Posting new content often can get more eyes on your site. But there’s more to it than meets the eye.
When it comes to content marketing, creating high volumes of SEO content is always best, right? After all, more is more, and having a high content velocity (the rate at which you publish new content) can help you get more eyes on your site over time.
But while publishing more content can drive growth, it’s not as simple as cranking out blog posts as fast as possible. To truly win with content velocity, it’s important to strike the right balance between speed and substance.
In this post, we’ll go over what content velocity is, why it matters, and how you can grow your content production sustainably without angering the Google machine.
- What Is Content Velocity?
- Why Is Content Velocity Important?
- How To Increase Content Velocity
- Creating Content at Scale Can Be Easy
What Is Content Velocity?
Content velocity refers to the amount of content you create in a predefined period. Depending on your business’s needs and goals, you can measure this by day, week, month, quarter, or year.
The more content you create, the higher your content velocity is. The less content you create, the lower your velocity is.
So, how do you measure your content velocity? It depends. You can measure velocity by:
- Calculating the total number of words you write in a given period
- Totalling the number of new URLs you publish
- Totalling the number of pages you create
- Calculating the total number of blogs you write
It all depends on the type of content you’re creating and your business’s preferences.
Why Is Content Velocity Important?
To attract readers to your website, you need to get Google to recognize you as an expert in your industry. Building authority and demonstrating experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) is key to earning higher rankings.
One of the easiest ways to do that is to create high-quality, reader-focused content that educates your audience.
When you’re regularly creating content that focuses on topics relevant to your business and your customers’ questions, you’re sending Google a signal that you’re an authority in the space. And that’s good.
The more perceived authority you have, the higher your site will likely rank over time. Long story short, Google awards websites that make regular updates. By posting new content often, you’ll show Google that you’re making updates regularly.
But there’s a fine line between posting too much and not posting enough. You’ll need to find the sweet spot that lets you create content quickly without sacrificing the quality of the information you’re putting out there.
How To Increase Content Velocity in 7 Steps
Think you can increase your content velocity by just publishing more content? Technically, you can. But that doesn’t mean you should.
Focusing on quantity alone can hurt your site’s performance if you increase the rate at which you publish content.
So, where do you start? Just follow these steps.
1. Plan Out Your Content Strategy
Your content strategy is your roadmap for the type of content you’ll produce. It should cover the types of content you’ll create, the topics you want to cover, and how you’ll distribute your content.
If your company is on the new side and your website is a blank slate, you’ll probably want to focus on creating the bulk of your content early on. This will help you establish a publishing cadence and give search engines time to index the pages you publish.
2. Create a Detailed Content Roadmap
Think of your content roadmap as the steps you’ll take to implement your content strategy. The more detailed your roadmap is, the easier it will be to keep your team on track to reach your goals. Try following these steps:
- Identify the total amount of content you’re creating according to your strategy. Break that number down into the number of pages/posts you’ll need to write each week.
- Figure out your target audience. Consider who you’re trying to reach with your content and include that information in your roadmap. These factors can help your writers tailor each piece of content to your audience, creating a more personalized experience.
- Identify target keywords and topics for each post. Set your team up for success by choosing the topics you’ll want to focus on each week. You may also want to do keyword research to figure out which terms you want to target in each post.
- Establish a timeline. Know when each post or page should go live, when your strategy should be completed, and any other key deadlines. Communicate those deadlines to your team so they know where to go and when content needs to be completed.
Your roadmap can be as simple or detailed as you want it to be. The more detailed it is, the easier it will be for your team to bring your vision to life.
3. Build Streamlined Workflows
It’s normal to want to be involved in every step of the process, but do your best to build out streamlined workflows with clear owners for each step. This way, everyone knows what they’re responsible for and what they need to do to complete their tasks.
If possible, try to keep the number of stakeholders for each task to a minimum. The fewer people involved in each layer of a project, the faster work can be done.
4. Hire Talented Writers
Your content is only as good as your writers. If you already have a team of writers you trust to represent your brand and get your message across to readers, great! You’re ahead of the curve.
If you don’t, you’ll need to hire writers to create your content. You have several options here.
- Hire freelancers: Freelance writers are contract workers that you can bring on staff either temporarily or ad-hoc (as needed). This can be a good option for businesses with smaller content needs or businesses that don’t have the budget to hire another full-time employee.
- Hire in-house writers: If creating content at scale is part of your long-term strategy, you may want to hire in-house writers who can get to know your brand and create content for you on a regular and long-term basis.
- Partner with a content marketing agency: If you want the convenience of in-house writers but don’t want the responsibility of taking on new employees, consider partnering with a content marketing agency. The best content marketing agencies have access to high-quality writers who will get to know your brand and provide the expertise you need to create content that ranks.
Consider your business’s needs and how each option may impact your budget. Hiring a content marketing agency may offer higher returns in the long run.
5. Leverage Content Marketing Tools
Content marketing tools can make all the difference in your company’s ability to rank. Investing in those tools can help you measure your success and better optimize new content as you create it.
These are a few tools that we love and use often:
- Ahrefs: Best for SEO, competitor analysis, and keyword research
- Hemingway Editor: Best for AI-assisted editing and readability assessment
- Grammarly: Best for editing and plagiarism assessment
- Yoast: Best for WordPress users looking to optimize content
This is far from an exhaustive list. But these tools can help you take your content production efforts to the next level.
6. Refresh and Repurpose Existing Content
There’s a common misconception that all you have to do to get your content to rank is to create new content. And to an extent, new content can certainly help you get your site in front of your target audience.
But once you’ve established a reputation as a thought leader in your industry, you’ll want to give your old content some TLC.
You can do this by:
- Updating outdated statistics and information that may have changed over time
- Adding interlinks to new and relevant pages published since the original post went live
- Revising old content to improve readability and flow
- Adding new sections to blog posts to provide more valuable information to your readers
Making even minor changes to your content can help an underperforming piece or a page that’s dropping in the rankings perform the way you want it to.
So, how often should you refresh content? We’ve found that the top-ranking sites typically update their content every 1.36 years.
7. Repurpose Older Content
Refreshing old content isn’t the only way to help it perform better. Repurposing it can help you breathe new life into older posts. So, what does this involve?
Say you have an old blog post that hasn’t gotten a lot of traffic but still has relevant information that you think your readers need to hear. You could turn that content into a series of helpful social media posts you share over a week or two. You could also expand that blog post into a podcast or YouTube video.
It all depends on the types of content you want to create. Use your imagination and consider how your target audience is accessing your content most often.
Creating Content at Scale Can Be Easy
Building out your content catalog can help position your site as an authority in the space. By developing a comprehensive content strategy, maintaining a high content velocity, updating existing pieces to keep them relevant, and committing to sharing your expertise with your current and future clients, you’ll set yourself apart from other businesses in your niche.
If creating large volumes of content feels intimidating, that’s okay. Partnering with Siege will give you access to a dedicated team of SEO, content, and design experts who will create content you and your target audience will love. Contact us to learn more about how our team can help you grow your reach.
