It probably won't come as a surprise to you that business blogging is an indispensable component to seeing success with inbound marketing. You need content to appear in search results, generate page views, and increase your brand equity as a thought leader.
But did you know that the frequency with which you blog also has a direct impact on the amount of subscribers and email traffic you receive? That's right ... the best blogs keep readers coming back, and encourage readers to become subscribers, adding them to that all-important contacts list. We took a look at 720 HubSpot customers with at least 50 email subscribers to get a better idea of how these businesses use their blog to attract and convert prospects . Here's what we found ...
The Proof is in the Pudding
What we found suggests that the secret to attracting and growing active, lead-producing subscription lists is not much of a secret at all: post content as often as possible. Take a look for yourself:
Over a two-month span, businesses that published blog entries on a regular basis (more than once a week) added subscribers over twice as fast as those companies that added content once a month. These subscribers are a key asset to your business -- a list of contacts so interested in your perspective that they want to be alerted every time you produce new content. That's a list I'd like to grow as quickly as possible so I can nurture those subscribers into qualified leads and, eventually, convert them into customers.
Having a high subscriber growth rate is also vital for another reason ... it helps you bring those fans of yours back to your website so they can actually complete a conversion event! No matter how much someone loves your content, it's not easy to remember to visit your blog every day to read it. But those revisits are the only way you can drive the reconversions you need to move subscribers further down the funnel. Take a look at the correlation between blogging frequency, and the amount of email-driven site traffic that's driven per subscriber:
High-volume bloggers enjoy a return of just over .2 email-driven site visits for each of their subscribers -- or in less abstract terms, business that blog regularly (again, more than once a week) and have, say, 50 subscribers would receive 10 email-driven site visits per week. That's huge compared to just one measly site visit that businesses blogging just once a month would expect to receive. That's 9 more opportunities to convert subscribers into leads and customers, all from just keeping up your business blog .
Subscribers are an essential component to your contacts database, because they're an audience interested in you for your knowledge and thought-leadership. They trust you! And people that trust you make really, really awesome customers. So, how do you attract more of them? Blog regularly. And how do you get the most marketing mileage out of them? Blog regularly.
Do you put any effort into growing your subscriber base? How big of a role does frequent blogging play in that effort?
Image credit: Mike Licht
Inbound Marketing Blog Feed
Steven Neubarth 2:09 PM on August 16, 2012
Keeping a business blog update takes patience. The rewards take time but are well worth the effort.
Jonathan Thompson 2:16 PM on August 16, 2012
Nice and neat. Thank you!
Jay Gunter 3:15 PM on August 16, 2012
We recently started a blog and have seen very good results, and I suspect they will only get better.
Nate Goodman 3:36 PM on August 16, 2012
However, it's also interesting to read reports of other bloggers who have bucked the frequency trend and started posting a single very long article every 2 weeks and have seen great results as well.
Len 3:36 PM on August 16, 2012
Would sending your blog to various LinkedIn groups generate quicker traffic results?
Ruth 4:03 PM on August 16, 2012
We also started recently with more regular blog posts and we share these with relevant linkedin groups. When looking at the blog analytics I can confirm that many readers are coming in from linkedin.
Matthew Stock 6:33 PM on August 16, 2012
You guys showed me the way! I've almost posted 100 blogs on www.seepage.com and due to my success started at inbound marketing company (www.inboundstorm.com).
Harsh Agrawal 7:36 PM on August 16, 2012
Even I noticed ..Maintaining a Proper blog schedule not only helps in getting regular visits to your blog but also helps in boosting subscriber count.....
Though the key here is writing niche content..Going off board with content variety may be more bad...
Markus Allen 10:09 PM on August 16, 2012
I blog daily here (about search engine marketing tips):
http://www.fetch123.com
Here's why I do it every day...you get an automatic boost in traffic from Google when you reach two points... 30 posts and 70 posts.
It's as if the Big G turns on the faucet.
Try it!
Tharani 2:25 AM on August 17, 2012
We just started our Income Tax Questions Blog Response is so good because of regular posting.
Conference Venues SA 2:50 AM on August 17, 2012
We started our business blog a month ago, in the beginning it was a challenge on what to write on, but as we got started more and more ideas for topics started flowing. So for those who are unsure about starting a blog and do not know what to write about, I would encourage them to take the plunge and start writing and the ideas will follow.
Jamie Lewis 3:17 AM on August 17, 2012
This is very good content i will be visiting this site regularly from now on lol!
Fedobe 6:45 AM on August 17, 2012
One of the great article I have ever read! I was searching such type of article to learn how to optimize blog. Hope this article will help me to increase visitors for my blog.
Niveen Salem 6:06 PM on August 17, 2012
Chris, thank you so much for the data. I needed it as I'm starting my blog soon! I'm writing daily now as I understand the value of daily writing to build rapport and expertise in your field and industry. I referred to you and your article in one of my posts in a "content curation" method as a new blogger (will show once the blog is launched). But how would you compare the importance of keyword selection and SEO to daily blogging with good content? Would you still emphasize the role of SEO or would writing good content be enough for traffic generation?
Thanks,
Niveen
seo copywriting 12:10 AM on August 18, 2012
The latest changes to search engine algorithms also make regular blogging a good long term SEO tactic. The key to success is to be a source of valuable information that people will want to read on a regular basis. The statistics that you use also show that if you are blogging less than once a week, you are wasting your time and missing a practical and effective marketing opportunity.
carol 8:26 PM on August 20, 2012
And dont' forget to integrate your Blog with your Facebook Page by making sure one of your Custom Apps says "Blog" and has a "Follow" button..a great best practice for building traffic and opt in lists.
vin 9:36 PM on August 21, 2012
is it a combination of quality and frequency or is it just frequency? how do those that blog daily come up with high quality posts? Or does it matter? Is the point to create content that is good enough...but more frequent. I guess what I'm asking is this...if there is no impact on conversions if you frequently post garbage then does it make sense to post when you can but keep the quality high.