Today, we’ll talk about blogging statistics. After long and meticulous research, TechJury handpicked the most fascinating facts and details from the blogging sphere.
But before diving into the topic, let’s cast a glance at how blogs came about. The first blog, or as its author called it, a personal homepage, was launched in 1994.
Contents
Striking Blogging Statistics
Here’s a list of the most outstanding blogging facts that you should know about:
- Adding a blog to your existing website can increase traffic by as much as 434%.
- Approximately 7.5 million blog posts are created every day.
- 77% of internet users read blogs.
- An average blog post is 2,520 words.
- The most profitable blog is the Huffington Post, with an annual income of $500 million.
- 53.3% of bloggers are between 21 and 35.
- Seven-minute reads attract the most attention from the internet audience.
These are some stunning numbers, right?
We are just getting you warmed up, though.
We’ve gathered some fascinating blogging stats that will answer the very simple question – Is blogging dead in 2022?
To let you know – the answer is NO.
That said, let’s kick it off with the latest data from 2022.
Eye-Opening Blogging Statistics for 2022
In case you were wondering if having a blog in 2022 is worth it, the numbers below reveal the answer.
1. Adding a blog to your existing website can increase traffic by as much as 434%.
(Source: Tech Client)
According to business blogging statistics, sites with blogs have 434% more indexed pages. Indexed pages are simply the set of a website’s pages that have been visited by a search engine, analyzed, and added to its list of web pages. They are essential for your website ranking – a website with a lesser percentage of indexed pages will typically rank lower. Therefore, you lose traffic.
(Source: Quick Sprout)
As humans, our brain is designed to capture visuals faster, easier, and more efficiently than text. Blogging statistics for 2020 showed that we have a higher retention rate for visuals (65%) than we do for text (10%-20%) alone. Hence, placing relevant images alongside your content can help your readers get a better understanding of your blog posts. Plus, images help you gather more traffic from search engines, alongside increased social media shares.
3. The number of blogs on the internet in 2020 exceeded 600 million.
(Source: Growth Badger)
According to blogging facts for 2020, Tumblr is the blogging platform with the highest number of users, with over 488.1 million blogs. WordPress comes second, with over 77.8 million blogs. Others like Wix, Medium, Joomla, etc., average about 2.5 million blogs each.
(Source: Orbit Media)
Why are bloggers flocking to social media to promote their blogs?
For one, these social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) already have a large following capable of bringing in millions of traffic to a blog, if done right. Plus, they provide an opportunity for bloggers to receive first-hand feedback from readers through comments.
5. Blog posts of at least 2,000 words generate strong results for 55% of bloggers.
(Source: Orbit Media)
According to the history of blogging facts, there were times when shorter blog posts were the real deal. Now, customers are looking for longer content, one that thoroughly explains the nitty-gritty of a topic. That is not to say that shorter blog content doesn’t perform well, but the longer, the better. That way, search engines get to favor your content in terms of ranking.
6. Longer blog posts have up to 77.2% more inbound links than shorter ones, blogging statistics for 2020 showed.
(Source: Backlinko)
Imagine being presented with a blog post of 2000 words on a topic, and another of 500 words on the same topic.
Which would you trust as your go-to resource when crafting your content?
Your best bet would be the longer post. Also, you’re more inclined to link to longer content. This indirectly provides an inbound link that will aid the ranking.
7. Blog traffic can increase to about 2,000% through quality content.
(Source: Omnicore Agency)
How can you create quality content to get this kind of result?
For starters, your content needs to be original – 100% plagiarism-free. Also, you need strong and captivating headlines. In addition, your content needs to provide easy-to-understand, reasonable and actionable answers.
8. The most successful blog titles are those that range between 6 and 13 words.
(Source: Express Writers)
According to blogging statistics for 2022, your blog title is your headline. By rule, your headline needs to be short and concise to catch the attention of your audience. The best titles are those that contain just 8 words. However, if you can maintain the 6-13 word range, your blog posts will do just fine. Nonetheless, to attach more value to your blog headline, you need to ensure that it contains the most critical elements of a successful title, which include:
- Relatability
- Conciseness
- Urgency
- Specificity, and
- Numbers.
9. The average blog post is 2,520 words long.
(Source: Portent)
The average length of a blog post keeps increasing. A few years ago, the figure was 1,400 words. In 2021, that number has increased to 2,520 words. The increase may be because Google prefers long-form blogs in terms of ranking. After all, they give readers more in-depth information.
10. About 8% of bloggers make enough money to support their families.
(Source: Finances Online)
One in three bloggers tries to monetize their blogs. However, shocking blogging statistics for 2022 show that less than 10% make enough to support their families. Only the top 0.6% generate more than one million dollars per year from their blogs.
General Blogging Statistics
Then, in 1997, Jorn Barger coined the phrase “weblog.” A year later, the first blog as we know it today, surfaced on the internet. You can learn about what happened next from these statistics on blogging.
11. In 1999, there were 23 blogs on the internet.
(Source: Webdesigner Depot)
The pioneer of blogging, Justin Hall started the blogging trend in 1994. At first, that trend was catching on rather slowly. The concept was new, and there were no blogging platforms whatsoever. This changed in 1999 with the launch of the first blogging sites such as Blogger and LiveJournal.
In 2002, a search engine for blogs, Technorati was launched, and a year later, the internet got the first podcasting service, Audio Blogger.
As the number of blogging tools increased, more and more people created blogs of their own. In just six years, the number of blogs jumped from 23 (1999) to 50 million (2005).
What do the numbers say today?
12. Today, there are more than 600 million blogs.
(Source: Growth Badger)
It has been 25 years since the first blog appeared in 1994. In the late 2000s, the blogging sphere started expanding rapidly. As we previously mentioned, there were about 50 million blogs in 2005. By 2013, that number tripled to around 152 million.
Statista reported that in January 2020, there were 488.1 million blogs on Tumblr alone!
So, how many blogs are there in 2022?
According to blogging statistics, there are 600 million blogs worldwide.
These numbers reveal that Tumblr hosts the highest number of blogs (496 million), followed by WordPress (70 million). Joomla is home to around 1.83 million blogs, whereas Drupal powers approximately 1.1 million sites.
13. There were 31.7 million US bloggers in 2020.
(Source: Finances Online)
How many bloggers are there?
That’s a tricky question, given that some writers have more than one blog. Every day, new blogs crop up while others are shut down. That means that we can only work with estimates.
Industry experts approximate that there were 31.7 million US bloggers in 2020. As the country’s population was 331 million, we can conclude that 10% of all Americans have a blog.
14. Approximately 7.5 million blog posts are created every day.
(Source: Letterly)
How many blogs do bloggers publish per day?
The answer is 7,500,000.
However, note that different bloggers have different blogging habits. Only 1% of bloggers posts several times throughout the day, while 3% post once a day. In addition, 61% post once a week.
15. Bloggers take about 3 hours and 55 minutes to write a single blog post.
(Source: Orbit Media)
The amount of time bloggers spend on a post seems to be going up every year.
In 2014, bloggers averaged about 2 hours and 24 minutes per post. That number went up in 2015 and rose to 2 hours and 35 minutes. In 2017, it increased by 40 minutes. And in 2020, the duration was close to 4 hours.
Google values quality content, which explains why bloggers are spending more time on their posts. Writers need to do in-depth research, offering readers the best value possible.
16. 53.3% of bloggers are between 21 and 35.
(Source: Daily Infographic)
More than half of the people in the blogosphere are aged between 21 and 35 years.
Next, we have bloggers who are 20 years old or younger taking up 20.2% of the blogging community. A slightly lower percentage of bloggers, 19.4%, falls into the 36-50 demographic group, while the smallest portion of the blogging population represents bloggers who are 51 and up (7.1%).
Regardless of these statistics on blog demographics, people of all ages blog today. A perfect example of that is Dagny Carlsson who’s widely known in Sweden, as well as worldwide for being the oldest blogger today. Dagny is now 106, and she owns a blog.
When it comes to gender, studies have shown that the percentage of men and women who blog is nearly the same. Male bloggers stand at 49.1% of the blogging population, while women represent the remaining 50.9%.
Now that we’ve seen who writes blogs, let take a look at the other side of a blog – readers.
17. 77% of internet users read blogs.
(Source: Impactbnd)
The statistics about blog readers you’ll find online are quite versatile, especially when it comes to the number of readers. One of the statistics you’ll find across many web pages is that 77% of internet users read blogs. The problem with this stat is that it hasn’t changed in the last decade. We’ve done our part of the research only to find out that this piece of information has been circling the internet roughly since 2010.
We cannot agree with any blog reader statistics that suggest this percentage hasn’t changed in nearly a decade. In 2010, there were 480 million internet users, and in 2019 that number reached 4.1 billion.
So, in 2010, 77% of internet users would have given us 370 million blog readers, while in 2019, they reached 3.1 billion.
Sadly, there’s no data on the internet to back up this information. The reality is we can’t know for sure how many people read blogs.
18. Blog readers spend approximately 37 seconds reading a blog post.
(Source: Quoracreative)
You read that right!
37 seconds is the average time readers spend reading a blog post. Additionally, 43% of readers skim through content rather than reading it thoroughly.
We can see the lack of balance between the time bloggers invest in writing a post and the average time blog visitors spend on reading the post all too well. For this, we don’t need any statistics, as blogs consume a lot of time and energy to create, and, more often than not, the content gets a brief visit from most readers.
However, if you work long and hard enough to create informative and engaging content for your blog, the average length of visits won’t matter much. You’ll have a loyal readership that will undoubtedly spend more than 37 seconds reading your posts.
Now, according to Medium, content that translates into a seven-minute read attracts the most attention from the internet audience. So, if you take an average adult who reads blogs regularly, they should read around 265 words in a minute. If we follow this logic, a seven-minute blog post should have about 1,850 words.
What’s interesting is that this content length matches Backlinko’s research from 2016 that analyzed over a million search results on Google and found that the first page results have 1,890 words on average.
19. Companies with 16+ monthly blog posts have more traffic than companies with fewer blog posts.
(Source: HubSpot)
In a 2015 study, HubSpot analyzed blog data from 13,500 HubSpot customers. The goal of this study was to see the eventual connection between blogging frequency and traffic. One of the crucial blog traffic stats this study provided was that companies that published 16 or more blog posts per month received more traffic than companies that only published up to 4 posts.
HubSpot broke the traffic data based on the company size, and the results were fascinating. Small companies (1 to 10 employees) with 11+ posts per month received twice the traffic compared to the same-size companies with only 2-5 posts every 30 days.
Further insights from this study proved that a blog is a powerful tool for companies. Namely, the companies with more than 200 employees that posted 11 or more blog posts in a month had 3.5 times more traffic than the companies with the same number of employees that either had no blog posts or only a single monthly post.
In the closing part of their study, HubSpot also pointed out that the frequency of publishing blog posts is related to lead generation. The conclusion was that companies with 16 or more monthly posts generate 4.5 times more leads than the companies with four monthly blog posts. Based on these findings, it’s easy to see why blogs are important for companies.
Business Blogging Statistics
In 2020 we have automated email marketing tools, influencer marketing, lead generation software, and hundreds of other channels for marketing.
That said, is blogging still relevant for marketers in 2022?
Let’s see!
20. Blogging is a vital content marketing strategy for 53% of marketers.
(Source: Optinmonster)
According to business blogging statistics for 2022, over half of marketers use blogging as a content marketing tool. Blogs help engage readers, generate leads, attract more clients, and eventually convert them into buying customers.
21. Over 90% of B2B marketers use content marketing.
(Source: Neil Patel)
In a 2018 survey of 1,100 North American marketers, researchers found that 93% utilized content marketing. They preferred the marketing mode compared to traditional advertising because it doesn’t force people to buy. Instead, it provides quality content and leaves the purchase decision to readers.
22. Over 80% of marketers plan to turbocharge their use of original content.
(Source: Neil Patel)
According to business blogging statistics for 2022, 8 out of 10 marketers plan to use more original content. Writing pieces from scratch gets you in Google’s good books; otherwise, you risk penalization. Users also want original content, and it’s only right not to steal someone else’s work.
23. Raising brand awareness: 7 out of 10 customers prefer promotion through articles, rather than ads.
(Source: Content Marketing Institute)
In 2016, Content Marketing Institute published research on native advertising. One of the key findings from this research was that 74% of consumers like brands’ articles more than the ads.
It’s no surprise, then, that many businesses now use blogs to raise brand awareness. The piece of information originates from a 2011 piece about consumers’ attitude towards custom content. According to the source, 7 out of 10 consumers said they prefer learning about a company through articles rather than through ads.
Taking this research into account, many businesses today are using blogs to approach customers.
Additionally, according to a 2018 study from Content Marketing Institute, as much as 68% of marketers focus on creating content for their audience rather than for the brand.
Now we see a constant rise of business blogs. The biggest advantage of business blogs is that they can reach a vast audience, and a blog itself is a cost-efficient marketing tool, which explains the continuous growth of company blogs.
24. An online survey shows that 68.5% of people think blogs add credibility to a site.
(Source: Social Marketing Writing)
In 2013, Social Marketing Writing covered the crucial aspects of building a credible blog by conducting an online survey. The survey showed that the majority of the participants (68.5%) think that blogs add credibility to a site, while 31.5% of participants disagreed. The same study revealed several more blogging stats we’d like to share with you.
The highest percentage of the study participants (30%) believed that the main factor that adds credibility to a blog is quality content. The second most important credibility factor was regular publication of content with 15% of participants choosing this answer. The number of visits and comments were ranked significantly lower with only 2% of participants relying on this factor for credibility.
Lastly, the study gave us an insight into podcast blog statistics. According to it, only 3.7% of participants recognized podcasts as a credibility factor back then. This percentage is much higher today if the vastly increased number of podcast listeners is any indicator.
Curious Blogging Facts
Most of you are probably wondering – do bloggers earn any money in 2022?
Well, the answer may surprise you.
25. More than 80% of bloggers never make even $100 from their blogs.
(Source: Life Hacker)
One of the common questions about blogging is whether bloggers can make a steady income from it. One of the benefits of blogging is the financial aspect of it, but not everyone can earn money from blogs.
So, we read a Blogging.org survey from 2012 to find the answer to this question. The study was based on the responses of more than 1,000 bloggers and showed that as many as 81% of bloggers never made even $100 from blogging, while only 8% of them make enough money to support their families.
While exploring the financial aspect of blogging, we stumbled upon one of the many WordPress stats that illustrate the growth of this blogging platform. The survey from Blogging.org showed that WordPress now has 500,000 new posts and 400,000 new comments every day. That was in 2012.
Today, WordPress reports having 70 million new posts and 77 million comments per month, which translates to 2.3 million new posts and 2.5 million comments a day. We must admit, this is quite impressive.
Now, let’s get back to our main topic and blog stats about the average income of bloggers. ProBlogger conducted a study similar to the one of Blogging.org. According to the results of this survey, which dates from 2012 as well, 10% of participants reported having no income from blogging at all. Furthermore, 28% of bloggers reported earnings of less than $0.30 per day, and 58% of all participants said they make less than $3.5 a day. Lastly, 4% of bloggers, those that had the most viewed blogs among those surveyed, were making $10,000 per month.
We wanted to compare these findings with some recent research about the income of bloggers. We found a 2018 research from Blog Tyrant. The research included approximately 350 bloggers, and apart from giving us insights about blog earnings, it also helped us find out the answer to one of the most common questions – the cost of blogging. We’ll talk about this shortly, but first, let’s see how much bloggers earned on average in 2018 according to Blog Tyrant.
The results suggested that nearly 70% of bloggers participating in the survey never made any money blogging. The second largest group (22.6%) reported earning less than $10,000 per year, while those that earned over $10,000 were in the 0.6% to 2.5% range.
So, can you make money from your blog? The answer is yes, but you have to devote a lot of time, energy, and creativity to your blog.
Now, let’s move on the promised blogging statistics related to the cost of blogs.
26. 36.8% of bloggers spent more than $100 when starting a blog.
(Source: Blog Tyrant)
Here’s an insight into the average amount of money bloggers spend when starting a blog.
A survey from Blog Tyrant showed that out of 350 bloggers 36.8% spent more than $100 when they started their blog. Marginally fewer (33.4%) managed to start a blog with a $20 to $100 budget. The percentage of those hoping to get a positive blogging ROI with an investment of $20 or less stood at 12.9%, while the percentage of those who didn’t invest any money in a blog was slightly higher (16.9%).
27. The most profitable blog is the Huffington Post, with an annual income of $500 million.
(Source: Target Internet)
There are many benefits of blogging, such as working on a flexible schedule. But what about the money you can make from running a blog? The most profitable blog currently is the Huffington Post. It makes half a million dollars per year! The second place sits Engadget with $45.5 million, and Moz ranks third with $44.9 million.
28. Video blogs emerge, 65% of your audience are visual learners.
(Source: Jeff Bullas)
When talking about blogging trends, 2019 certainly marked further growth of vlogging. Vlogs, as well as podcasts and other forms of media, are gaining popularity, which is one of the reasons why many people think blogging is losing importance.
However, blogs are still very relevant and, among other things, a fantastic marketing tool for reaching a wide internet audience. In this piece, we’ve delivered numerous statistics and facts to support that claim, but that doesn’t mean that vlogging is not becoming more and more popular.
Back in the 2000s, people often asked: “What is vlogging?” Today, they are more likely to ask “How to start a vlog?”
As Jeff Bullas, one of the top influencers in the blogging sphere, pointed out 65% of your audience are visual learners. Video content falls into the visual category, which makes vlogs a perfect way to communicate with your audience.
If you haven’t already found a way to integrate vlogs into your site, perhaps now’s the time to start thinking in that direction.
[“source=sginnovate”]
