Is Blogging Still Worth It?
By Cheval John
May 24th, 2017
You might be wondering if it’s worth it to have a blog after seeing these stats
There are over a billion websites in the world- Internet Live Stats
About 2.7 million blog posts are published everyday-Hosting Facts.com
The answer is yes because your blog is the home base for your website
Here are more stats about blogs:
Websites with a blog have tend to have 434% more indexed pages-Impact
43% of marketers who work for business to business tells everyone that blogging is very important for their companies-Social Media Examiner
81% of businesses consider their blogs to be an important asset to their businesses.-Search Engine Journal
Out of the millions and millions of blogs, the top hosting sites for blogs are Tumblir and WordPress (WP).
Though Tumblir host 175 million blogs, I am honestly not a fan of the platform.
WP hosts 75.8 million blogs in the world.
You might not know that WordPress has two different platforms for blogs.
There is WordPress.com, the free hosting site, and WordPress.org, the self-hosting software.
Before we get into the details of WordPress.com and WordPress.org, I want to chat about another hosting site that emerged over the last few years: Medium.
Medium was created in 2012 by Evan Williams, one of the co-founders of Twitter.
The vision for Medium was to create long form content in the manner people could express themselves more since Twitter has a 140 character limit.
People who creates an account on Medium via Twitter or Facebook will automatically increase their audience depending on the number of followers on either platform.
For example, Rachel Rofe, who is the author of 50 plus books, created her Twitter account in 2007 and built a strong community.
When Rachel started using Medium in 2014, almost 1/3 of her Twitter audience “followed” her to the blogging platform
This is an advantage for those who are looking to start blogging for the first time.
And you also keep the blog content according to the people at Medium.
With the above being said, here are the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org.
Pros of WordPress.com:
It is free
You can interact with fellow bloggers on the platform and build a community
Your blog could be discovered
Cons of WordPress.com:
You have limited features which can hinder you from expanding your blog
Pros of WordPress.org
You have access to the plugins which can improve your website
You can design the website which fits your business
The website is yours forever
Cons of WordPress.org
You have to pay a hosting company to run your website
In reality, it is not a con because they are hosting companies which are compatible with WordPress.org and are very affordable for small businesses.
The two hosting companies I highly recommend for hosting your website using WordPress.org are
Blue Host and Host Gator.
(Disclaimer: I use host gator for my business blog and I am not getting a commission at all.)
If you have to choose between wordpress.com and wordpress.org if you are planning to start a blog, I would select the latter.
When you built an audience over the years using wordpress.com and you want to switch to a self-hosted site using wordpress.org, you will end up “losing” the total number of views for your blog.
It will also cost you between $129-$200 to transfer your content from wordpress.com to wordpress.org.
I started this blog on wordpress.com in 2011 while simultaneously blogging for the collegiate newspaper and myself during my time in graduate school.
When I was placed on probation from graduate school, I decided to buy the domain name and upgrade the blog to vallanomedia.com using wordpress.com in January of 2012.
A couple days later, I formed the company as an llc and continued to blog about sports, travel and current events.
After looking at articles from experts like Nathalie Lussier regarding blogging platforms, I knew I had to switch my site over to wordpress.org.
So on October 1, 2012, I paid around $140 to switch my blog over to wordpress.org.
I had no idea at the time I was going to “lose” over 3,900 total viewership I built before switching from wordpress.com.
In conclusion, I want to add having a blog is important because it is your main real estate.
The social media platforms are just rented land.
If you want to build your business via blogging, you must do your research on which platform is right for you.
Here is a quote from Sonia Gregory, Owner and Creative Director of FreshSparks, which sums up the importance of having a blog:
“A blog is an opportunity to shake hands and introduce yourself. You can gain a reader’s trust through quality content.”
Are you planning on starting a blog? You can leave your comments below.
Do Not Worry About The Sales Pitch
By Cheval John
You are very excited when a lot of people are reading your blog on a daily basis.
That motivates you to continue providing uplifting content to your audience.
Though your blog is getting a lot of views and bringing people to your website, you notice you are not making a lot of money.
You are wondering why isn’t this blog converting readers into potential customers.
Your first thought is trying out different tactics which will bring people to your business blog.
One of the tactics is pushing out your content to different social media platforms hoping to win new business.
That fails to work because consumers are more keen to see who cares about them.
You realize you must interact with your audience on a daily basis on the different social media platforms.
Though the above always works, you have not seen the results of converting your fans into customers yet.
I can tell you to keep on building your audience on the social media platforms.
You must also understand having an e-mail list is the most effective way to convert your fans into customers.
Your blog’s e-mail lists is your real estate.
When someone decides to join your e-mail list, you have a higher chance of winning new clients for your business.
The ways how you can build your e-mail list is providing value consistently with your business blog.
Also, you can embed educational videos or podcast which applies to the industry your business is apart of.
Like the podcast I embedded here from my show.
The biggest mistake you can make when building your e-mail list is having pop-ups.
Pop-ups is like spam.
When someone is reading your blog post and all of a sudden a pop-up appears, it basically distracts the viewer.
They are in the middle of consuming your content which is solving their pain point.
When blogs engage in installing pop-ups in their website, they are truly saying we are not confident our content will help you and we need to use these tactics to get a subscriber.
If you are starting a blog for the first time, never use any type of pop-up system even if many are telling you otherwise.
If you do win over a new e-mail subscriber, do not bombard them with sales pitches in every e-mail.
They will be turned off by your spammy sales pitches and opt out of your e-mail list.
Your must have confidence in your blog content and not worry about the sales pitch
Do you have agree or disagree with this post? You can leave your comments below
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