I clearly remember, doing the first step on the internet when I was 6 or 7, blogs were the main attraction of the web; most famous websites were blogs. I found it hard to find anything else funny on the web; (I can feel some comment from you here, but I swear that my soul was still not corrupted!) Probably internet still did not evolve in terms of diversification and accessibility of contents, so the text was still king. So why a blog in 2021?
Some data
The first time it came to my mind the idea of starting a blog; a thought passed in my mind: “Hey, do people still do it?” I was utterly wrong. I found this article in Optinmoster that has some pretty impressive stats about blogs. Here are the ones that blew my mind mode:
- Each month, approximately 409 million people view more than 20 billion pages.
- Websites that also have a blog have 434% more indexed pages.
- Companies who blog get 97% more links to their websites.
- The number of bloggers in the USA grew to 31.7 million in 2020
- 66% of bloggers today are publishing a few times per month; rather than a few times per week back in 2014.
- 77% of internet users read blogs.
The Benefits
Blogs still have it, haven’t they? I also believe there are many benefits everyone can find writing and exposing their thoughts publicly, for example.
- It helps you improve your communication: writing and talking are probably the two primary transferable skills available. Every time you have to deal with another human being, the value of your content will positively correlate with your communication skills.
- It let you create a personal portfolio: many times during interviews, I wanted to tell more about past projects in a similar context, and it has been very hard. Writing a simple article can let you tell the stories you want and make them very shareable, keeping a good structure and flow of ideas. Next time you would like to share your research on innovation, for example, you could say, “Hey, I’ve written something about it!”.
- Even if you’re not going to be the next star of the web, still some people interested in your niche eventually will read your posts, they may connect with you, and some new exciting opportunities may arise. Be ready for that!
- Even if nowadays the tools available to build webs need no web development knowledge, I still like the fact that I can play a lot with WordPress, HTML, CSS and other tools. Having a blog lets you be exposed to many opportunities to learn digital skills that are super useful in a rising digital world.
How to Start?
Feel intrigued to start but afraid to not know where to start or not being original enough? I felt the same, but I’ve also understood that these are excuses: as Austin Kleon preaches in his excellent book “Show Your Work”.
No content on the world wide web is 100% original, but at the same time, everything is original because once you document something you like/do, you will add your perspective on the story and it will be original content. So make sure to write about something you like consistently once a week, and things will come.
Still no idea on how to have your content on a website called namesurname.com? I highly recommend this article; in 30 minutes, you’ll be able to create your domain, connect it to WordPress, and start writing your first post.
In the meantime, how about connecting?
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