We’ve all heard that “content is king”, but with so much content vying for the throne, it can be a royal pain to know how often you should publish new content in the realm of content marketing.

According to a recent study by Wyzowl, 75% of content marketers release new content at least once a month, with over half publishing new content each week. But is this really how often you should be publishing new content? After all, what really matters most, quality or frequency?

These are the kinds of questions that keep content marketers awake at night. Rather than continue counting sheep, we’d like to finally put these questions to rest. Here are four things you need to consider when deciding how often you should publish new content.

Consider your purpose
What is your purpose for writing and publishing new content? If your primary purpose for publishing new content is to drive traffic to your website, generate leads, build brand awareness, or increase reader engagement, then it’s better to frequently publish new content. However, if your purpose is to improve your site’s SEO, then it’s more beneficial to fully optimize your existing content before writing and publishing new content.

Consider your audience
Who are you trying to reach? Publishing content geared towards new readers requires a much different approach than publishing content for your regular readers. Routine readers are far less likely to engage with older content because they are the ones who are visiting your site regularly in search of new content. This doesn’t mean that older content isn’t of any value, though. According to a recent study by HubSpot, 75% of their blog views and 90% of their blog leads came from old posts. Their conclusion? “The more [new content] you publish, the more old content you'll have that'll get you traffic and leads over time.”

Consider content type
Are you writing content to publish as a blog, social media post, white paper, or other formats? Much of the data found on the web supports that content with higher word count performs better. Depending on the type of new content you’re seeking to publish, longer isn’t always better. 68% of content marketers surveyed by Wyzowl believe that a blog post should be anywhere up to 1,000 words, but no one is going to be interested in reading a Tweet longer than 140 characters.

Consider your competitors
Many of our mothers may have told us never to worry about what everyone else is doing, but that’s simply not the case in regards to content marketing. One of the best ways to determine how often you should publish new content is to look and see how often your competitors are. If their content marketing strategy is working well for them, and they occupy the same niche as you, utilise their strategy to your benefit.

Credit: Foremost Media Blog post.