Every year, people go to the internet to find out if blogging is finally dead. I celebrate my own blogging anniversary in January, which always prompts me to ask, too. I had lots of company this week; “Is blogging dead for 2022?” brought back about 197 million results.
As with every other year I’ve asked, the answer is no.
This blog is one of more than 600 million blogs across platforms like WordPress, Blogger and Livejournal. WordPress users alone produce about 70 million new posts each month. That’s a lot of blogging!
So why blog?
- Blogging helps position you as an expert.
- Blogging can build trust; blogs are considered the 5th most reliable source of information on the internet.
- Blogging gives you more profile and is catnip to search engines.
- Blogging can help you talk to your customers, answer their questions and build relationships.
- Blogging helps generate brand awareness and drive traffic to your website.
- Blogging allows you to share your own thoughts without relying on social media platforms that are out of your control. Remember those times Facebook or Instagram or Twitter went down?
- Blogging is a way to extend your reach when you share your posts in other places, like LinkedIn, or other ways, like infographics or podcasts.
- Blogging can lead to sales; 63% of consumers have bought items that were recommended in a blog post.
Blogging has been around for a while because it works, reports HubSpot in Marketing Trends of 2022. Their latest blog research reports that 56% of marketers who use blogging say it’s effective, and 10% say it generates the biggest return on investment.
Andy Crestodina of Orbit Media Studios does an annual survey of 1,000+ bloggers, completing his eighth in the fall of 2021. He agrees, “Blogging still works.”
Bloggers he surveyed reported “strong results” (whatever that means to them) by publishing more often – weekly or several posts a month. Their posts were also longer, 1,500 to 3,000+ words, although Andy cautions that length on its own doesn’t equal success. “Every post should be as long as necessary to cover the topic completely, and not one word longer,” he says.
“Content depth definitely helps, so instead of focusing on numbers, focus on quality,” agrees the Content Marketing Institute. “Strive for originality and usefulness, not for the word count.”
I always find this yearly blog check-in interesting, and hope you do, too. What do you think – are you surprised that blogging is still alive and well? Do you still see value in blogs or are you spending more of your online time elsewhere? If so, where? I’d love to know your thoughts. Please share them in the comments or send me an email.
Image by back_road_ramblers on Pixabay.
Are you on the list to find out about new posts in the Red Jacket Diaries? Sign up here to get a short alert each time I publish my weekly(ish) blog posts and/or my monthly newsletter. In keeping with Canadian and U.S. anti-spam laws and just plain good manners, you can unsubscribe any time.
Related reading:
HubSpot’s 33 of the best social media marketing blogs
Reasons to blog from 2018 (still useful, I think)
Find some blogging tips in 9 things I’ve learned in 9 years of blogging (from 2016 but still valid)