Hello Reader,

Four years ago, I wrote a newsletter with the subject line, "Do people still read blogs?"​

Then, my answer was "Yes!"

My answer today, still "Yes" but more of a "Yes, but here's what that means today versus a few years ago."

What's a blog anyway?

​
First of all, if you're not sure what a blog is, don't worry!

Blogs in 2024 look very different than they did in the early days of blogging. For example, here's mine: https://sarahmoon.net/blog/ It's a a semi-traditional "blog" in terms of format, but it's actually called "articles," and it's organized according to my marketing framework, known as Alignthority™.

Your website likely has a blog, even if you don't use it. It's very, very unusual to come across a site without a blog these days. Squarespace users are even luckier, because that system allows for multiple blogs with just a few clicks (this is also possible on other platforms, but it's much more technical), which can open up a bunch of possibilities for content creation.

Blogs are characterized by being chronological, organized by categories, and having what's known as an RSS feed attached to them (this is a little piece of code that lets various software and bots know about new content). They contain posts, which are added over time, differentiating them from static pages on a website, which are undated infrequently unless you're in the earliest stages of your business and continuing to iterate your offerings.

Blogs are relevant in 2024 - Quick Stats

​
In starting my series about blogging, I did some serious research about blogging and what the cold, hard facts are.

• 90% of professional content marketers leverage blogs (these are folks working inside companies to build content strategies) - BKA​
• Companies that use blogs consistently are 13x more likely to see a return on marketing investment of those that do not - BKA​
• On average, companies with active blogs have 67% more leads than those without - Demand Metric​
• Blogs are responsible for a 434% increase in indexed pages on websites - Demand Metric​
• Almost 80% of internet users report reading blogs—and that's just the people who know they're reading a blog! - Social Media Today​
• Imagery increases the reach of blogs significantly (hey, we have a course on that)—seven images in a blog post is likely to increase its traffic 2.3x! - Orbit Media​

I have loads of data I've collected about this, and they tell the same story over and over again: people who are professionals in the world of content marketing are emphasizing blogs more and more—and it's paying off in multiple ways.

Blogging for Your Business and Blogging as a Business Are Two Different Beasts

​
Now more than ever, we see a divergence between people who make a living by publishing blogs and people who are blogging to grow a services-based business. They're technically the same thing, but the metrics, strategy, execution, and overall approach could not be farther apart.

Here's the key difference:

People who blog as a business must create a high volume of content (think at least three articles a week, but the data on this industry tell us that more is often better) and they monetize them with ads, affiliates, brand deals, and similar. Some are getting clever and offering ebooks, courses, and similar.

If you have a businesses and leverage your blog, you are doing so to build your authority in the search engine and with your ideal clients.

Unfortunately, most of the data we have that's current is drawn from the former, so while it's useful big picture information like what I shared above, it's challenging when we get to granular issues. For example, when someone asks me "how often should I post on my blog," for example, my answer is typically based on data I've collected from my own site and client sites—which is a smaller dataset than most of us would like.

It's certainly possible to monetize this blog content in some ways like this blogging as a business folks (I do!), but that's a secondary priority. The goal of blogging as a marketing strategy for businesses is to fuel discovery, build connection, and help people to believe that you can solve their high stakes challenges. Because of this, the volume doesn't need to be nearly as high as the "blogging as a business" folks, which is good news for time-poor businesses.

So, we need to understand that in the year 2024, we have a lot of observational data that tells us that to be relevant with our blogs, we need a specific, purposeful, and intentional strategy—not high volume, "lifestyle" content.

​(Yes, we have a course on this strategy.)​

In 2024, Experience and Expertise are Blogging Fuel

​
I talked about this a bit last year, but it's such an important concept to understand when building a readership as a business with the goal of not just attracting clicks, but clients.

There's a lot to this, but essentially Google wants to know who wrote the blog post, and what cred they have to be doing so. This is a major change and a net positive for people leveraging blogs in their business marketing.

I won't go too much into this, but I believe that will ultimately mean that the online marketing gurus who are talking all kinds of nonsense about "writing" thousands of articles using Large Language Models like ChatGPT will only see temporary boosts in their blog's authority and then things will settle down.

Real people don't want to read remixed, unoriginal content from folks they're considering investing thousands of dollars with.

That's just a reality of human psychology.

Again, as has been for many, many years, people still read blogs this year, just like last and the years prior. But what readers want from authoritative authors of those blogs has changed. Provable, demonstrated experience is more important than ever. Thought leadership continues to be a key factor. Frequency is less important than high quality, compounding blog posts.

Are you thinking about adding blogging to your marketing strategy? What questions do you have? This series is flexible, so hit me with your burning blogging queries, and I'll see what I can do in terms of adding them into my plan.

Talk soon,
Sarah

P.S. Jan 6 is the very last day to lock in 2023 pricing for our services. Please ensure you've sent your inquiry before our prices shift. ​