Blogging has come a long way in the past few decades. And it’s always been a key part of content marketing, but it’s no longer just about writing a great post and sharing it. A strong blog content strategy is essential for creating content that delivers value and is tailored to the needs of your audience. While some of the basics still apply, how we approach blogging now requires more strategy and effort to stand out.
We sat down with Andy Crestodina, Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Orbit Media, and the mastermind behind the annual blogging survey (now in its 11th year!) to discuss some of the latest results. We find out what’s working in the world of blogging, with a focus on B2B, and some of the challenges faced by bloggers today. If anyone knows what works in blogging, it’s Andy!
Listen or watch below, or keep reading for key takeaways.
The challenges
Andy’s survey revealed that attracting visitors from search engines is now the number one challenge bloggers are facing today. There’s more competition than ever, but it seems like Google and AI are the major culprits.
Google has updated their search engine results page (SERP) to include features such as the ‘People Also Ask’ box and the AI overview snippet at the top of the page. These features are definitely handy, but they’re not so great for content creators. Why? People are finding answers directly on Google without ever clicking through to your website.
And then on top of that, there’s the rise of AI tools like Perplexity and ChatGPT, where users bypass search engines entirely. Instead of Googling a question, they’re asking AI for answers and skipping the click-through altogether. No ads, no pop-ups, just the info they’re after.
We discussed this in more detail in How to Win at Gen AI Search with Christopher Penn where Chris explained how AI is reshaping search and SEO, and in Optimizing Content for AI: Effective Repurposing Tactics where we provide nine strategies for optimizing content for AI.
For bloggers and content marketers alike, the question to ask is: does my content demand a click? It’s no longer enough to rely on short-answer key phrases or simple how-to guides. If the reader is going to click on the content summary (either in SERPs or gen AI) and go to your website, they are looking for depth and detail that goes beyond what an AI tool or snippet can provide.
Are you creating content with keywords that have ‘visit website intent’?
What makes a blog successful?
Despite the challenges, the survey provided plenty of insights into the key ingredients for making a blog perform well. Here’s a summary:
1. Be visual
Blogs that look like social media streams, with plenty of images, videos, and infographics, tend to grab and keep attention. Large walls of text? Not so much. If your readers are coming from platforms where they’re already used to visuals and easy-to-digest info, then it makes sense that large walls of text on a blog won’t cut it!
Readers navigate quickly and will know from the first few seconds of being on your blog whether they’re in the right place. If they can’t find what they’re looking for quickly and easily, they’ll click that dreaded back button.
Our tip: Visuals aren’t just for making your blog look pretty. They can be repurposed into social posts, creating extra value for your content!
See the image below. Looks nice here in the blog, doesn’t it? But it’ll also look nice when we post it to our…
- LinkedIn page
- LinkedIn newsletter
- Email newsletter
- X
- And many more places!
2. Long-form
When it comes to blogging, size matters. The latest results of the survey showed that longer posts tend to perform better. While the average blog post is at around 1,400 words, the most successful posts often go above 2,000 words.
It’s clear that blogs that dive deep into topics with detailed and valuable insights are attracting readers onto your page for longer, signaling to search engines that the blog is worth ranking for.
3. Collaborate with subject-matter experts
Whether it’s a single quote or a full interview, bringing in expert voices from subject-matter experts or influencers is an effective way of making your content more credible and engaging. Andy’s survey showed that a blog post that includes collaboration with subject-matter experts or influencers is almost twice as likely to achieve strong results. Yet, surprisingly, only a small percentage of bloggers do this consistently.
Journalists rarely write articles without including quotes and sources, and clearly bloggers should do the same. It’s not just about adding credibility, it can lead to additional promotion and reaching a wider audience.
The art of blogging may be shifting, but the goal remains the same: we all want to connect with our audiences and offer something genuinely valuable. So, take a look at your blog content strategy before you start writing your next post and ask yourself: does it grab attention, hold interest, and give readers something they can’t get anywhere else? If it does, you’re on the right track.
For more insights and plenty of helpful data, we highly recommend checking out the full results of Andy’s annual blogger survey.
Thanks for reading. We hope you found this helpful, let us know on LinkedIn.
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Very many people can write articles. However, my take home is "Blogs that look like social media streams, with plenty of images, videos, and infographics, tend to grab and keep attention" and Collaboration.
Thanks so much Andy for your insights.