Blog Content: How Much is Too Much?

More doesn’t always mean better. Internal links and keywords are both beneficial from an SEO standpoint, but throw too many of them around and you’ll be limiting the performance of your content.

But what about blog posts? Is there a theoretical ‘limit’ to how many posts you should be making each month for optimal SEO performance? That’s the question we’re going to answer right here.

What we know for sure

Let’s kick things off by establishing what we know about how search engines like Google work. How exactly do they determine whether a blog post is worthy of ranking, and how does posting frequency affect this?

Building authority

One of Google’s most significant ranking factors is domain authority – and building authority on a particular subject or within a specific industry takes time. If you’re starting afresh with an entirely new domain, you’ll find it more difficult to rank for specific terms than if you’re starting with a site that already has an authoritative domain.

A variety of different factors can affect your domain authority score, one of them being the volume and quality of the content present on the site. If you’ve been consistently posting quality content on the same industry or niche for a decade, the odds of ranking on page one of the SERPs or getting a featured snippet are pretty high. If you’ve only posted twice in as many years, you’re going to struggle.

Post frequency does matter

So, the frequency at which you update your blog does matter to some extent. As always, Google remains coy about the subject, offering no official recommendations on how often you should post. But it’s clear that regularly updated blogs, by and large, outperform those that aren’t updated often.

Can you post too often?

But is it possible to update your blog too often and land yourself in Google’s bad books? Yes and no. If you have a prolific team of writers who are constantly uploading high-quality, original content, Google will reward you. If you churn out derivative, unhelpful or outright plagiarised content just to keep your post frequency up, don’t expect to see good results. That leads us nicely to our next point…

It’s not just about quantity, but quality too

The final key point to cover here is that search engines are interested in far more than just your post count. Above all, they’re looking for quality content that answers users’ questions and contains helpful information.

So, although posting regularly is important, it’s not the be-all and end-all of maintaining a successful blog – the quality of the content you post is the most crucial factor. It’s far better to post a well-thought-out, well-written article once a month than it is to post four lazy articles.

This emphasis on content quality is only increasing, with Google’s most recent core updates reinforcing the company’s stance that helpful content is the key to SERP success. This is where an experienced content marketing agency can assist in ensuring all content meets the requirements of users and, in turn, Google.

So, how many blog posts should I write?

Now that we’ve covered the importance of post frequency (and why it’s not necessarily as important as you might think), we’re going to offer some recommendations to help you decide how often you should post on your blog.

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to this question – how often you post will depend on a wide range of factors. Here are some of the most significant ones.

Your resources (and budget)

Whether you’re trying to boost the rankings of your own personal blog or are hiring a team of agency writers to help get your new business off the ground, the resources you have at your disposal will have a huge impact on how often you’re able to post. Remember, quality is king – so if you have the budget or resources to produce one excellent blog per month or four average ones, choose the former.

Your industry or niche

Some industries demand technical, in-depth, research-led pieces of content. If your industry is one of them, your content will take longer to produce by default – and because of its technical nature, any mistakes or inaccuracies could cast your business in a negative light. Take your time and post less often if you need to: getting your content right is the most important thing.

Your starting point and future goals

If you’ve just set up your blog on a fresh domain, it’s going to take time for search engines to start pushing your content up the SERPs – even if it’s very high quality. So, if you want to get your brand out there and start achieving results relatively quickly, you’ll need to focus on posting more often to build authority (at least for the first year or so). As long as you can keep up the frequency without negatively affecting the quality of your posts, you’re good.

Here’s the bottom line…

In an ideal world, we’d all be posting top-quality blogs multiple times a week. On paper, that’s the best way to guarantee success and boost your rankings.

But for most bloggers and businesses, this just simply isn’t possible. If you’re faced with a choice between quality or quantity, always choose the former and try to promote your content as best as you can via other channels. It’s far better to put your name against content you’re genuinely proud of than to rush posts out the door just to meet an arbitrary target.

To address the question posed in the title of this blog, there’s no such thing as ‘too much’ blog content… provided it’s all helpful, well-written and suited to your target audience. In the battle of quality and frequency, quality wins out every time.