The Value of Blogs: Is Their Market Share Increasing or Decreasing?

Companies are constantly looking for ways to connect with their audiences. One of those ways is by creating blogs to share their insight and expertise. However, with the increase in both usage of and number of social media platforms, we are consuming information at a faster rate and our attention spans are shrinking. Many people are left wondering what the value of blogs is in 2021.

Here at Chartwell Agency, we share blogs on a regular basis. So, before you dismiss blogs entirely as an antiquated solution to sharing your story with your audiences, let’s examine some of the reasons that blogging is here to stay and how you can leverage its benefits.

Blog traffic continues to remain strong

Seventy-seven percent of internet users read blog posts on a regular basis and there are over 31.7 million bloggers in the U.S. It’s not only regular consumers that are engaging with blogs. Seventy-one percent  of business-to-business buyers read blogs at some point in their purchasing decision. Blogs can be how consumers/customers are introduced to your organization or later in the process when they are evaluating your credibility to answer their questions. People are looking for solutions to their problems and blogs are a great way to find them.

If you’re not creating blogs or are infrequent in your blogging, now is the time to start crafting regular, relatable content. Draft a schedule that not only includes regular posting but also topics that you want to share. This also is a great way to be creative. While written blogs are still very popular, blogs can also contain audio and video content that appeal to a variety of audiences.

Blogs are invaluable for SEO

Let’s say you’re an apple orchard and you want to show up when someone searches for the word “apple.” You’ll never show up for “apple” alone because it’s way too broad. But you could show up for related phrases like “best uses for apple peels” and “can an apple a day keep the doctor away?” Blogs are a great way to introduce longer keywords into your website and help you rank higher with search engines. Google algorithms grow more sophisticated at interpreting what users are really looking for and will search for terms that best match that intent. Blogs can also help drive traffic to main pages that you want to rank for by linking to those pages.

Consider what terms you want to rank for and what questions your desired audience is asking. By combining those, you can create content that your potential customers and search engines will find valuable.

Blogs can be repurposed

Blogs do not just live on your website. They can and should be shared on every social media platform that you use. Consider sharing your blogs in your newsletters as well. If your blogs are well-written and contain up-to-date information, they can even be shared more than once. For example, if you write blogs about information technology security and there is a news story about a major hacking or ransomware incident, that may be a great time to reshare your blog because of increased interest.

Content is king to the value of blogs

Even though we are inundated with information from every possible source, audiences prefer quality over quantity. They are looking for reliable sources to help them understand the information they are consuming. One way you can be a part of the conversation is by becoming a thought leader and creating blogs on a regular basis. This will help you connect with your audience and help build your brand by sharing information in new ways. Not only is this important to reach your customers but as we stated before, Google and other search engines are looking for quality content to share with their users. It is no longer a viable tactic to create content that contains spammy keywords. The search engines are getting better at determining a user’s intent and searching for the best content to help them answer that query.

Blogs are a great tool to incorporate into your marketing strategy for the reasons listed above: Consumers and B2B customers read them regularly; they can improve your search engine ranking and ability to be found online; they can be easily repurposed; and they can promote your credibility as a thought leader. If you’re not sure where to start, Chartwell Agency can help.