It’s the year 2022, and if you are a business looking to grow your online presence you might be having the following questions:
Is blogging worth pursuing in the age of social media?
Is there any scope for blogging in the future?
Is it too late to start blogging in 2022?
Well the answer is a big yes!
The reason why blogs became popular in the first place is because people want to find answers to their questions.
People use search engines like Google to browse information or find answers to their specific queries.
Having this solution oriented approach is what content marketing is all about.
Content marketing includes things like blog posts, eBooks, videos, webinars, infographics, checklists, and more.
Educating your audience and finding solutions to their problems goes a long way in increasing your leads, traffic, and sales.
You might have the best content out there in your niche but what’s the point if it gives a poor experience to your users.
If you want to increase sales and conversions, you need to focus on improving your website’s user experience (UX).
User experience includes factors such as interactive design, page loading speed, social shares, comments, bounce rate.
A superior user experience helps build:
Here are some actionable guidelines that can get you going to improve your blog’s user experience.
Video blogging or “Vlogging” as it’s popularly known to internet users is becoming popular in almost every niche and industry.
According to HubSpot, 96% of consumers have increased watching online video, and 9 out of 10 viewers say that they want to see more videos from brands and businesses.
Almost 5 billion videos are watched on Youtube every single day.
So no matter what business you are in, investing in video along with blogs will do wonders for your brand.
Whether you are a small business or an individual, having a personal brand that your customers identify with is vital.
Even Though there are companies like InterActiveCorp, who are behind publications such as The Spruce and The Daily Beast, and generate billions of dollars in revenue, your goal should not be to compete with them.
You’re better off leveraging your brand as a relatable expert who produces top quality content in a specific niche.
Establishing a brand is easier when you are an individual or small business as you are all the more relatable than a big corporation.
Successful marketers like Pat Flynn, Gary Vaynerchuk, Neil Patel have built flourishing online businesses based on their personal brand.
Your blog won’t get the organic traffic it deserves if Search Engine Optimization is not implemented correctly.
According to Google’s Economic Impact Report, organic search is 5X more valuable than Google Ads.
Some pointers to keep in mind when writing content with SEO in mind
Google receives billions of queries every day from users all over the globe.
So if you want long-lasting results from blogging, make sure to optimize your website for search engines like Google.
When starting a blog, you should always aim to answer the questions of your audience.
Creating high-quality content can go a long way to get you results from blogging.
Here are some points to remember when creating blogs articles:
When you are writing for the internet, you have to make sure that your content is skimmable.
When people are doing Google searches, they are looking for a quick answer to a simple question.
Creating well thought out and structured content is preferred over chunky paragraphs and long-winded musings.
This can be done by following these steps:
Also, writing digestible sentences and making use of lists are a great way of making your content more skimmable.
Unique content isn’t just nice to have, it’s a need to have in today’s day and age.
Although easier said than done, quality, original content is one of the biggest factors in blogging success.
By creating a compelling yet unique blog, you will be soon on your way to create more readable, sharable blogs that help generate more leads.
Some reasons to focus on creating quality content are:
How do you write an original blog article you ask? Here are some pointers:
Looking at what others in your domain are doing and trying to one up them is a good way to start coming up with unique ideas.
Going the extra mile, even if it means compiling data from other sources, will make your piece stand out from the crowd – details add authority and better prove the points you’re making.
These details can include research statistics, custom images, graphs and charts.
Linking to other blogs might seem counter-intuitive for your brand; won’t it just send our readers away from our website, you say?
Well, the key reason for doing this is to provide your readers with even more valuable information.
Linking to other higher-authority blogs with in depth content that benefits your readers will only make your blog seem more credible to them.
Make sure you follow good link etiquette when reaching out to other blogs in order to not confuse or overwhelm your readers.
As per a study by SerpIQ, which charted the top 10 results in search queries by content length.
The first result typically had 2,416 words, while the 10th result had 2,032 words.This shows that Google prefers content rich sites.
Longer content also has higher probability to earn more quality backlinks which contribute to better search rankings and is also likely to get more social shares.
How to go about writing in-depth articles:-
If you are planning to start your blog or are already in the process of building one, make sure to stay away from these outdated tactics.
Don’t be under the assumption that publishing a ton of articles on your website, like every single day, is going to help you with traffic.
Brain Dean, a famous SEO blogger has managed to rack up over 1 Million views by only publishing 32 posts.
If you are on your own or have a small team, it is important to focus more on QUALITY than quantity when it comes to your blog.
What to do instead?
It’s always better to create one in-depth, informative blog post rather than publishing several mediocre ones.
Make sure you have a blogging schedule to decide how often you want to publish and be consistent with it.
Take a look at your favorite blogs which rank on Google, do you think any of them are using a free blogging platform?
Probably not.
To get the best results from your blogging pursuit, try to avoid using free blogging platforms such as BlogSpot, Tumblr, etc.
What to do instead?
Instead, go for your very own self-hosted WordPress website which gives you full control over customization, and is optimized for search engines.
Most newcomers assume that writing about several different topics can get them tons of views for their blogs.
This is not true.
Face it there are tons of blogs already out there that have built their authority on a subject over the years.
Writing general blog articles on different topics won’t give anything to your readers.
What to do instead?
Choose one main topic that your business is based around, for example Paid Ads in Digital Marketing, and try to write at least 10 High-quality articles based on that topic.
Then start branching out to another related topic such as SEO, Video Marketing.
Make sure to promote and share your blogs so you build a loyal following around them.
There’s no point to blogging if you are going to write thin, low-value content.
Over the years, the word count has definitely increased. In 2014, the average blog post was 808 words. In 2021, the average blog post is now 1416.
As per Hubspot data, the ideal blog post length should be around 2,100-2,400 words.
But writing super-long articles should not necessarily be your goal. You should focus on writing comprehensive articles which cover several aspects of a topic.
Analyze the top-ranking articles on Google for a particular topic. Do your research and include as much “data” and links as possible.
