Could decreasing publishing frequency negatively affect our SEO?

[paulz999]

Hi Moz Community!

I run marketing for a DA 43 website. We've been consistently blogging 4-5 times per week for the past 7 years, and its become ingrained in company culture. Due to limited resources, I want to decrease publishing frequency on the blog and focus on other marketing activities (content promotion, higher value content, link outreach, CRO etc).

However, our team is worried that decreasing frequency might negatively affect our SEO (organic search is by far our most important acquisition channel, is the main revenue driver for the whole company). When I look at metrics, a couple of things stand out: 1) a very small % of our blog posts get meaningful organic traffic, 2) the majority of organic traffic that produces customers actually goes through the homepage, not the blog, 3) the vast majority of our blog posts are not earning links as we have not focused much on promotion.

Anybody have thoughts on specifically whether decreasing blogging frequency might have an impact? (I know Moz and Hubspot have both done frequency experiments, but those were on high-DA, high-engagement sites where every post had a chance to earn links, etc.) so I'm wanting to isolate the case where publishing frequency is decreased on a site where most posts aren't getting links/much engagement.

Thanks!

[brightvessel]

Hi,

I have been in the same position myself. I would recommend taking a look at all your old content like Anthony mentioned and find what has been really valuable to your users. See if you can create less and only on the topics that hit home. I would also think about using a writing service and then just have an editor review and change what is needed. You will cut the cost down tremendously.

https://www.textbroker.com/

Does decent work, but you have to pick 4 or 5-star writers. You also have to make sure you brief is detailed so you get a good first round. Keep in mind this is not replacing writers just giving them original materials they can work with.

I would also try out https://promote.quuu.co/ which does a good job with getting the content out there at a very low cost. You can get a better gauge on what is more shareable topics. It also can help get more inbound links. When you promote your posts this gives a faster and greater understanding to what works.

Which brings me to the topic of gaining quality inbound links which in my opinion is one of the main reason for generating ongoing content. So I would look at how and where it is shared to gauge the quality of the content.

Good Luck!

[paulz999]

Thanks Anthony! We're definitely doing some re-publishing and some removing, I love the idea of doing more combining with republishing though.

[anthonydnelson]

Decreasing will not negatively affect your organic traffic.

Here is what I think you should do.

Find those blog posts that get little to no organic traffic. Look for opportunities to combine/merge similar posts into one new, better post - then republish them. When you encounter old posts that you can't imagine having any future value, consider removing them completely.

*edited to correct a typo