When it comes to content marketing, your strategy’s lifeblood is content. A lot of the content comes in the form of blog posts. Yet, there are other types of content that you can produce and release, too.
Content is the key to attracting new clients while also retaining your existing customers. By providing insights into the challenges they face and answering their questions through content, you can increase your reach.
The big question asked by many financial institutions, though, is how often you should publish content. Is there a single one-size-fits-all strategy? Is blogging a certain number of times a week or month guaranteed to bring you benefits? Here, we look at frequency, consistency, and the other key factors at play to ensure your organization’s success.
Is Frequency Important?
Frequency matters when you’re considering your content publishing schedule. Yet, there is no set number of times you should blog every week.
Evidence has shown that publishing content between two and four times weekly brings the best results. Organizations that frequently publish enjoy more traffic and more conversions.
The chart above clearly shows that the more often you publish content, the greater the traffic you’ll receive. At least 11 posts per month bring a clear increase in traffic. However, once you reach this figure, the benefits even out. Therefore, how do you choose the number of times each month you should release content as long as you hit this minimum?
There is evidence to show that publishing daily content is likely to produce optimal results.
This chart shows that those who publish blogs more than once per day are more likely to achieve strong results. Almost 70 percent of bloggers who publish content more than daily saw greater success. Meanwhile, those publishing less than monthly were far less likely to see good results. Less than 13 percent of bloggers in this category saw the benefits from their content.
So, Is Frequency the Be-All And End-All of Content Publishing?
While it seems clear that publishing frequently is vital for content marketing success, this is not the whole picture. It’s fair to say that the above charts show that frequently publishing content promotes success. Yet, the quality of that content is equally important.
When you publish content daily or even several times each day, can you maintain high quality?
As the above infographic shows, it’s important to get the balance of quality and quantity right. Finding this balance requires a unique formula that you customize to your organization.
It’s perfectly possible to post content daily, but if that content lacks value, it’s pointless. SEO stuffing, a lack of supporting arguments, and false narratives make content worthless. Therefore, it’s easy to see why poor quality content can have little effect on generating traffic and driving conversions. What’s worse, it may even have a negative effect.
Building up trust is something that all organizations aim to do through their content marketing strategies. However, it’s impossible to trust a brand that produces poor-quality content. This is why organizations must focus on both the frequency of publishing and the quality of the content they publish. If you can’t create quality content several times a day, do not try. It’s better to publish less frequently with valuable content that readers engage with than to publish low-value content daily.
The Importance of Older Posts
While frequency of content publishing for immediate traffic benefits is relevant, it isn’t the entire picture. A study showed that old posts made up 75 percent of blog views and 90 percent of blog leads. This proves that sticky and relevant content gains value with time.
What About Content Publishing on Social Media?
The general rule for on-site blogging is to post as frequently as possible. However, the same does not hold for social media platforms. When you publish content on social media, being strategic is key.
Between curating information and posting links to your blog, your number of posts on these platforms adds rapidly. So is it possible to post too often?
The answer to this is a definite yes. You need to strike a balance between being informative and just being annoying.
As the above infographic shows, there are a certain number of posts that each platform considers optimal.
For example, organizations should only post on Facebook once or twice daily on weekdays and once daily on the weekends. Posting three or more times a day begins to reveal negative returns. Followers start to feel overwhelmed and give up looking for the content you publish.
For Twitter, between four and 16 posts achieve the optimal effect. Meanwhile, LinkedIn considers 20 posts per month to be the best number.
It’s also important to know when to publish content on social media platforms to maximize its reach. The infographic below shows the best times for each of the most popular platforms.
Understanding Your Audience
All the above only holds a certain amount of value, however. Although the above information can be of benefit, it should only be a starting point for your content publishing strategy. In the end, relying on the cues and information your audience provides is the only way forward.
When beginning to publish content, track the results you achieve carefully. Was there an increase in traffic and conversions? Did the bounce rate go down with time? If you see positive results, you can stick with your publishing schedule. Yet, if strong returns don’t appear, you can fine-tune the schedule until you find the right frequency to get results.
Does Type Of Content Matter For Your Publishing Strategy?
Frequency and quality are important to achieve content marketing success. This is content type.
The above infographic shows that there are many types of content that you can publish. It’s a mistake to focus solely on blog posts.
While writing blogs is a good way to engage with readers, they aren’t the only type of content to publish. Getting a good variety of content out there is key. Audiences like diversity. Also, publishing different kinds of content can attract different audiences. This means you can maximize your organization’s reach.
Some content formats are especially successful at the moment. Adapting to those trends is important to increase your content marketing strategy’s chance of success.
The chart above shows different content types that have proven to be the most successful recently. Achieving a good balance of those types is, therefore, essential.
As you can see, blog posts are pretty successful at driving traffic and conversions. Although some may consider them to be old-fashioned, blog posts are the core of your marketing strategy. They provide a high level of engagement while also boosting SEO and increasing organic search traffic. Educational blog posts are the most effective. By explaining concepts, answering readers’ questions, and serving as a voice of authority, they add great value. This generates real results.
However, there are plenty of other options that are worth exploring. For example, videos are very popular at the moment, especially live videos that pack powerful punches. More than 50 percent of people admit to watching a live video a minimum of three times weekly. They can find these videos on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and your organization’s website.
Another recent trend in content publishing is for user-generated content. Loyal customers are willing to generate content on your organization’s behalf. They can do this in several ways. You can launch guest blogging programs, or start hashtags on social media platforms and share the content. You could even turn client testimonials and reviews into content. While user-generated content shouldn’t form your whole content marketing and publishing strategy, it can be a powerful tool.
Another content type to harness to the full is audio content or podcasts. More people these days listen to podcasts, so tapping into this potential is highly beneficial. If you’re able to commit to publishing between 20 and 50 episodes each year, you can reap the benefits.
Is There A Perfect Content Publishing Frequency?
There is some data to support high-frequency blogging. Yet, some of that data can be misleading. In fact, the frequency of publishing isn’t as important as several other things. These include:
- Is the traffic visiting your site valuable? Are those visitors your ideal customers? Are they likely to convert?
- Are your content schedule and goals in alignment? Do you want to drive traffic by creating content about specific events or promotions? Then, increasing the frequency of your content publishing makes sense. However, if you have different goals, publishing less often may work more effectively.
- Are you publishing content consistently? Frequency is less important than consistency. Consistent audiences only come with consistent publishing. This is because people develop a habit of checking your site and expecting to see new content. Don’t disappoint them.
- Do your posts attract a lot of attention? Publishing amplified content offers more benefits than just publishing frequently.
Getting positive answers to all the above questions is far more important than simply publishing something new every day.
This means that there is no definitive perfect frequency for publishing content. Quantity can bring more visitors to your site. Yet, publishing content solely to say you produce more content is a bad idea, too. Aligning frequency with content goals is key, as is considering your available resources for creating quality content. You need to tailor your publishing strategy and frequency to the needs of your organization. This is something that only you and your content marketing team can work out and define.
Top Tips for Timing Your Publishing Frequency
Here are a few tips to help you time your publishing frequency more efficiently:
- Aim for consistency, not frequency. Be realistic about how frequently you can post. Quality is more important than quantity but blending both is the best strategy. Publishing a couple of posts a week will help you build your audience. However, maintaining consistency of pace is equally important. Don’t allow your audience to slip away.
- Find ways of creating high-quality, concise content. Mix up different content types to achieve greater variety.
- Bring in professional writers to increase your publishing pace without expending your valuable staff resources.
Follow these tips, and you’re sure to find your organization’s content publishing strategy achieves greater success.
Investing In More Content for Greater Success
One clear thing is that no matter how often you choose to publish content, investing in that content is vital. Delivering relevant, high-quality content for readers couldn’t be more essential. The issue for many organizations is finding a way to produce that content.
Creating content in-house is time-consuming and can take valuable staff members away from vital tasks. Also, if those staff members aren’t skilled in SEO and crafting engaging material, the content they produce may be worthless.
Using a professional content marketing company is, therefore, the best solution. By hiring professionals to create the best content tailored to your organization’s needs, you can save time, effort, and energy. You can also be sure of the best possible results. With qualified and experienced writers on board, you can be certain of SEO optimization. You can also expect rapid turnarounds and work that is error-free and entirely original.
When you invest in higher-quality content, you can build brand awareness, attract customers, and engage effectively with readers. A team of professional content writers can help with this. The writers can adhere to your content publishing strategy and guarantee consistency across the board. As a result, you can rest assured that your audience will get maximum value every time you publish. This will drive traffic and increase conversions for your organization, no matter how frequently you decide to publish.