12 Reasons to Start a Blog (2024)

It’s another year and an age-old question remains – should you start a blog? A blog can serve many purposes, such as brand awareness, generating leads, or getting affiliate income. But with an industry that’s more competitive now than ever (thanks AI) it’s normal to be concerned about jumping into blogging – especially when 33% of bloggers don’t earn any money at all. As someone who has run several blogs over several years, I am here to tell you the reasons you should start a blog in 2024… Here’s a quick insight:

One report stated that from 2023 to 2027, the global content marketing industry is expected to grow by $584.02 billion. Also, there are more than 600 million blogs out of 1.9 billion websites worldwide with 77% of internet users reading blogs. There’s no denying that blogging is challenging, time-consuming, and requires a long-term commitment, but if done correctly it can be very rewarding!

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It Can Generate Income

Blogging can be a great source of income, for example, the average estimated pay for a blogger is $64,969 per year in the United States. But that’s just the average, some bloggers earn $10,000+ per month, and some upwards of $25,000+ per month, just take a look at the image below.

There are many variables to consider with blog revenue as it could include sponsored posts, ad revenue, and affiliate sales, and also be mixed in with sponsored email/social content relating to the blog. Generally speaking, if you build an audience through one medium – it’s not that difficult to add other mediums and extra sources of income.

There are other factors that influence how much a blog can make, such as the age of the blog, the number of blog posts published, promotional efforts, the quality of content, and also the topic (niche) your blog covers. Not forgetting about SEO too!

Some of the popular ways to earn money from blogging include:

• Ad Revenue (AdSense, Ezoic, Mediavine)

• Affiliate Marketing (Amazon Associates, Awin, Impact, Skimlimks)

• Sponsored Posts (People will reach out to you)

• Courses (You can charge for a course – using blogging as the lead magnet)

• Selling a Product (Create your own product and use blogging to sell it)

To set the tone, you will not earn money from blogging instantly – it takes time to implement SEO and build an audience. I started earning $100/Mo. through one of my blogs after 6 months, but it generally takes longer, especially with the competitiveness today. Take a look at this affiliate marketing for beginners guide if you want to learn more about earning money through blogging and affiliate marketing.

It’s Almost Free to Start

One of the best things about starting a blog is that it costs little to nothing to set up and run. Of course, this depends on the scale of your blog strategy – for example, a successfully established business with an existing website would require a higher investment to achieve a certain standard through a blog. Whereas an individual getting started – it would cost next to nothing as everything can be done independently.

Take a look at my breakdown of costs:

Depending on your goals, you may never invest more than the startup costs and the yearly renewals. However, as a blog develops, starts to get traffic, and generates income, it can be a good idea to re-invest that money. This could include apps, themes, a redesign, hiring a content writer, paying for SEO services, and paying for an email campaign provider to send newsletters.

Initially, I recommend doing everything independently and paying for the bare minimum. Over time, you will learn, adapt, and change multiple aspects of your blog anyway.

To Build Brand Awareness & Engagement

Blogging is an excellent way to build awareness and get engagement for your brand, whether it’s a personal brand or business. Especially when 52% of B2B buyers say they are more likely to buy from a brand after reading their content. A blog offers a unique opportunity to connect with an audience and communicate your brand values and purpose through its unique voice.

Here are some examples of blogs from well-known brands:

IBM’s blog has heaps of useful content and is separated into multiple categories and even multiple industries, ensuring that they target different audiences depending on interests.

Slack’s blog offers educational content based on its product offering and also relevant industry content to reach its target demographic. Content is separated into key product pillars and the latest news.

Etsy’s blog or the ‘Etsy Journal’ focuses on content that features unique product offerings on its marketplace. By featuring other sellers, Etsy not only boosts sales on its platform but also creates brand trust and loyalty. These users could share the content they are featured in, leading to increased brand awareness too.

Content marketing drives 3x higher brand engagement and a blog is one of the key pillars of content marketing. If you are starting fresh, building brand awareness and increasing engagement requires authenticity and creativity; initially content would need to be geared towards the audience and not towards conversions or actions – users will quickly disregard this.

Nevertheless, generating brand awareness is one of the major reasons you should start a blog in 2024.

It’s a Hub for Repurposing Content

A blog post doesn’t end once you press ‘publish‘, it’s just the beginning. You see, one individual blog post can serve as a source for repurposing content. Content repurposing is the process of using existing content, altering it, and publishing it in a new format on different marketing channels. According to SEMrush’s State of Content Marketing Report 2023, 42% of marketers say updating and repurposing existing content led to successful marketing campaigns.

So you could turn that one blog post into a YouTube video, a TikTok video, a podcast, 12 mini social posts, an email newsletter, and more. Now imagine a whole library of blog posts and how much content it could generate!

The benefits don’t stop there, by repurposing existing content you will save time on content production, save money, increase reach, increase engagement, and build brand awareness. This survey shows that 46% of marketers believe that repurposing existing content leads to the best results.

To Drive Organic Traffic to Your Website

A website alone will not perform as well as one with a blog. According to Statista, 62% of marketers use emails to drive traffic to their blogs. Not only is this extra content useful for visitors and brand awareness, but it will also drive traffic from search engines if you rank for specific keywords. You can also bring in traffic by sharing your blog posts on social media and other platforms.

The best part about using a blog to increase organic traffic is that it doesn’t disappear. For example, if you turn off paid advertising – traffic will stop instantly. Whereas a ranking blog post could remain for years, bringing in constant traffic – especially if the content is updated regularly.

More traffic can result in more leads or income depending on your goals and monetization methods. In fact, companies that publish 16 or more blogs every month generate 4.5x more leads. For this to be successful, you would need to plan, research, implement, and update content, in combination with a superior SEO strategy.

This leads to the next reason to start a blog…

To Improve Your Website SEO

Search Engine Optimization in a nutshell is the process of optimizing your website to position higher in search results. A significant part of SEO is content, which allows you to target keywords and build authority in your topic. Your website alone will not be enough to rank on search engines, and when the top traffic source for all websites is organic search, you can see why having a blog is essential.

Having a blog requires an actual SEO strategy behind it, simply publishing content and hoping the best will not work. This involves keyword research, on-page optimization, off-page optimization, and much more. When over two-thirds (68.7%) of all clicks go to the top three organic search results, investing time into an SEO strategy for your a blog is worth it!

According to SEMrush, 46% say that SEO is the most important factor contributing to success in content marketing. So if you are considering reasons to start a blog in 2024, this should be a key consideration and possibly the most important on this list.

To Diversify Your Marketing Channels

Dependency on one single marketing channel is a big no-no – especially in 2024. You don’t need to be active on every single marketing channel, but having more than one is a must. For example, statistics show that roughly 52% of marketers use 3-4 marketing channels for campaigns, with some using as many as 8.

Although social media is the number one marketing channel when it comes to usage – a blog is the second most utilized. Adding a blog to your content marketing strategy can drive organic traffic, reach new audiences, and increase leads. Actually, according to HubSpot, blogging can help your website get up to 55% more visitors!

Finally, as one of the other reasons to start a blog, you have a library to ‘repurpose content’. For example, adding a blog to your marketing channels gives you content to use for social media, email marketing, video, and podcasts.

To Become an Industry Expert

By successfully building an audience through blogging, you can become an industry expert; someone who is trusted and followed by a loyal audience, where every word you write will have a powerful influence over your readers. Of course, this takes many years of successful blogging and content marketing, but it happens. For example, take a look at some of these bloggers who have become industry experts:

The Points Guy or Brian Kelly, is well-known in the travel industry for blogs and content on credit card points, air miles, and travel tips. The site states ‘TPG covers topics and creates tools that help our community members travel better, spend smarter and explore further.‘

Although the blog is supported by products and services, Neil Patel is a well-known industry expert in the SEO field. The content is informative and educational – supported by video and imagery, but more importantly, highlights Neil Patel as an industry expert.

Making Sense of Cents is a blog by Michelle Schroeder-Gardner that centers around personal finance (a challenging niche in blogging). According to Michelle, the blog has reached over 20 million readers and she has featured in major media publications – establishing herself as an industry expert.

To Build an Email List

Building an email list shouldn’t be the ONLY reason to start a blog, but it should be a part of it. A blog offers a personal connection with your audience and if they like that connection (your content) there is a high probability they will join your mailing list. Whether it’s through a popup, embedded form, or a sign-up link in your content, capturing emails on a blog is less intrusive than other methods. For example, posting on social media asking people to join a mailing list will likely get 0 results, because there is no value or reason for users to sign up.

But why email? Well, according to the latest email statistics, the number of daily email users is 4 billion and is expected to climb to 4.6 billion by 2025. Email marketing revenue is also expected to grow exponentially over the coming years. There’s no denying that email is still one of the most powerful digital marketing channels out there.

By building an audience for a blog, you can grow an email subscriber list for free, generating a resource that consists of a ‘warm audience’ ready for you to communicate with to achieve marketing goals.

To Learn Content Marketing

Aside from content marketing courses and certifications, one of the best ways to learn is to just do it yourself. Starting a blog is one of the best methods of learning as it’s not expensive to start and run, and you can learn at your own pace. By doing it yourself, you are forced to learn content writing, search engine optimization, content calendars, research, content promotion, analytics, social media, and many other areas of content marketing – depending on how active you are with a blog.

One thing I would advise – avoid using AI if you are just getting started out. While it’s a useful tool to utilize, it will prevent you from learning the basics and can hinder your journey into content marketing.

To Build an Online Portfolio and Improve Your Writing Skills

If you are looking to get started as a content writer or copywriter, you WILL need a portfolio. Creating a blog is ideal for those who haven’t got any real examples of writing they can show to potential clients/employers. This allows you to pick the topic, style, and tone, and

hone in on the writing skills to show off. As you do this, you might find content is generating some engagement and the blog begins to grow – not only does it become your test environment and portfolio, but it then becomes a potential money-making source.

To Increase Sales and User Actions

The final reason you should start a blog is to increase sales of your product or to get more leads. According to DemandMetric, companies with blogs produce an average of 67% more leads monthly than companies that don’t blog. The more content that ranks on search engines, the more visitors you will get to your site, and the more actions they will take (providing your content is effective at conversions).

If you are starting a blog for this reason – ensure you have established a strategy behind your content. You should also have an awareness of sales funnels and how each piece of content should be crafted to encourage actions from readers.

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