This is one of the most common questions we see from new bloggers, and there’s definitely no right or wrong answer! Here are some things to think about when working out how many posts are right for your blog launch.
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How to calculate how many blog posts to have for launch
If you ask bloggers who’ve done it all before, you’ll see a variety of answers. Some bloggers just launched with one post, some launched with several. Your blog isn’t going to be a failure because you just started with one, and neither will it instantly go viral if you launch with twenty.
What matters more is how consistent you can trust yourself to be. If you decide to launch with one post, but you know you’ll have another three ready to go over the next week or so, it’s fine to launch with one. If you know you intend to have another three ready to go, but life might get in the way of that, and realistically you miss your deadlines a lot, you may want to have more than one already scheduled in or already posted for launch, just in case.
Here are a few strategies you could follow:
Simple Blog Launch
Day 1 (Soft launch) – Publish your initial post (if you’re not sure what your first blog post should be about, we have some ideas here). Spend the rest of your blog time for the day polishing up your site, asking friends for opinions, and building on your plans for future posts. This will make it seem less of a huge deal, and give you some space and time to tweak and process.
Day 2 (Amping it up) – Publish your second post, and work on promoting it via Pinterest, social media etc.
Day 3 (Launch party) – Promo your blog as a whole rather than individual posts. This could be taking advantage of launch days in Facebook groups, creating promo graphics for Twitter, going live on Instagram, personally messaging blogging friends asking if you can do something for them in return for them helping you support your blog launch. If you can arrange to go live or do a promo in a Facebook group where your target audience hangs out, definitely do that.
Intensive Blog Launch
Prelaunch – Make sure people know your blog is launching soon and how it will help them/be interesting for them/change their life. You could create teaser images for social media, plan a launch giveaway, or team up with other bloggers (new or old) to arrange a freebie launch bundle. This could include physical items or digital ones, for example checklists, workbooks, or short ebooks.
Day 1 – Have one post published, then publish 2-3 more over the next few hours while you go all-in on promoting your posts. Promote your contest/giveaway organically
Day 2 – Run Facebook ads to your target audience (set a very low budget to start, and make sure you’re targeting people by specific interest, age and location, not just ‘bloggers’). This should be to promote your giveaway or bundle. Publish another blog post and promote it on social media and any niche groups or forums where your audience hangs out. Check in with your friends to see if they can help you.
Day 3 – Publish another blog post and promote it. Continue this strategy by publishing one post a day over the next week and then slow the pace down so it’s more manageable in the long term.
Super Simple Blog Launch
Publish one post for launch that introduces your blog and your plans for it, then another that gives your readers a strong idea of what a typical blog post on your website will be like. Post a new blog post every day for the first week, one every other day for the second week, and then follow what will become your regular schedule (so 1-2 a week or so). Using this strategy, you’d want to have around 12 posts ready for launch.
This approach works well because it gives your visitors something to see and something to come back for, without it being overwhelming or boring. It also gives search engines more to index and more information to understand what your website is about, so you’re in a good position to start ranking for terms as time goes on.
Traps to avoid
Quality always beats quantity. If you find yourself struggling for things to write, or you feel like a blog post is a huge struggle to write, take a step back and take a break. Planning your content schedule ahead of time can really help increase the quality of your posts. It’s better to skip a day (or even a week) than put out a post that isn’t useful or interesting.
On the other side of the spectrum, don’t spend forever on a post if you know you’re a perfectionist. “Good enough” is totally fine. It’s better to have a post out there in the world that doesn’t have exactly the right dog photo than to not have the post at all. Your visitors will tell you if something is wrong enough to need fixing.
The number of blog posts you have ready should not be the one thing stopping you from launching. If you have at least one post and everything else is done, hit the button and go live. You just have to do it because there will never be a “perfect” moment, and anything you spot later can be fixed or changed. If you’re still putting it off, it’s not the number of blog posts that’s worrying you, but something else about your launch. In this situation, it’s best to talk it through with someone close to you so you can get to the root of what’s actually worrying you or causing you to procrastinate instead. And don’t worry – every blogger has been through the same thing!
Remember that your traffic and audience will build up over time. Not everyone is going to visit your website on day one (under 100 visits is typical for 99% of blogs), so it doesn’t matter that you only have one or two posts to start with or that your blog isn’t perfect. A couple of years down the line, most bloggers remember very little about what they did for launch or what posts they had. And the best part is that once your launch is over, you can focus more on your content and developing your blog.
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