10 Key Statistics to Help You Build a Better Blog
Blogging has been around for years, allowing businesses to communicate with their customers to build trust and credibility. Blogs have moved from being a source for opinions to a place where the general public finds important facts and data. Whether you are just starting out or you are a veteran at blogging, here are some fun facts about blogging that can help you improve your blog performance.
Blogging Can Double the Number of Links to Your Website
Companies can get up to 97% more links to their website when they blog, according to OptinMonster. A blog is an excellent means of establishing domain authority. Not only does it help you establish thought leadership in your field of focus but it also established your domain—your internet address—as credible. And, strong domain authority makes other bloggers want to link to your business. Good content produces backlinks which drives more traffic to your website.
Blog Traffic Is Most Likely to Occur in Early Morning Hours
While blogs do not suddenly disappear under a wave of new posts like on Facebook or tweets on Twitter, there are still peak times for readers. Mornings are the time of day with the highest blog readership. However, because posts do not disappear, it is fine to publish a blog any time of day. When sharing content on social media or other distribution channels, consider modifying the time of day to match when readers are perusing blogs. Keep in mind that time zone of your target audience if it is geographically expansive.
Blogging Produces More Leads for Your Business
According to Traffic Generation Cafe, businesses that blog get 67% more leads than companies that do not blog. We have already discussed that blogging produces more backlinks and that these backlinks drive more traffic. Knowing this, you will want to be prepared to capture leads on your website so that you can capitalize on that additional traffic. Using contact forms that pop-up or forms are embedded into posts will help your lead generation efforts. Use premium content to give readers additional resources in exchange for contact information.
Blog Readers Who Skim are (Potential) Customers Too
More than one in three people prefer reading bullet points and headlines to reading entire paragraphs. Be sure to edit your titles and headings for scanabilty. Make sure they are intriguing and reflect the high points in your article. Eye-catching titles will attract more readers, and captivating bullet points or headings will keep their attention.
Americans Spend Three Times as Many Hours on Blogs than on Email
According to OptinMonster, “Internet users in the US spend 3X more time on blogs than they do on email.” This statistic is intuitive if you consider that only email recipients can see emails but most blogs can be seen by anyone online. There are just more users with access to blogs. However, that does not mean you should ignore email marketing, as it is a low cost, high return digital marketing tool.
Websites with Blogs Generate Two Times More Email Traffic
Email marketing has not become obsolete and is still very relevant. In fact, companies with blogs get twice as much email traffic than those without blogs. A blog can give you another way to retain visitors by asking them to subscribe to an email list for your blog. You can have an opt-in page or a pop-up to prompt visitors to subscribe to receive updates. From there, you can connect with your new subscribers, sending them special offers along with recent blog posts. When your blogging and email marketing efforts are interconnected, you will undoubtedly see more traffic from both.
Frequent and Consistent Blog Posting Earns Five Times More Website Traffic
If you are looking to get more traffic to your website, blogging more consistently and frequently can help. Blogs that post 20 times or more per month (nearly every workday—that’s a log of blogging!) get 5X more traffic than those who blog four times or less each month. Publishing blog posts regularly creates more opportunity for indexing in Google searches, increases website traffic and gives visitors a reason to return more of more often.
Bloggers Get More Social Media Shares
Creating content for social media posts is time-consuming. One way to help yourself and other content developers is to create blog posts with LOTS of shareable content. Creating snippets that are easily shareable on social media will help your content reach a broader audience. You should also share your blog posts on all of your own social media accounts. Ideally, you want to create unique posts for each social media platform. You should be able to easily turn a 600-word blog posts into 10 shareable tweets.
Blog Posts with Images Get Twice as Many Views as Those Without
According to Jeff Bullas, “Articles with images get 94% more total views.” There are several reasons for this. In our multimedia world, text on a page is somewhat boring. Good images add context and reinforce your message. “Alt text”, the text that is displayed when your image cannot be rendered, can be used to improve search engine optimization (SEO). Include images in your blog posts if you want to get more views and more traffic.
There Are Over 500 Million Blogs on the Internet
Honestly, there is probably just too much content online. Too many news articles. Too many social media posts. And, too many blogs. Your blog must rise above the noise and above the competition. Be sure your content is findable (using proper SEO), well-written and relevant to your market. Those things are just the cost of market entry. Once you have created your blog, prepare to spend as much time distributing the content as you do creating it. Otherwise, it will be like a tree that falls in the woods when no one is around. Did it make a sound?