Happy birthday to the blog! The first blog was published in 1994 by college student Justin Hall. Three years later, the term “weblog” was born, and the rest is history. With technology moving at blinding speed, can a 30 year-old innovation still be relevant today?
For anyone who enjoys fine wines, aged cheeses, or being middle aged, the answer is an unequivocal “yes!”, and so it is with blogging, too. Blogging has evolved with the internet since 1994, and as long as you (or your Balius marketing team) are keeping up with best practices, blogging is still relevant in 2024. Here’s a look at how you and your blog can stay relevant with readers this year.
To Stay Relevant, Write for the Reader
It’s no secret that blogging plays a huge role in the performance of your website on Google (aka SEO). The more high-interest content you publish that readers find valuable, the more likely you are to rank on the first page of a Google search. While there are many tips and tricks to ensure Google finds and indexes your blog and other web pages, the biggest secret for successful blogging is to simply write for your audience.
A recent survey by HubSpot found that most people read blog posts to “learn something, educate myself, or answer questions unrelated to my career or schooling.” Readers also said they read blogs to follow news and trends, be entertained, and to build their professional skills.
The message here is that people read blogs to learn, not be sold to. You are more likely to attract readers (and thus website visitors) to your blog if you keep the content informative and engaging. Step-by-step instructions, how-to guides, and tutorials are just a few examples of informative, engaging content. Posts like these can demonstrate your expertise and build confidence in your brand, which are important prerequisites to a consumer eventually buying from you.
Lean Into Multimedia
Some people like to read, others like to watch, and others like to learn through interacting with images and graphics. The most successful blogs incorporate text, video, and imagery to engage readers and keep them coming back. While you don’t need to include all of these elements in every single blog post, using one or two together in every post can increase engagement.
Break Up Text
Readers today are easily distracted and often multitasking. If your blog looks like a novel, they’ll click away and look elsewhere for the information they seek.
There are several ways to break up text:
- Keep paragraphs short (two to four sentences, tops).
- Shorten sentences where possible.
- Use lots of subheadings.
- Use bullet points.
- Add images, infographics, or videos.
All of these strategies break up text, add white space, and improve the readability of your blog post. If your blog post is a long tutorial or explanation of a complex process, consider adding a table of contents to the top of the post to help readers navigate to the sections that interest them.
Our Final Thoughts
Blogging will continue to be relevant as a marketing strategy as long as your content is relevant to readers. Whether you write your own blogs or hire a team like Balius to write them for you, the most important thing you can do to stay relevant is be aware of the interests, concerns, and challenges your readers have.
If you understand your readers, you can use their interests, concerns, and challenges to build out a blogging calendar. When you sit down to write, you can organize your post to make it easy to follow, add images and video, and keep to your topic. Then, you can share your blog with your readers on your social media pages and via email so it is easy to find.
The bottom line: blogging is still relevant in 2024 as long as your blog content stays relevant. For expert blogging strategy and support, get in touch with the marketing professionals at Balius today
