Does Posting More Content Really Boost Your SEO? Does Fresh Content Really Help? I Ran an Experiment to Find Out
If you’re like most marketing leaders, you’ve heard the advice a thousand times: Post consistently. Keep your content fresh. Update frequently.
It’s become one of those SEO commandments we all nod along to in meetings. But here’s the question that’s been nagging at me (and maybe at you, too): Does it actually work? Especially now, in the age of AI-powered search and ChatGPT snippets reshaping how people discover content?
As someone who runs Seven Oaks Consulting, a content marketing agency, I spend my days helping clients navigate these exact questions. But this summer, I found myself in a position to test the theory firsthand with one of my own websites. What I discovered might surprise you.
The Setup: A Perfect (Accidental) Control Group
I own a seasonal website that gets the bulk of its search traffic between March and July. Think of it as a digital spring bloom—lots of activity when the weather warms up, then a gradual fade through August, and near-dormancy during winter months.
This summer, I was swamped with client work. The site that usually gets attention every couple of weeks? It languished. I managed to update it just once a month (which, let’s be honest, is barely keeping the lights on in SEO terms.)
The results were about what you’d expect from a neglected website: my average search engine position was 46.
For context, that’s essentially invisible. If you’re not on the first page of search results (positions 1-10), you might as well not exist. Position 46 means I was buried on page five, where only the most determined or desperate searchers would ever find me.
The Experiment: Doubling Down on Content
By September, I had more breathing room. I also had a hypothesis I wanted to test: What would happen if I dramatically increased my posting frequency?
My typical schedule for this site was once every two weeks—a reasonable cadence for most content marketing strategies. But for this experiment, I decided to go aggressive: I would post twice per week instead.
That’s a 4x increase in content output. More work, yes, but I wanted to see a clear signal if one existed.
The Results: From Invisible to Viable
The data came in faster than I expected.
After ramping up to twice-weekly posts, my average SERP (Search Engine Results Page) position jumped from 46 to 21. That’s a leap of 25 positions, moving from page five to page two or three, depending on how Google was displaying results.
But it didn’t stop there. The position continued to improve, climbing to an average of 11.
Suddenly, I wasn’t just in the game. I was on the first page. My content was visible. People could actually find it.
Now, I should mention that the position has since settled back into the 20s. But before you dismiss the experiment as a fluke, remember: this is a seasonal site. The traffic naturally declines in fall and winter regardless of what I do. The fact that I maintained better positioning than before, even during the off-season, tells me something significant happened.
What This Means for Your Marketing Strategy
So, is the conventional wisdom true? Does frequent content updating actually improve search engine rankings in our new AI-powered search landscape?
Based on my experiment, the answer is a resounding yes.
Here’s what I think is happening: Search engines—Google, Bing, and the emerging AI-powered alternatives—are all looking for signals of relevance and authority. A website that publishes fresh, valuable content regularly sends a strong signal that it’s active, current, and worth paying attention to.
With AI summaries and ChatGPT-style snippets becoming more prominent in search results, there’s even more pressure on search algorithms to surface up-to-date content. Nobody wants their AI to quote outdated information, so recency has become an increasingly important ranking factor.
But here’s the nuance that matters: it’s not just about quantity. The content still needs to be valuable, relevant, and well-crafted. Posting twice a week with thin, rushed content won’t get you anywhere. The frequency amplifies quality. It doesn’t replace it.
The Practical Takeaway for Marketing Leaders
If you’re a CMO, VP of Marketing, or CEO trying to make smart decisions about your content marketing budget, here’s what this experiment suggests:
Increasing your content frequency can move the needle on SEO—but it requires commitment.
Going from sporadic updates to consistent, frequent publishing isn’t just about writing more blog posts. It means:
- Having the team capacity (or agency support) to maintain quality at higher volume
- Developing a content pipeline that can sustain the pace
- Ensuring each piece genuinely serves your audience’s needs
- Being patient enough to let the strategy work over several weeks or months
For my seasonal site, doubling down on content during a slow period still improved rankings. Imagine what strategic, sustained content marketing could do for your business during peak seasons when search traffic is already high.
SEO Best Practices Are Still Important
Those SEO best practices you’ve been hearing about? They’re not just tribal knowledge passed down from the early days of Google. They’re working, perhaps more than ever, in our AI-enhanced search environment.
Frequent content updates aren’t a magic bullet, but they are a powerful lever. Used strategically, they can take you from invisible (position 46) to viable (position 11) faster than you might think.
The question isn’t whether it works. My little experiment suggests it does. The real question is: Are you ready to commit to the consistency it takes to make it work for you?