- There are over 1.94 billion websites on the internet.
There are over a billion blogs on the internet.
That's roughly one blog
for every seven people in this world.
There are over four million blog posts
that are being published each and every single day.
Hi, everyone, I'm Neil Patel.
And today, I'm going to answer the question of
is blogging still worth it?
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Now, the short answer to this question is no.
The long answer to the question is yes.
Now, don't just shut off this video
and stop blogging if you have a blog.
In the traditional sense, blogging is not worth it,
of just creating text-based content, cranking out a ton,
and expecting it to do wonders for you.
Here's what you need to do if you want to still thrive
in the blogging world today and in the future.
Number one, don't just focus on text-based content.
Traditionally, blogs were just text-based content
and that's what people would publish.
And they would just say, here's my website,
here's a blog post, and that's it.
And that's great, but you know what?
Now, text-based content isn't everything.
We all use something called a mobile phone.
This mobile phone, people are using it to watch videos,
listen to podcasts.
So when you're blogging, don't just blog text-based content.
Create video-based content.
Create audio-based content.
Publish that on your blog.
Also publish it on other channels as well.
And that's the second thing that I wanted to get into.
Blogging is no long about just putting content on your site.
That content should sit everywhere.
You may be wondering, Neil,
but Google penalizes for duplicate content.
No, that's a myth.
Google does not penalize for duplicate content.
They've stated it publicly,
so you don't have to worry about that.
So take that blog text-based content that you have,
also repost it on Facebook.
Also repost it on LinkedIn.
Right?
You want to put it wherever you can.
Heck, I would even create a medium.com account,
and repost it on Medium as well.
Take your videos, put it on YouTube,
put it on LinkedIn, put it on Facebook,
put it on Instagram TV.
Have you noticed wherever you're watching this video,
go to any other social network, look me up,
you'll see the same video.
Why?
Because I post the same content everywhere.
Some people use YouTube, some people use Facebook.
People are spread on all these social platforms.
I want to capture them everywhere.
The third thing that you need to know is
blogging on how it used to be,
in which you just create text-based content,
you rank, you drive that traffic to a product or service,
collect leads, you do well.
Blogging doesn't work that way anymore.
Blogging is very expensive.
And here's what I mean.
Let's say you get these rankings.
Then Google comes around, they release a Google update.
Have you noticed that the people that get hit the most
with these updates and don't rank as high,
are the sites that aren't updating their content?
Look at Wikipedia.
Whatever you search for,
I bet you they're probably on page one.
Why, because Wikipedia is constantly updating
that same article over and over again.
Yes, maybe they're not doing it, but the community is.
The same will go with your website.
If you update your content over and over again,
keep it fresh, up to date with the latest and greatest,
you're going to do better.
But if you don't, you'll notice that
your rankings will continually slip over time.
Maybe not your main page or the parent pages,
but your pages that are going after long-tail phrases,
those are the ones that'll continually slip
if you're not updating your content on a regular basis.
To give you idea, currently,
I have three people employed full time,
all they do is update my old text-based content.
If you do all of that, you'll also find that blogging
still doesn't produce as big of a ROI as it did
four, five, six years ago.
And why is this?
It's because no matter where people are
and what they're using, it's harder to convert them,
especially on these mobile devices.
Harder to convert them off of YouTube
than it is from your own domain.
Harder to convert them from Facebook than your own domain,
because Facebook wants to keep people on there
so they make more ad revenue.
So this is the last tip, and this will end up
making blogging worth it for you to continually do.
You got to continually collect emails and push subscribers.
So you can use tools like subscribers.com
or Hello Bar or Mailchimp.
Use whatever you want.
If you continually get these people
to come back to your site,
get them to subscribe.
That'll give you a shot at selling those people over time.
If you don't sell them over time,
it won't do as well for you.
If you expect people to just watch a YouTube video
or a Facebook video, and buy from you right away,
it's not going to happen.
That's why it's very important to build that audience
through email, push when they come to your site,
and get them to keep continually come back,
so that way you can convert them over time.
If you make those changes and you adapt,
blogging is still worth it.
If you don't and you just want to focus on writing
a text-based content, never update it, write me-too content,
and the same stuff that everyone else is going to write on,
you're not going to do that well.
But when you change to that fresh new perspective,
that's when you'll notice
you're still going to get a ROI from blogging.
If you need help with your content marketing,
generating a better ROI and getting more traffic,
check out my ad agency, Neil Patel Digital.
And if you have any questions, leave a comment below.
If you enjoy the video, share it, like it,
tell other people about it, and subscribe to the channel.
Thank you very much.