An age old debate I still see on a regular basis is the question of how frequently you should publish content to your website and its blog.
I’m a firm believer in the idea of writing at least 500 words a day but this doesn’t mean each one of those pieces are going to be published. In fact, there’s a whole lot of downsides to publishing too frequently. The same can be true if you take too long in between updates.
Your challenge as a blogger is to find the happy medium.
- It’ll depend on your niche.
- It’ll depend on your style.
- It’ll depend on your scope.
- It’ll depend on your readers.
What I’d like to do is outline a few different thoughts behind publication schedules and hopefully share some of the pros and cons of each. By the end of it I will challenge you with a schedule you may not agree upon but can’t help but to consider.
Content Publication Frequency: An Overview
There are different frequencies bloggers and producers take to content.
Here are some of the most common:
Daily
Daily publication (as the name suggests) means you’re pushing out content each day (but usually not the weekends unless that’s your deal). The upside of doing daily publication is that you always have something fresh for your audience. You’re also continually adding content which is picked up by search engines. And you have something new to share on your social feeds.
The drawback of daily publication is that you’re required to create something once a day. This means you have the chance of running out of steam or out of ideas. It also means you might not have the ability to go deep into a topic since you’ve only got the day to put something together. Another downside is that doing so much content each day could overload your readers so they just avoid reading the blog until weeks later when the popular post list is updated.
Mon – Wed – Fri
The MWF routine gives you three days to publish content. This is a common schedule for content producers because it gives them enough downtime to hone their craft and make any additions before hitting publish. It also allows you to spend more time responding to the feedback.
There really isn’t too much of a downside to the MWF schedule. Though the tough part is what goes on each day. You could frontload the week with great content then tapper out with easier stuff by the end of the week or vice versa. What would have worked on Monday, but published on Friday, means you’re sort of rolling the dice.
Once a Week
A once a week schedule gives you an optimum amount of time to research your topic and create a thorough blog post. It also gives you plenty of time to build a bit of buzz leading up to the release. You can tease the content on your email at the start of the week, release it on Wednesday, and then ramp up the promotion if you see it’s getting popular on social (do this via promoted posts).
By doing it just once a week, however, you could completely miss the mark. You could lag behind in covering a topic and someone else may take your steam. By the time you publish the piece a well-known blogger might have jumped in first which means you may come across as a copycat.
Monthly
Monthly really only works if you’re looking to do some kind of big, big piece like a magazine, white paper, or if you released guides. This is great for condensing all the information throughout the week and delivering it to your community in a clear, coherent format (which may could appreciate).
Like doing it weekly – you might miss some of the major items toward the end of the month because you’re trying to get everything packaged and ready to send out. You’re also taking a risk in the search engines because you’re not updating regularly so your work must be amazing to generate a lot of social buzz, backlinks, and discussion in between those publications.
My Personal Thoughts on Publication
I’ve been blogging for some years now and I’ve done just about every type of publication cycle you could think of:
- Daily
- M-W-F
- T-H
- Weekends
- Weekly
- Monthly
- Quarterly
On AffiliatePrograms.com it makes sense to do a daily publication because there is a wide range of topics to discuss and the industry (affiliate and online marketing) is constantly evolving.
In other industries and niches – things are a little different.
I would argue that you really should take time in between your content.
I say this because:
- It allows you to take additional time to research a topic
- You’ll also have additional time to actually use products and services
- It gives you time to continually promote the piece once it’s published
Think of your posts as a product.
If you were to release a new product each day then your community would not have the time to work through your information before being pushed into the next.
Giving a few days grace between each piece of work lets you really push it on social media and work it into guest blogging strategies, too.
You may not appeal to those readers that want something new each day but you’re delivering great value to those that work alongside your tutorials and information rather than seek a quick fix.
Conclusion
If I were you – I’d take a look at the site, content schedule, and poll the community to see how much content is truly needed.
Consider developing a schedule where you publish one or two massive posts during the week while using the other days for quick updates, news, and opinion pieces. This will give people enough time to digest the good stuff but also stay hooked during the in-between times.
But … in the end … it’s all up to you.
Test out different strategies. See what works for your community. See if you can keep up with the demand. It’s not all just a cookie cutter template when it comes to publication frequency.
