Erika Dickstein — November 4, 2016 Follow @springinsight
So you think you should be blogging about your business. But you aren’t sure how much time and effort you should put into it. As you start digging, you come across overwhelming lists of stats like “45 Reasons to Blog” and “16 Enigmatic Business Blogging and Other Marketing Stats.” How do you sift through the noise and figure out what makes sense for your business?
Relax. I’m here to help.
Blogging is a great marketing tool. It’s free (well, it only costs you time), it drives traffic to your website, it generates leads, it helps grow your email list, and it helps you gain recognition as an industry leader. But as with any marketing tool, making the most of it requires effort beyond simply posting to your website.
How often should you be blogging?
The simple answer to the question is REGULARLY. But regularly can mean daily, weekly, every other week, or monthly. I don’t recommend blogging less than once a month, at least if you are interested in using your blog as a serious marketing tool.
It may be surprising, but the cadence of your blogging makes a difference. Consistent blogging is important because when you start blogging and providing high quality content, you will develop a following. People will start to look for your blog posts and they will expect to see new content at regular intervals. So give the people what they want.
Search engines also like to see consistent activity on a blog. When you are scheduling your blog posts, keep this in mind. Choose a schedule you know you can stick to, even if it means posting less often than you would like. You can always amp up during your busiest season too.
At Spring Insight, we have been blogging once a week for years. But we have recently decided to back it down to twice a month. Our thinking is that by pulling back, we will be able to maximize our marketing efforts by redirecting time to developing comprehensive strategy encompassing not only the blog, but also our social media presence.
Also, this strategy will work better for our team allowing us to allocate more time toward attracting new clients and to other components of business development.
This is an important lesson: you need to have a blogging strategy that works for you. If you try to set up a calendar based on stats that say you should be blogging twice a week, but you prefer walking over hot coals to writing 250 words, that schedule probably won’t work for you.
Another important consideration relating to blog cadence is your capacity for coming up with interesting topics. If you can easily rattle off 50 ideas, then you are free to post more frequently, but if you struggle to come up with 10 ideas to write about, then it makes sense to blog less frequently.
Also, take some pressure off of yourself by remembering that not every blog post has to be an epic tome. We have a client who has seen a lot of success creating one regular-length blog (i.e., 750-1,000 words) and four shorter, weekly tip blogs all on the same theme. Whatever works for you, just make it a goal to be consistent.
Quality matters more than quantity
All of that being said, do whatever you have to do to focus on creating quality articles that you can imagine your audience reading. Neither the number of words in each post nor the number of posts per month matters as much as offering high quality posts.
To get the biggest bang for your blogging buck, the content should be informative, original, and engaging. Instead of saying the same thing that everyone else in your industry says, take a unique angle or point of view on whatever topic you choose.
For example, if you are a professional home organizer, your audience won’t get much from rereading the same three organizing tips that they have seen on Pinterest 5,000 times (I mean, how many ways can you talk about putting small items in clear plastic boxes with labels?). However, if you talk about how having an organized home can help you feel less guilty about taking downtime, you will teach your audience something useful.
And bonus, if you follow up your educational post with a great call-to-action, you help your audience see the value you provide.
Finally, if you really want to be strategic and guarantee that you develop consistently great blog posts, consider outsourcing to a marketing team that is set up to do this for you. It’s especially important for small business owners to be honest with themselves about what is truly the best use of their time.
There are only so many hours in your day. Hiring a marketing team you trust to take care of blogging, email marketing, and social media could be the best money you’ve spent all year. Might I recommend a Spring Insight? Contact us today and let’s talk about keeping your blog schedule on track.
How do you keep yourself on track with blogging?
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