How Often Should I Update My Website?

How often should I update my website? This is a question new bloggers who own a brand new domain name often ask. The most common answer is 'as often as you can', but really? Everyday? More than once a day if you can? Many experts suggest the average of 3 times a week, and many also advise the benefit of "30 Days Blog Challenge" (to keep writing a blog every day for 30 days). Some case studies have proven these theories, but some disadvantages have also been found too.

Write 3 Times A Week?

I've found Neil Patel's analysis most helpful (5 Simple Steps That’ll Help You Determine How Often You Need to Blog - omg so much in detail!). There are many case studies shown in Neil's page and a couple of them demonstrate that posting a blog 2-3 times are week is most optimal;

• God Neil's own website: when he published 2 blog posts per week instead of 1, the monthly traffic to his site jumped from 46,134 to 59,787 the following month (increased by 29.6%)
• Alex from CalorieSecrets.com: has published his post constantly for 3-4 per week right from the start and achieved 100K visitors per month after 12 months, 200K after 16 months, 300K after 2 years.
• CoSchedule: when they went from 3 posts per week instead of 2, the number of comments and social shares dropped.
• Kevin J. Duncan's site: when he tried 5 posts per week instead of 1. The traffic was increased accordingly but he saw less engagement with readers, found it tiring and not enough time to promote.

Neil's case studies are all based on big websites with a big number of daily visitors and they say "once a week won't be enough but 5 times will be too often". Then there's an engagement issue - publish more than twice a week and they may receive less comments/social shares. I think it's very true; it's my personal opinion but if I receive a newsletter more than twice a week from someone, I often find myself unsubscribing it. I'd a nice little weekly surprise, not a notification of blog updates in my face every couple of days.

So these case studies - at least we get the idea, but do they apply to newbie bloggers? Do they apply to many of us mediocre bloggers who only receive a couple of comments per post or even none? Just how often should we update our website?

Time To Promote

The thing is though, whether famous or unknown, we all need to promote our work continuously. Promote publishings via social media, use forums, paid advertisements or do guest blogging elsewhere. Build leads, maintain the leads. And continuously analyse the numbers. We cannot just keep writing and rely on organic traffic.

Neil's site mentioned above proves it - by increasing the number of weekly posts from 1 to 2, the traffic should simply double otherwise. CoSchedule's example also tells you other elements such as email updates to subscribers and time of publishing ("Proof That Publishing More Content Won’t Grow Your Blog Traffic"); by increasing the number of posts from 2 to 3 per week, the average number of shares/comments per page may have dropped, but the total number simply increased - it just did not increase by 3/2.

If we need to promote our webpages, then there's no doubt we'll need to have plenty of time for that. Like mentioned by Kevin J Duncan above, publishing 5 posts per week seems to be a too exhausting job to find the time to promote, analyse and improve your website as a brand. So what about 30-Days Blog Challenge? Can we afford to blog every single day continuously for 30 days?

Blog Everyday for 30 Days

The main purpose of the 30-Days challenge is for a new blogger to establish the direction of their site and find their unique writing style by practicing. Some even suggest that the keyword research for SEO will be a waste of time and you should ignore that part of work. Instead, you should just keep focusing on the structure of your post and finding your own writing style.

I only agree to that idea to some extent. Your newly opened website collects virtually no organic traffic. By choosing the right keyword, your page may be indexed by search engines accordingly but won't be ranked high enough for a while to be viewed by anyone, no matter how impeccably you write. That means there's no point in worrying whether you've chosen the right keywords or not.

...Or is there?

Yes, for two reasons;

[1] Any web page has a chance to make a hit in the future if it has the right keywords and it's looked after (=updated) from time to time. I still make occasional affiliate sales via posts that I published over 2 years ago. Keyword research is always going to be a major job in content writing anyway, so I don't think you should completely ignore it. Each & every blog that you write during the 30 day period can always be edited at later dates for improvements.  

[2] The other reason is the fact that Goole loves websites that update frequently. If you add fresh quality content often then your site will have a better chance of being ranked higher in Google search. Your brand new website may be unlikely to receive any organic traffic, but the daily posts will bring a better chance if they have valuable, reliable information with good keyword selection.

So there is a point in treating the 30-Days Blog Challenge more than just a disposable practice.

How Often Should I Update My Website?

As often as you can, but it's also essential to have plenty of time to promote your website, leaving the optimal number as "3 posts per week" to most bloggers, providing they're able to deliver a quality content each time.