Is Blogging Still Relevant in 2021?

Digital marketing is a constantly evolving landscape, making it difficult to know what works on a month-to-month basis, let alone on a year-to-year one. Each year we hear dozens of the industry’s hottest takes about what digital marketing changes may come over the next year – “Facebook is dead”, “Twitter isn’t relevant”, “SEO is useless”, and “blogging is irrelevant” are some of the most popular ones, and yet none of them ever seem to come true.

Despite the constant changes, evolving trends and bad predictions, one thing continues to remain true – content is king when it comes to building loyalty, increasing visibility, creating a reliable brand, and driving engagement. For these reasons alone, blogging is still one of the absolute best (and most cost-effective) tools in your arsenal in 2021 and beyond. In fact, blogs reach a staggering 409 million people each month, with more than 20 billion pages being consumed during that period.

Why blogging is still relevant in 2021

Digital marketing is made up of many elements – a successful strategy will employ several methods, including things like social media marketing, SEO optimization, content marketing, Google Ads campaigns, newsletter campaigns, and more. Many of these avenues are about promoting short-term engagement, whereas content marketing is a long-term play that continues to pay off long after the content is produced and published – high quality content will continue to attract users to your website years after publication. The same simply can’t be said for social media marketing, which is equally effective, but fleeting.

A content marketing strategy should improve your standings on search rankings, drive new readers to your website, give them a reason to stick around, establish your business as a thought leader in the industry, and encourage readers to take action. Blogging is the best way to do all that and more, still serving as the primary method of content marketing used by businesses around the world years after they first started being written off by industry “experts”.

How to succeed at content marketing in 2021

If you’re still working out how to approach your content marketing strategy this year, have no fear – we’ve got you covered. First and foremost, you need to focus on producing fresh content on a regular basis. Google’s search algorithm favours websites with fresh content over older ones which haven’t been changed in some time. Start planning to publish weekly, biweekly, or at least monthly blogs in order to help your business rise in the rankings and get seen by brand new audiences.

Google’s algorithms also tend to favour overall quality, meaning that the content produced needs to be high quality. You can’t throw just anything on your website and expect it to rank higher. Focus on employing more complex SEO within these blogs and delivering accurate and original content that will actually be seen as useful by readers. Figure out what needs, problems or questions your customers have, create blog topics that address these needs and questions, do your research, and create high quality content. Before long, you’ll see your website rising in the rankings about businesses which have grown complacent with their content marketing strategies.

When looking to boost SEO within your content, remember to do your research regarding key words and key phrases. Figure out what your target audience is searching for and employ these words and phrases strategically within your content. Remember not to just stuff keywords where they don’t belong – this will be held against your content and do more harm than good. Rely on the research you or your marketing team does – just because you think your readers may search for a term, doesn’t mean that it’s actually happening. With the right research and use of keywords, your content can be enjoyed by more eyes than you ever thought possible.

Content marketing can be difficult for busy marketing managers or businesses lacking a dedicated marketing team. Rather than focus your efforts on time consuming and often complicated content marketing, communication channels like social media are probably the best place to focus your time and efforts. Unless you have a background in writing for the web and SEO, it’s recommended that you hire digital marketing experts like those at ion8 to manage your content marketing strategy.

ion8 is an all-in-one business consultancy with a full team of knowledgeable digital marketing experts with years of experience working with businesses of all sizes and sectors to develop and implement successful content marketing strategies that attract new eyes, increase brand reputation and loyalty, and encourage readers to take action. For the very best in all things blogging and content marketing, visit our website and get in touch with one of our digital marketing experts today.

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