Blogging has become one of the fastest growing marketing strategies to grow brands organically. Here at Spiralytics, we use proven methods that support your brand’s goals. Learn more about how we grow our client’s businesses through the power of content marketing!
The blogging landscape has changed quite a bit over the past decade. What began as a way to chronicle one’s day-to-day musings through an online diary has now evolved to become one of the leading marketing strategies for businesses.
Did you know that back in 1999, there were only 23 blogs on the web? The blogging trend was pioneered by Justin Hall in 1994. We bet Hall wouldn’t have thought that just 20 years later, there would be over 600 million blogs in the online landscape.
Along with the birth of WordPress in 2003, blogs became even more popular, domains and hosting prices became more affordable, and installing a CMS became simpler and easier. More people created their own blogs. News outfits took to the internet to reach their audience. Businesses reached out to personal bloggers to endorse their products.
Fast forward to today. Blogging is now a lucrative industry on its own, and businesses are harnessing its power to widen their reach and increase profitability. Blogging is now used by many as an effective and efficient way to reach a specific audience.
To help improve your business blogging strategy, here are our top picks for the most compelling statistics shaping the blogging landscape today:
Blogging Statistics 2019
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Blogging Landscape
- There are over 1.71 billion live websites online right now, and that number is increasing every second. [InternetLiveStats]
- WordPress is the top Content Management System, holding over 61% of market share. Other popular CMS platforms include Joomla, Drupal, Shopify, Squarespace, WIX, Magento, and Blogger. [W3Techs]
- Survey shows that 66% of marketers used blogs in their social media content as part of their content marketing strategy. (HubSpot)
- Blogging is a powerful lead generation strategy, so 75% of B2B marketers use blogs in their social media content, compared to 61% of B2C marketers. [SEOTribunal]
- About 65% of content marketers state they have a documented content marketing plan to guide their efforts. (ContentMarketingInstitute)
- Top content marketing leaders (both B2B and B2C) outsource about 24% of their blog post writing. [Curata]
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Blogging Performance
- Content quality is rated as the topmost crucial success factor among all bloggers. Nevertheless, higher-earning bloggers emphasize more on promoting their content compared to lower-income bloggers. (GrowthBadger)
- Companies that use blogs get an average of 67% more leads than companies that don’t use blogs. [HubSpot]
- Businesses that have a blog post frequency of 16+ posts per month generate roughly 4.5x more leads than companies that publish between 0-4 posts monthly. (HubSpot)
- Businesses that published at least 16 blog posts per month got 3.5 times more website traffic than businesses that published only 0 to 4 blog posts monthly. [HubSpot]
- Businesses who publish blogs receive 97% more links to their website. (Liquid Capital Corp)
- 47% of B2B buyers read 3-5 blog posts before speaking to a salesperson. [DemandGenReport]
- 81% of online consumers in the United States claim that they trust information and advice from blogs. [Writtent]
- Bloggers who work with editors find they’re 50% more likely to receive ‘strong results’ than those who don’t. (Orbit Media)
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Blogging Engagement
- 43% of web users admit to skimming blog posts instead of reading them completely. [Source]
- On average, users spend approximately 32 – 37 seconds reading and actively engaging with an article. [ChartBeat]
- Listicles are frequently shared on social networks. List posts receive an average of 218% more shares compared to “how to” articles, and 203% more shares than infographics. (Backlinko)
- “How” and “your” are the most common words found in compounding blog titles. [HubSpot]
- Blog posts with approximately 1,500 – 2,500 words generate more traffic, rank higher in search engines, get a lower bounce rate, and generate higher engagement. [OrbitMedia]
- Long-form content generates roughly 77.2% more links than short blog posts. Thus, long-form content is ideal for backlink acquisition. (Backlinko)
- 88% of marketers report using visuals as part of their content marketing strategies. [Impactbnd]
- Articles that feature an image once every 75-100 words get double the social media shares compared to articles with fewer or without images. (HubSpot)
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B2B Blogging
- In 2018, B2B marketers said blog articles are the most effective content format in the awareness stage, with whitepapers in the consideration stage, and case studies in the decision stage. (CMI and MarketingProfs)
- Study shows that predictive headline phrases like “The Future of…” or “How to Use…” outperform other headlines in the B2B space. (Buzzsumo)
- In 2018, 71% of B2B buyers stated they consumed blog content during their buyer’s journey. That’s up from 66% the previous year. (Demand Gen Report 2018 Content Preferences Survey Report)
- Around 66% of B2B buyers firmly believe that businesses should make it easier and seamless to access their content by limiting form fields and better mobile optimization. (Demand Gen Report 2018 Content Preferences Survey Report)
- 57% of B2B marketers say they’ve gained customers specifically through blogging. [SEOTribunal]
What You’re Missing Out on if You Don’t Have a Company Blog
1. You miss out on exponential organic growth.
Unlike social media and paid advertising where you see immediate results, blogs grow organically over time, giving you long-term and lasting results.
And also unlike social media posts and paid ads that disappear as fast as your fingers can scroll, blog posts remain right where you published it, indexed on Google and accessible within the pages of your website.. forever.
Bringing it closer to home, here at Spiralytics, we once stopped blogging for 3 months (unintentionally, for the record) and found that even through our “blog hiatus”—
- we still gained subscribers
- old blog posts went viral and continued to gain traffic
- our social media and referral traffic naturally decreased, but our search traffic was stable for the most part
In other words, our blog continued to work 24/7 even when we momentarily stopped publishing content.
More than the increased number of indexed pages, blog posts are also great for one other thing: link building. An average company that blogs gets 97% more inbound links, and we all know how much links impact SEO.
This is why we feel strongly about using blogging not only to increase trust and establish authority, but more importantly, to be an important catalyst in the overall SEO strategy.
2. You miss out on gaining 60-80% more leads.
This goes for both B2B and B2C.
It’s a common misconception that blogging lends itself well to B2B marketers who aim to establish thought leadership and build trust over a period of time, as opposed to consumer brands whose buyer’s journey is a lot shorter and faster.
Not true. Consumer brands that blog apparently get a lot more bang for their buck with blogging, in fact, a lot more than B2B companies.
While traffic and lead generation can be achieved through other means (social media or paid advertising, for one, are great in generating leads), one cannot ignore the stability and security of a blogging platform.
When something is as important as lead generation, you’d want to have complete control over your channel. And that’s one of the reasons why a blog is such an important investment. It’s not only cost efficient, it’s also completely yours.
3. You miss out on closing more sales and gaining more clients.
Whether it’s another blogger recommending your brand or you blogging about your own product and services, blog content is an important part of the buyer’s journey.
Business transactions online have grown in massive ways and along with this growth, consumers have also become more thorough in researching about products and services online before making a purchase.
With the amount of content available to your average consumer, it’s important for businesses to make sure that their target market’s questions are answered right within their very own pages.
The State of Modern-Day Blogging and the Future
Blogging does more than drive traffic to your website. Blogging can help turn that valuable traffic into leads, help businesses rank better on search engine results, and communicate company initiatives to audiences.
Brands recognize how blogging has become a powerful tool to boost online visibility, to generate leads, and to increase profits. The collection of statistics above is proof that blogging can help you reach your audience and ultimately, achieve your bottom line. Be sure to keep up with the trends to make educated decisions about your content marketing strategies.
(Updated by Chin Chin Suarez)
