The State of Blogging: Facts, Numbers, Trends

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Is blogging dead? Dying? Or still growing and thriving? Let’s take a close look at the state of blogging.Take a look at the state of blogging in facts, numbers, and statistics. We will figure out what it takes to be successful with a blog business. Find advice, insights and knowledge from hard blogging facts. #bloggingtips #bloggingfacts #bloggingadvice #startablog

If you are a new blogger or thinking about starting a blog, you need to know about all the facts about blogging. You need to be aware what bloggers struggle with, how much time is needed to blog, and where you should pay more attention.

If you know a lot about blogging, blogs and the facts around it, you will be able to face the struggles head first and can get help where needed.

In this post, we will take a look at the state of blogging told in facts, numbers, and statistics. We will analyze numbers, look at trends – and figure out what it takes to still be successful with a blog or rather a blogging business.


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1. There are more than 600 million blogs

Out of the 1.7 billion websites, 600 million are blogs. Tumblr alone is home to over 470 million blogs.

There are more than 600 Million Blogs

Source: Growth Badger

2. It’s not getting less

Every day numerous blog posts are published. We are not talking thousands of posts here. Rather there are millions of new blog posts every day.

Worldometer has a counter that is counting published blog posts – here is a screenshot – the number is not final. I have no idea in what time zone they are counting and when the day will be finished. As I am writing this, the counter is running fast towards 3 million published blog posts for ONE DAY!

number of blog posts written today - so far

Image Source: Worldometer

3. More men than women blog

According to Blighty SEO, 60% of bloggers are men.

more men blog


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4. Most blogs are written in English

Blighty Seo states that 66% of blog content is published in English. Other blogging languages are Spanish (8,7%), Portuguese (6,5%) and Indonesian (3,5%).

But that does not necessarily mean that a successful blog has to be written in English. There may be language niches that are not yet as crowded as the English speaking blogging world and in which finding success may even be much easier.

most blogs are in English language

5. Over 70% of blogs never make a dime

Make money as a blogger does not seem as easy as some newbie bloggers are made to believe. There are various tactics to monetize a blog and not all of them work well in every niche and for every blogger. Only 8% of blogs make their owner more than 10000$. The blogs we all dream of that make millions of dollars make only 0,6% of all blogs. (Source: Blog Tyrant)

most blogs do not make money blogging

Blogging alone dos not make you rich. As always only a fraction of all bloggers will ever be making money from their blogs. Many fail long before they found the key to blogging success.

You can increase your chances of blogging success, by making sure that you have a marketing strategy for your blog!

6. Most blogs or bloggers sell digital products

Other ways to make money as a blogger include services, physical products, advertising and software.

What kind of products or services do bloggers sell?

Image Source: ConvertKit Blog

7. WordPress is the most-used Content Management System

38.5% of websites run on WordPress. Between all Content Management Systems that means a market share for WordPress of 63.5%

Wordpress is the most popular content management system

Image Source: W3Techs

8. Most bloggers intend to publish one blog post per week

Any experienced blogger will advise you to publish content on a regular basis if you are looking for blogging success. Do not write and publish 10 posts within a couple of days and then stop publishing for a couple of months.

Set yourself a schedule that you can stick to – and keep in mind that your blog promotion will get a lot easier if you have a fair number of blog posts on your blog.

Image Source: ConvertKit Blog

9. Blog posts take longer to create than in previous years

On average a blog post takes 3 hours and 20 minutes to write. This is an increase of one hour compared to 2014 when a blogger on average spent just 2 hours and 24 minutes on creating a blog post.

how long do you need to create a blog posts

10. It’s worth to invest the time in your blog post

According to Orbitmedia 49% of bloggers firmly believe that it pays off to invest the time to make a blog post great. 50% of bloggers think that spending more than 6 hours on creating a blog post and optimization of their post will give strong results.

Bloggers who invest more time get better results

Image Source: Orbit Media

11. The average post has over 1000 words

Bloggers write longer posts! The length of an average blog post increases over the years. The word count for typical blog posts went up from 808 in 2014 to 1142 in 2017.

the average blog post has 1142 words

According to Orbitmedia, successful bloggers tend to write longer posts – many of them create posts with more than 2000 words.

The average result on page one in Google’s search results is even longer with 1890 words. (Source: Backlinko)

12. How long should your blog post be?

The ideal length of a blog post varies slightly depending on the purpose of your post but generally speaking a longer post with a range of 2250 to 2500 words will perform better. Search traffic, backlinks, Lead generation etc – they all work better on longer blog posts.

longer blog posts see better results

13. Bloggers who pay attention to blog headlines have more success!

Many Bloggers don’t pay enough attention to their headlines. And far too many bloggers still neglect the importance of headlines. Some bloggers may just be a couple of draft headlines away from blogging success.

Because more draft headlines can increase your blogging success as you are more likely to come up with a better headline.

Bloggers who write more draft headlines get better results

Image Source: Orbit Media

14. Over 50% of bloggers participate in guest posting

Guest blogging is still hot. More than 50% of bloggers actively pursue guest blogging and become a contributor to other blogs from their niche. Only 34,5% of bloggers never participate in guest posting.

over half of all bloggers publish guest posts

15. Over 50% of bloggers update their existing content

Updating old blog posts can be more important than creating new content. Not only Google likes relevant and up-to-date content – also your audience will thank you for updated content.

If you are still in doubt if updating your old posts is worth the time and effort you have to put into it, read this!

In this post, we will take a look at the state of blogging told in facts, numbers, and statistics. We will analyze numbers, look at trends - and figure out what it takes to still be successful with a blog or rather a blogging business #bloggingtips #startablog #bloggingforbeginners #bloggingbusiness #bloggingsuccess

16. Most (non-pro) bloggers measure the success of a blog post in traffic

What is “success” when it comes to blogging? Is it traffic? Is it social shares? Or is it even the number of sales you make from a post?

This answer seems to vary between pros and non-pro bloggers. While the new bloggers that are not yet considered pros aim for traffic, the more sophisticated bloggers seem to be looking at other numbers like social shares and unique site visits. While new bloggers pay more attention to traffic and comments, the pros focus more on sales and social shares.

Image Source: Convert Kit Blog

17. Getting traffic is the biggest struggle for most bloggers

Finding a readership for their blog is the biggest worry for most bloggers – and rightfully so. You can write a blog that is valuable and entertaining to read, but the best content cannot give you success if you fail to get a considerable amount of blog traffic to it. Writing blog content is not enough for blogging success, you need a content marketing strategy, too.

the biggest struggle for bloggers is gettig traffic

Apart from the struggle to find an audience, bloggers also struggle with finding the time to blog, growing their income and growing their email list.

Image Source: ConvertKit Blog

18. Over 90% of bloggers use social media to drive traffic

In 2017 95,9% of bloggers have used social media for traffic generation. The percentage of blogger that use social media to drive traffic to their blog has not changed much in the past years. Most successful marketing strategies for blogs include at least one social network.

most bloggers use social media to drive traffic

The social landscape is changing – the social networks that can still bring you organic traffic are not the same that they were a couple of years ago. If you want to know, which social networks you should consider for your traffic generation, check out this guide!

19. 64% of bloggers use SEO to drive traffic

The percentage of bloggers who use SEO to generate traffic to their blog has slightly increased in the past years from 50% in 2014 to 64,1% in 2017.

two thirds of bloggers use SEO to drive traffic

 

20. Paid traffic (PPC) gets increasingly important

The percentage of bloggers who use advertising and paid traffic has grown by factor 5 since 2015. Over 20% of bloggers now use paid services to drive traffic to their blog.

42% of bloggers are not using email marketing

21. 53% of traffic comes from organic search

While paid advertising becomes more important for blog traffic, at 15% of traffic it is still far less than traffic from Organic Search which brings 53% of all blog traffic to WordPress blogs.

53% of web traffic comes from organic search

Source: BrightEdge

22. Too many bloggers don’t use blog analytics

Slightly more bloggers than 2014 use analytics regularly. But a shocking 42% of bloggers do not use analytics to gain insight into their success – or failure –  or don’t use it regularly.

too many bloggers neglect analytics

23. Over 400 Mio people read 22.2 Billion blog pages each month

According to WordPress, 409 million people read an incredible number of 22.2 billion blog pages each month. And it is not getting less – the number is still growing!

over 400 mio people read blog posts every month

24. Around 19 Mio. People Publish Blog Content

7 Mio People Publish content on blogs – another 12 mio. people publish blog post like content on social media accounts.

7 mio people publish blog posts another 12 mio publish blog like content on social media

Source: Writtent

25. Over 2/3 of Internet users read blog articles

Yes, there is an audience for blogs out there. 77% of all internet users read blog content. That makes an impressively huge audience for blogs (Source: Impact)

77 per cent of internet users read blog articles

26. 73% of blog readers skim content

most blog readers skim content

The majority of your audience will not read your posts word for word but skim the content. That makes providing structure and images to make the content easier to skim important.

Image source: Blogging Wizard

Many of your readers will spend less than 40 seconds on your blog content. After skimming it or at least a part of it these readers are gone.

27. How-to Posts are the most popular type of blog post

How-to posts are very popular with bloggers, followed by list posts. Bith types of posts are also popular with audiences on social media.

The most popular content types used by bloggers

Image Source: Orbit Media

28. Images increase views

Adding more visuals to your content can give you better results. If you have been shy about using images in your content, you should consider upping your image game.

Bloggers who add more visuals to a blog post get better results

Image Source: Orbit Media

Blog articles with a couple of images on average get 94% more views than articles without images.

Images also help to keep visitors on the site longer – and help readers to skim the content, which 43% of blog readers admit doing. Considering how it looks with blog design, images and structure to your blog post will tremendously increase your chance of blogging success.

articles with images get more views

Data Source: Jeff Bullas

29. 90% of Bloggers spice up their content with images.

There are multiple benefits of using images in your blog content. Statistics and Quotes are also popular with bloggers as visual content – as video becomes more popular.

Image Source: Orbit Media

30. The majority of Bloggers have a good education.

Over 90% of bloggers have more than a high-school diploma. Surprisingly, while blogging does not require you to have any education at all (on paper) over 30% of bloggers asked by Convert Kit have a master’s degree, doctorate or other professional degrees.

Bloggers tend to have a high level of education

31. Bloggers blog to become self-employed

In the study performed by Convert Kit, 24% of the asked bloggers stated they blog to become self-employed. While creativity and the need to find an outlet for their creativity are also high on the list of motives for blogging, others are making money, quit my job, and come out of debt.

The main reasons why bloggers blog is to become self-employed

32. The most popular blog topic is personal development

Other popular topics are entrepreneurship, small business, productivity, and marketing.

What topics does your blog cover?

Image Source: Convert Kit 

Final words on the state of blogging

In this post, we will take a look at the state of blogging told in facts, numbers, and statistics. We will analyze numbers, look at trends - and figure out what it takes to still be successful with a blog or rather a blogging business #bloggingtips #bloggingforbeginners #blogging101 #startablogBlogging is huge. And it is not dying. But the competition of blogs is increasing. Just publishing great content is not enough anymore.

Without a marketing and distribution strategy for your blog, you are likely to belong to the unfortunate 70% of blogs that never make a dime.

Plus, blogging is not just about writing content. You need to add media like images. You need to learn marketing. You need to learn how to make sales. You need to go the extra mile.

Blogging is huge and blogging life can be awesome: The freedom to lead a life on your own terms. But that blogging life is only for successful bloggers who succeed to make money blogging.

If you want to know how to start a blog, check out this guide.

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This post looks at the state of blogging in facts, numbers, and statistics. We will figure out what it takes to be successful with a blog business. blogging tips, blogging for beginners, facts about blogging, online business, start a blog #bloggingtips #bloggingforbeginners #bloggingfacts #startablog #onlinebusiness

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