How often should you post, and does it really make a difference? This question – asked by bloggers for years – is featuring more and more among creators looking to succeed with their blogs.

The answer lies in figuring out how often to publish your content, how quickly to do it, and which tools and techniques we should use to get it right. Content velocity is a balancing act between quantity and quality. Measuring and improving blog content velocity is crucial to helping it to succeed.

Some people post once a week, while others opt for a daily publishing routine that works best for them. Many bloggers choose to post at the same time, on the same days, and in the same order, no matter what.

Other creators only hit the ‘post’ button when they’re good and ready to do so, surprising their readers by dropping engaging content when they least expect it.

But understanding how often to post content, where to post it, and when can make all the difference in how you reach blogging success. To figure this out, we to understand what is content velocity all about.   

Content velocity helps us to understand our content production. Like a business needs to balance production with demand, bloggers must figure out how much content is too much or when they’re not producing enough of it.

By looking at these posting patterns and how they impact blog performance, we’re able to allocate resources better, analyze competitor output and optimize our content strategy. 

Content velocity is an important metric and, in this article, we’ll explore what it is all about. From understanding how it impacts your blogging success and SEO to unpacking ways to improve production and how to measure blog content velocity, this important blogging factor can give your blog the boost it needs to rank well and hit the right audiences.  

While speed represents a snapshot of how much distance something can cover in a specified time (like how many posts you can churn out), velocity tells us:

• How quickly we’re moving (or reaching audiences)
• Through something (like various publishing channels) 
• And in which direction (are the metrics going up or down?)

At a glance, content velocity measures how much content we publish over a defined period. These periods can cover weeks, months, quarters – even years. But while learning how to measure blog content velocity tells us how often we’re producing new content, it also looks at how quickly it gains traction among audiences.

Why content velocity matters

When it comes to content production – and publishing – in blogging, content velocity plays a critical role in our resource allocation, competitiveness, rankings, user experience, and overall input effort. 

Content velocity also impacts SEO. Google values regular, consistent content production that users can depend upon for up-to-date information and solutions. Bloggers who post infrequently, or don’t post often enough, will struggle to convince search engines that they’re worth indexing. 

Quantity vs. Quality

Many content creators fall into the trap of prioritizing quantity over quality. While churning out large amounts of content may seem like a good tactic for dominating a low-competition SERP or niche, in fact, you’ll need to balance your production intensity with quality posts to perform well as you work on improving blog content velocity.

And that’s where figuring out what is content velocity comes in. One high-quality, authoritative, optimized piece of content will often outrank half a dozen low-quality posts, usually netting more impressions and page views than all of them combined. 

Content velocity analysis

Content velocity allows us to evaluate the rate at which we’re posting and then compare that metric to the direction – or impact – it takes once published. To obtain optimal content velocity, you’ll need to focus on getting the pace and consistency of your blog production efforts right first.

Figuring out how to measure blog content velocity isn’t difficult. There are, however, multiple elements and blog metrics you’ll have to consider to gain a complete understanding of your blog’s content velocity before taking any action to improve it. 

The most basic measurement of content velocity deals with how many posts you publish. But establishing both the speed and effectiveness of your content delivers much more important insight and involves exploring some other key metrics as you work toward improving blog content velocity.

Production Frequency = Number of Posts / Time

This measurement refers to how many pieces of content you’re able to create, edit and publish within a time period. This can include all blog posts, newsletters, podcasts, videos, and social media posts. This metric will indicate where you stand in relation to your competitors and if you’re hitting your production goals or not. This is the primary measurement for your content velocity. 

Include all unpublished pieces of content and those that are nearly completed or are being held back. 

Posting Ratio = Number of Published Posts / Total Number of Posts

This blogging content velocity metric tells you the rate at which your production efforts are going live online across different channels. More specifically – the rate at which each piece of content appears online. Some bloggers don’t publish everything they create, holding posts back or canceling them altogether.

Consider where these posts are being published and how frequently the same finished content is being shared across multiple channels. 

Average Post Word Counts = Total Words for All Content / Number of Posts

This average looks at how many words each piece of content contains – essentially, the ‘word count velocity.’ This will help you determine a more accurate cost per word rather than per piece of content. Doing this will assist in better resource allocation and aids in reviewing the ideal blog post length that delivers the best returns.  

Add up the total number of words you create for all your content within a defined period and divide them by the number of posts published over that same time. 

Cost per Post = (Cost of Content / Number of Posts) / Time

This metric is critical to helping us establish our content velocity’s impact on cost. When allocating resources to different content areas, we must understand how much we’re committing to each post. Knowing what is content velocity is a great indicator of our overall RoI. 

Take your content expenditure and divide it by the number of pieces of content you produce in the period. Now, you have an average cost per piece of content to consider during resource allocation. 

Engagement = (All Engagement Actions / Number of Posts) / Time

Engagement metrics look at the level of engagement among audiences per piece of content. This is an important metric when learning how to measure blog content velocity as different content receives different engagement levels. Establishing your content’s engagement velocity helps us establish which content types receive the most action and which channels are most effective. 

The engagement metric includes taking data like impressions, page views, likes, comments, shares, and clicks and dividing these cumulative amounts by the number of posts in a period. 

Conversions = (Total Conversions / Number of Posts) / Time

Determining how many conversions each piece of content earns, on average, is crucial to helping us figure out if we’re on the right track to improving blog content velocity. Conversion velocity indicates if we’re balancing quality with quantity and which content is achieving its goals best. 

Take all your conversions, including sign-ups, sales, referrals, or downloads, and divide the totals by the number of posts published. 

Each of these metrics contributes to helping us gain a better understanding of our blogging content velocity and the impact it can have on our blogging success. Once we can gauge how these numbers interact with one another and then apply them to our content strategy objectives, we can begin to see how important content velocity is for our blogging success. 

Content velocity works for blogs on more than one front. The better your blog’s content velocity, the higher your chances of finding success. Content velocity is just one factor out of many that define what success means for a blog, but it is an important one, and – crucially – it is easy to improve.

Here are six ways content velocity affects your blogging success.

Improving blog content velocity isn’t as easy as simply producing more content and publishing it. Aside from the fact that creating more content takes time, resources, and effort you may not have, you’ll have to ensure that the content is of high quality and relevant to your validated niche. 

While there are many techniques for how to measure content velocity, increasing your productivity and blogging output, here are some longer-term solutions to get your content velocity up to speed without compromising on your blog quality. 

Repurpose your content

Repurposing blog content involves taking existing posts and publications and reconfiguring them or putting them to work in a different role from which they were designed. Repurposed content performs just as well as new content, with some even outperforming their original posts. This is an effective content velocity booster for bloggers who have large amounts of unpublished or older content that they can reuse.

How to do it:

• You can combine old posts into longer-form pieces of content
• Repackage original content in newer formats
• Create new content using snippets and excerpts from multiple older articles and blogs. 

Pros of repurposing content:

• Quick and easy to do
• Saves time and money when improving blog content velocity
• Improves blog performance and traffic

Cons of repurposing content:

• You need a decent amount of existing content to use – not ideal for new bloggers
• Repurposing content into different formats or mediums may not always directly contribute to improving blog content velocity

For more on how to repurpose blog content, take a look at this article.

Use more writers

Bringing in writers to help boost your content velocity is a tried-and-tested method for ensuring that you’re able to increase content output. Outsourcing your blog writing may not always be the easiest choice to make, but scaling a business often requires extra hands – especially when looking to increase content production. Building a small ‘army’ of talented copywriters, all aligned to your content vision, is a surefire way to boost blogging content velocity. 

How to do it:

• There are many innovative freelance platforms where you can find and hire writers
• Hire writers on a job-by-job basis as part-time collaborators or full-time employees

Pros of using more writers:

• Finding capable writers on platforms, forums, or social media doesn’t take long
• More new ideas, more creativity, and a fresh take on your content
• Outsourcing frees up more time for you to focus on the big-picture stuff

Cons of using more writers

• Using writers can get very expensive
• Content quality and control issues may become a problem

Check out this article on outsourcing your blog writing. 

Using Tools

As AI continues to evolve and new innovative platforms and tools emerge, creating high-quality content is becoming more efficient and a little easier. People looking to increase their content velocity can always turn to them, not to contribute directly to boosting output but to help them become more productive and efficient. 

How to do it:

• Make use of free writing tools and plugins to improve productivity
• Use AI to assist in edition for topics and search tools for keyword research
• Use project management tools like Notion to help you stay organized

Pros of using tools:

• Many tools are free-to-use
• Writing and productivity tools can dramatically increase productivity
• Online resources are great at tracking content velocity and monitoring the competition

Cons of using tools

• Some tools may negatively affect your SEO
• Using tools to increase your output may impact on your content quality and appeal

Here’s a great resource where you can find information on many of these tools.