Back when I started blogging in 2012, the blogging landscape looked VERY different. I blogged on a free blogger template. Took my pictures on an iPhone 4. And made little to no effort to promote what I was writing about. After all, I was just writing about things that interested me. I had no schedule, didn’t know about SEO and had no idea how to obtain my own domain. But fast forward seven years and the blogosphere has completely changed. Which is why I feel that 2020 is the year of the blog.
To run a blog today, you need to be an expert in photography, SEO, copywriting, web-designing, PR, social media, videography and styling. I’m not sure any of us expected blogging as an industry to grow that way it has. And while a lot of people speculate that blogging is over. I feel it’s still such a strong medium and platform.
With the rise of social media, and people wanting to digest content at an ever faster rate. It can make you wonder if blogging’s heyday is over. Should we all be jumping ship and abandoning our sites in favour of an Instagram theme? In all honesty, no. In fact, I feel that 2020 is the year that blog thrive again. My numbers on Instagram might be down (thanks Instagram algorithm), but my blog readership is up. More people are visiting the site, staying for longer and commenting on more posts. I can’t speak for everyone, but as an avid blog reader myself, I’ve never craved blog content more.
Yes, I love Instagram (probably a little too much) and yes I love Instagram stories. But I also really love to sit down and read an interesting blog post by one of my favourite bloggers. One of the biggest things I’ve learnt since starting a blog is to never underestimate your space on the internet. As it’s exactly that. YOUR space. You own YOUR content.
Instagram could shut down tomorrow. Yes, it would be pretty unexpected, and rather annoying. But if all your content is on that platform and that’s your sole source of income, you’d be pretty devastated. Plus Instagram content is instantly consumable and then forgotten about. Yes, you might receive thousands of likes on one picture. But within a day or two, that picture will be long gone and forgotten about.
Whereas, if you optimise your content correctly, it can live on the internet FOREVER and receive thousands or even tens of thousands of views over its lifetime. It also means new and exciting readers can keep on discovering your blog every single day. I’m honestly so grateful to have developed the amazing core audience I have with my blog. You guys support everything I do, and I love reading each and every comment that’s left on the blog. For me, my blog is exactly where it’s meant to be right now, and as long as you guys keep reading and enjoying my content, then I’ll keep on producing it.
Let me know in the comments whether you feel like 2020 is the year of the blog too.
This is something I needed to read today! I’ve been working so hard to bring my blog back since September and it’s been a really positive step for a while – but this week I’ve hit a bit of a wall with it.
Reading this has definitely reminded me why I’ve been constantly working on my online content for 4 months, so thank you!
Sarah x