or holidays and making sure any advice or information you give will stand the test of time. This isn’t always possible, but your content should be evergreen 80% of the time. See what I mean about the 80/20 rule?
• Find like-minded people online and spend some time getting to know them. Build trust by asking if you can share their content, comment on their posts and sign up for their newsletters. When trust and friendship are established, maybe you could share their posts and vice versa in order to take a week off from blogging!
• Write shorter posts! Yes, Google likes posts of a certain length, but Google also likes published posts more than never published, half-written blog posts. This is part of my goal for the year: 80% of my posts should be 650 words or less. You can always chop your posts into chapters.

That’s how I make it work. What about you? You have any hints of your own?

THIS SHOULD BE THE END but it doesn’t have to be…

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Originally published at abaskmarketing.com on January 27, 2017.