One common thing I see asked a lot in groups and various blogging communities is “how many blog posts should you have before you launch?”. It’s another one of those questions people ask that just slows down their progress.
People think “well, I can’t launch my blog until I know the exact number of posts needed to launch” so it’s an excuse to delay getting any real work done. In this article I’ll tell my opinion on this matter.
How many blog posts should I have before I launch?
You should have at least one complete blog post published when you launch. What does “launch” mean though? If by launch you mean a social media campaign to generate traffic or an appearance on a podcast where you promote the site, then you should have a more polished site padded with plenty of content.
If by launch you just mean make it live on the internet, then I say have one article. I build all of my new blogs live, they start from a default WordPress installation and slowly transform into authority websites as I add content. So really, I launch with no articles.
No one is going to see the site but you
New blogs built on fresh domains do not get traffic for the first few months. I started a new blog about 45 days ago and it has just started to get an organic visitor every few days. The site has almost 50 pieces of content though.
If you have a small site with only a few posts, and are new at blogging and SEO, then it may be 3-6 months before you see your very first organic visitor. Since you’re the only one on your blog during this time, who cares if you go live with just one post?
By the time your site finally makes it out of the Google sandbox you should have enough content to look like a legit website.
How often should I post to a new blog?
If your goal is to rank and make money, then the answer is as often as possible in the beginning. If you can average an article a day for the first 60 days of a new site, you’ve put yourself in good spot. If you can do twice that, then do that.
Front-loading your blog with as much content as you can helps you see more success in year one. After that you can slow it down.
How long to content blitz a new blog
I don’t like to throw everything I have at a new site for too long unless I’m very confident about the niche and strategy. So generally 60-90 days is how long I make that first big content push to a new blog.
There are times when I’m very confident about a new site and I have no problem leaving my foot on the gas for 6 months. For most beginners I wouldn’t recommend an approach like this though, more testing is usually better.
How many articles should I publish during this period?
Publishing something like 400 articles in the first 60 days on unfamiliar grounds is risky, I like to get some data back before hitting the gas pedal again. What if you dropped $20k in content on a new site using an untested strategy, and you were wrong. Money wasted.
What if instead you published 100 articles, waited 6-9 months and go some data back about your best performing articles.
If you’re like me, then at least half of these first 100 articles were part of larger keyword clusters. Separate the top 10 or so articles where the keyword was part of a larger cluster. There are your remaining 300 topics, proven to get traffic.
Summary
Don’t overthink this. It doesn’t matter how many articles you have live on your blog when you launch it, whatever launch means to you. Make your site live as soon as you can and publish articles as you write them. If you need a number, then I say launch with one complete article.