Balancing Quality and Quantity: How Often to Post New Articles on a Website?

One key element to achieving search engine optimization (SEO) is providing consistent, fresh content on your website. When Google crawls the vast internet, it ranks websites and individual URLs according to their relevance to a specific user’s search inquiry. While the criteria Google uses to rank search results is broad, the publish date of content is one. As we work with our clients to improve SEO for their websites and outline recommendations for content management, a common question we receive is, “How often do I need a new article on my website?”

What does Google look for when ranking websites and URLs in search results?

When Google crawls a website, it reviews all the content, from the front page to landing pages and published articles (sometimes called “blogs.”) While Google’s recipe (or algorithm) for calculating search results is proprietary and complex, they provide us with general information about what they look for. Google’s goal is to provide the best information to answer searchers’ inquiries. In recent years, the internet has become flooded with content, so they stress that content meeting their “EEAT” principles will perform better:

• Experience
• Expertise
• Authoritativeness
• Trustworthiness

They further outline examples of what this looks like in their Google Search Central guide, “Creating Helpful, Reliable, People-First Content.” For example, consider these questions:

• Does the content provide a substantial, complete, or comprehensive description of the topic?
• If the content draws on other sources, does it avoid simply copying or rewriting those sources and instead provide substantial additional value and originality?
• Does the content provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?
• Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
• If someone researched the site producing the content, would they come away with the impression that it is well-trusted or widely recognized as an authority on its topic?
• Is this content written or reviewed by an expert or enthusiast who demonstrably knows the topic well?

Google also specifically notes that content should be people-focused and not constructed to meet search engine demands. It’s clear to us the standards for professionally written content are increasing exponentially. Notice that Google does not have a defined word count standard. In the past, it was a best practice for content to be at least 300 words. Today, word count doesn’t matter as much as “however many words it takes you to succinctly, accurately, and thoroughly cover the topic.” For example, a description of a new widget for a product page may require 350 words, while an article explaining the science behind how the widget works might require 1500.

So why does frequency matter?

While it is only one part of their evaluation process, Google prefers websites and pages with fresh content because they feel these pages are more likely to be relevant and accurate to a current search inquiry. That means that if your content meets their EEAT standards, newer content or an article from a consistently updated website will have a leg up on the competition. In the past, Google used to crawl the internet about twice a month, so SEO best practices were to publish new articles at least twice a month. Today, however, Google’s crawl rate depends on many factors. For example, news media sites are crawled many times a day. That’s why you’ll see an article posted 5 minutes ago about a breaking news story. Other sites will be crawled less often depending on other characteristics, including how frequently you update content, how old your website is, website traffic, ease of crawlability, quality backlinks to your site, and other technical website elements. Updating older posts with new information (not just changing the publish date) is another effective way to show Google that your website is accurate and relevant. It will also reduce issues related to the cannibalization of keywords, which means too many sources address the same keywords and end up competing against each other for search ranking.

So, how often should I publish new articles on my website?

There is no singular recommendation that works for every website. The answer depends on several factors, all of which will also be influenced by your budget. For example:

• If you have a new website and need to build a library of content to be seen as an authority on your subject, then weekly posts for the first year may make sense. For new websites, new content may be a combination of creating product pages, promotional landing pages, FAQ pages, and informational articles.
• If you have a well-established website, a semi-monthly schedule of educational posts may be sufficient. We’ve also seen success with companies that post a new article twice a month and update an older post twice a month.
• If your company regularly has new information, more frequent posts are appropriate. For example, if you’re expanding, transitioning, launching new products, or discovering new data, sharing this information on your website frequently will help it appear in search results faster.
• How often are your competitors posting new information? We can help you learn quickly how often content is published on your competitors’ websites. If they post frequently, doing the same may be a good idea.

Is it better to post smaller articles more frequently?

Google is clear on what they want: quality over quantity. With the flood of content on the internet, Google prefers high-quality information relevant to searchers’ inquiries over a flood of posts. Here’s a good example of how complicated this question is. Neil Patel, a leader in SEO, addressed this question in his article, “Quantity VS Quality: Is it Better to Write One Long Blog Post or 10 Short Ones?” What he found was that, yes, companies that posted more frequently achieved better ranking. However, when the length of the article was considered, longer articles ranked far better. In fact, the average content length for ranking #5 or higher is over 1900 words. His rationale is that longer articles more completely address a topic and are more likely to answer searchers’ questions. With that in mind, it depends on what your budget will allow. Content writing, just like other creative production work, is priced based on its development time. At Paradux Media, we can work with you to develop a content management plan that fits your business and budget. While lengthier content, including updates, will provide greater value to the SEO of your website over time, any plan to generate new material or update outdated posts is far better than nothing. If your budget only allows for two shorter articles per month, we can do that. If you have the financial flexibility for longer, more in-depth articles, you’ll have a slightly higher cost, but you’ll experience more benefits, too. If you need a mix of both with updates thrown in, we can customize a timeline and pricing schedule to fit those needs!

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