Are you wondering: Why do people blog? Is blogging really worth it? In this article, we’ll dive into all the reasons and potential rewards, so you can decide if starting a blog is right for you.
Before you dive in to starting a blog, you probably want to find out if it’s worth the effort in the first place. After all, you wouldn’t want to invest a ton of time into something that doesn’t give you anything in return.
So, is blogging worth it? The short answer is YES…
…IF you do it the right way.
Let’s take a closer look at why blogging is worth it – and how you can make sure it pays off.
Blogging Will Live as Long as People Read
Every year, someone out there says blogging is dead. And yet, folks are still publishing content and audiences are still reading them.
So, why does blogging still work when we’ve theoretically reached a point of content overload?
The short answer is, blogging will continue to live so long as people want to read. Yes, nowadays lots of folks go on YouTube in search of answers to their questions, and yes, there are audio-books and podcasts and whatnot, but a lot of folks enjoy the experience of reading.
So, yes, blogging still works — if you’re willing to write about topics your audience cares about, invest the time and energy to produce high-quality content, and spend a lot of time networking.
Otherwise, it’s an enormous waste of your precious time.
Blogging Is a Long Game
However, over time, blogging just on its own is still an incredible strategy to drive massive traffic and eyeballs to your website.
I’ve been blogging on this website for about 7 years. When I looked at my analytics last week, fully 67% of the visitors to my website are from organic sources (ie: Google). Not social media, not my email newsletters, not bigwigs sharing a link, not people directly typing in my URL — 67% is from people finding me in search results.
And I’ve actually started seeing quality leads from that for my high-end offers. It’s still lower than my referral rate, but it’s becoming significant.
But that’s after 7 years of blogging once a week, every week (more or less).
The only caveat here is that this takes time. You do not build up to this kind of traffic overnight. It can take, literally, years. SEO work can help speed this up, but even with pro SEO, it takes time.
It also requires a good lead magnet and follow-up email strategy to turn those visitors into customers. Remember: driving traffic isn’t the only metric you have to consider; you also need to know what happens to that traffic after the first click that gets them to your site.
What No One Tells You – Blogging Is Profitable Over Time
Now a days, marketers and sales people throw around that term “profitable” without actually thinking about the meaning behind the world.
When something is PROFITABLE, it’s worth doing because you will get a good return on the investment of your time or money.
The restaurant business is NOT very profitable because after adding in the cost of the food, workers, permits, real estate, and marketing, the owners are not left with much left over. They going to sell a heck of a lot of food and drinks in order to make any kind of money at all.
A little known secret about the restaurant business is that the margins on drinks like wine, beer, or your beloved cocktail are HUGE. They’ll make more profit selling liquor than on the actual food.
Blogging is freakin’ profitable because you can spend an hour or two writing an article and it can continue to get traffic over a series of weeks, months, and even years.
Take, for example, one article that I published on this blog which has gotten traffic for the last several years and continues to earn me income.
The time that you spend on your blog will pay you back handsomely over time. If you set it up right, it can turn into a cash-generating machine that fuels your lifestyle, or at the very least, adds some extra income each month to your bank account.
The Future of Blogging – What Should You Focus On?
Now of course there are still unknowns when it comes to the future of blogging and no one knows for 100% certainty what the blogging landscape will exactly look like…
However, with that being said, there are definitely a few areas that I think people should focus their attention on if their goal is to run a sustainable blogging business for years to come.
1.) Quality of Content Should Be a Top Priority
As stated above, crafting high-quality and interesting articles for your readers should be a top priority. Especially with the overwhelmingly growing competition and tons of blogs being created on a daily basis, your work needs to stand out (both to human visitors and the search engines).
You can get rewarded with higher search engine rankings by creating content that encourages users to spend a sufficient amount of time on and share with other people. Quality of content is only going to become more and more important in the future of blogging.
Also, try to focus on creating longer-form style blog posts of over 2,000 or so words (this doesn’t have to be every blog post, but mix it in). This type of content that covers a subject in its entirety tends to do well and will continue to do well in the major search engines.
2.) Incorporate YouTube Videos Into Your Blog Content
Video content is hotter than ever right now and especially with the growing popularity of YouTube. In fact, YouTube is the second largest search engine (behind Google) with over 1.5 billion logged-in users per month. As a blogger, if you’re not taking advantage of YouTube and embedding videos into your blog content, you are seriously missing out.
Supplementing your blog articles with helpful video content that you create is part of the future of blogging. YouTube can also be an excellent way to generate loads of referral traffic for your website, from people clicking on links within your YouTube video descriptions.
Building up a reputable YouTube channel will only strengthen your brand and help drive more targeted traffic to your website.
3.) Ensure Your Blog is Mobile Friendly
More and more people are using mobile devices to browse the internet and search the web. If your website is not mobile friendly,
1.) it will lead to a poor user experience and most likely high bounce rates and
2.) it can potentially be de-prioritized by Google and ranked lower in the search results.
You need to make sure your blog is mobile responsive and especially with Google rolling out mobile-first indexing. The amount of people using mobile devices is only going to increase in the years to come, so this needs to be a major focus if you’re a blogger.
Conclusion. So…Is Blogging Still Worth It?
Yes, blogging is still worth it. And it will remain so for as long as people want to read.
But what’s changed is this: blogging is worth it only if you’re willing to put in more creative effort, time, and money than everyone else in your niche.
The key takeaway here is to understand that blogging will always be evolving. Trends and technology will always be changing. However, if you are able to adapt and approach this with the right strategy and methodology, blogging is definitely worth it always.
In fact, the businesses that are not utilizing a blog are putting themselves at a serious disadvantage. There will indeed be a form of blogging in the future, it just may be different than years prior. So my recommendation is to blog on and embrace what lies ahead!
Hello Ali
Thank you so much for this.
As an up and coming blogger, you get discouraged sometimes, especially when you aren’t seeing the returns just as yet.
I suppose like everything else is life that adds value to the human experience, time must take its tool.
Thank you for sharing.
Just what I needed to hear.
Thank you Ibi for your comment. Glad to hear that you liked my post.