Should You Start a Blog in 2019?

Are you wondering if blogging is now a thing of the past?

After a year of blogging hiatus, I created a new business website and decided to blog again. This time on Medium mainly because of three reasons:

• I owe it to people who come to me for content writing advice.
• It’s an essential part of my content marketing plan.
• Medium’s readership is consistently growing and it seemed like the perfect place to get more eyes on my writing.

Why start a blog?

A lot of marketing experts will tell you to do video marketing instead because it’s a rising marketing trend, and it’s true. But, I don’t believe this trend should discourage us to invest in blogging as a part of a bigger content strategy.

The most popular marketing agencies that I follow all have one thing in common — they blog. Recent studies also suggest that blogging is here to stay.

Just look at these statistics:

• Online customers read between three and five pieces of content before they contact a sales rep or start their buying process.
• Businesses that blog as part of their content marketing strategy obtain 67% more leads than those who don’t.
• Companies who prioritize blogging are 13x more likely to achieve a positive ROI on their marketing efforts.

However, if these numbers are not enough for you to put a high value on blogging this year, let me share four more reasons why the best time to start a blog is now.

1. Blogging can significantly boost your website traffic

You’ve probably heard that starting a blog on your business website is good for SEO, and that’s because research shows that it really does. Marketers who blog receive 97% more links to their website.

Blogging can also increase your chances of getting your website ranked by Google by 343 percent, it’s also an effective way to generate 67 percent more leads in B2B marketing.

Just remember that consistency, frequency, and quality are important if you are aiming for a boost in website traffic.

It’s also important to note that organic traffic from blogging tend to produce more high-quality leads if you have a lead generation plan in place.

Now, if you are looking to grow your readership 10x fast, I encourage you to start publishing on Medium just like what I decided to do.

Jon Morrow, a.k.a The King of Blogging believes in the platform so much he even created a course about blogging on Medium.

Larry Kim, founder of WordStream says that Medium can help give your content a second life. There is a much larger audience on Medium with it’s over 60 million daily active users.

2. It’s an important tactic in content marketing

According to a content marketing survey, 52% of respondents agreed that blogging is the most critical content marketing tactic. It was followed by email newsletters (40%) and social media content (40%).

It’s also one of the most time-intensive pieces of content to put together. An Orbit Media report indicates that it takes nine hours and 45 minutes for the average blogger to come up with a 3,000 word blog post. Yet brands both big and small allocate a part of their marketing budget into blogging.

This tells us that blogging is an investment if you want to make a huge impact on your business. If the big players in your industry publish once or twice a day, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t.

3. It’s key to successful social media marketing

Many years ago, blogging and social media were once two independent platforms. Back then, blogging was mostly long-form, serious, and factual. Social media, on the other hand, was mostly used for leisure.

Now, it seems like one can no longer succeed without the other. When I look at my Facebook Newsfeed, a lot of the content I come across with on a daily basis are blog posts and news articles from various media outlets that I’m subscribed to.

Social media is now a major driver of traffic to websites and blogs of different industries and niches.

If your business is on social media, you can add more value to your target audience by feeding them rich blog posts and other forms of content.

Publishing original and useful blog posts will not only enrich your customer’s social media experience, but it’s also a viable way to stay top of mind with your target audience.

4. The best platform to publish an in-depth resource

In terms of engagement, video is the smart choice, but when it comes down to providing the nitty gritty on a particular topic, a long-form blog post (typically 2,000 words and more) is still the winner in my opinion.

This is why I think Ultimate Guides or Definitive Guides are so popular these days.

Primoz Bozic, a Business Coach for top performers, built a successful business by writing ultimate guides and coaching others on how to create and leverage long-form content too. Bozic’s first ultimate guide helped him go from 0 to $38,000 in coaching revenues in a space where nobody knew him.

Examples of in-depth resources:

• Smart Blogger’s How to Write a Blog Post — The Ultimate Guide
• Quick Sprout’s The Definitive Guide to Growth Hacking
• Single Grain’s The Ultimate Guide to Creating Your Marketing Funnel

An ultimate guide can be as long as 20,000 words and more. Publishing an in-depth resource on your blog is also a strategic way to show your expertise and build your authority on a certain subject.

What’s your #1 takeaway from this blog post? Anything you’d like to add? Let me know in the comments.