{"id":3846,"date":"2019-08-15T05:20:34","date_gmt":"2019-08-15T05:20:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spacebar.in\/contentious-old\/?p=3846"},"modified":"2022-11-24T13:06:34","modified_gmt":"2022-11-24T13:06:34","slug":"why-is-blogging-still-relevant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacebar.in\/contentious\/why-is-blogging-still-relevant\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Is Blogging Still Relevant?"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/h1>\n

I see the potential bias in my answering this question, since I run a <\/span>content writing agency<\/span><\/a> (one of the best ones in Mumbai, if I may say so myself, <\/span>cough cough<\/span><\/i>). So, let me attempt to remove some of the sharp edges of that bias by using the ever so credible Google as my trusted partner. I love examples, so in this blog post, I\u2019ll use real-life Google search results to explain to you why blogging is still extremely relevant, under what circumstances, and what\u2019s in store for the future.<\/span><\/p>\n

Blogging\u2019s Traditional Advantages<\/span><\/h2>\n

In the last five years, blogging has been used (and misused) mainly to rank websites higher on search engine results. This has led to a ton of bad blogs with terrible content online. So much so that when I was recently reading up about how a day or two of fever doesn\u2019t require you to go to the doctor, my husband reminded me how it was probably just some content writer\u2019s opinion. And boy did that bother me! However, Google\u2019s algorithms are constantly trying to beat the gamers of the SEO system by trying to ensure that only good quality blogs and web content appear in top results. What is a top quality blog? Put simply, a blog that answers the reader\u2019s question quickly without beating around the bush. <\/span>With the help of a good blog, a brand\u2019s website can be easily discovered by the reader, increasing the brand\u2019s chances of making a sale.<\/b><\/p>\n

Competition to Blogging<\/span><\/h2>\n

Attention spans have been slipping<\/span><\/a> and this has been a heated topic of discussion on the internet. My favourite (\/sarcasm\/) quote is by <\/span>Nadjya Ghausi<\/span><\/a> who opines that \u201cmany people believe that their attention spans are shrinking. But they\u2019re not. They\u2019re <\/span>evolving<\/span><\/i>.\u201d Right. Tom-ay-to, to-mah-to. But never mind my cynicism towards those who try to give a positive spin to everything. The facts are that people would rather watch a video than read, the latter being more effort intensive. That\u2019s why some even claim that <\/span>video will comprise of 80% of all internet traffic<\/span><\/a> in 2019. Does this mean the death of blogging as we know it?<\/span><\/p>\n

The SERPs Don\u2019t Lie<\/span><\/h2>\n

So, do blogging\u2019s traditional advantages continue to be accrued or are they slowly dwindling due to video competition? To answer that question, let\u2019s see what the Search Engine Results Pages (or SERPs) show, because that is the true test of what Google thinks would answer the question best. I tried four different types of queries:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. A how-to life query<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. A how-to product query<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. A how-to service query<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. A best product query<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    And, as you may have guessed \u2013 the SERPs view differently for each of these.<\/span><\/p>\n

    How-to Life Query<\/span><\/h2>\n

    Here are the results for the query \u2013 \u201chow to find a boyfriend.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

    \"Google<\/span><\/p>\n

    As you can see, the first link is a blog, followed by a PAA (People Also Ask) section. When you open up any of those PAA sections, you will again see snippets from blogs.<\/span><\/p>\n

    If you keep scrolling down, here\u2019s what you get.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \"Screenshot<\/p>\n

    As you can see for yourself, most search results are blogs or Quora answers, with one lonely YouTube video in between. The reason for this is that life skills are harder to <\/span>show<\/i><\/b> and easier to <\/span>tell<\/i><\/b>. Even the video you see is basically a person telling you how to do it. If your website is educating people on life, health, money, or anything that needs a longer explanation, blogs rule.<\/span><\/p>\n

    How-to Product Query<\/span><\/h2>\n

    The SERPs change slightly, however, when you are trying to figure out how to do something with a product. As an example, I searched for \u201chow to use a power drill\u201d and saw these results.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \"Screenshot<\/span><\/p>\n

    Like the first result of the how-to life query, this query, too, brought up a Wikihow blog (Wikihow has some amazing SEO power when it comes to how-to questions). After that, however, it\u2019s video after video after video. This is unsurprising; after all, it\u2019s easier and faster to <\/span>show<\/i><\/b> someone how to use a power drill rather than <\/span>tell<\/i><\/b> them. But then scroll further and see what happens.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \"Screenshot<\/span><\/p>\n

    Wikihow again, then blog + video, then blog, then PAA, followed by blog, blog, blog, and blog. Even when it is easier to show than tell, blogs continue to appear in the search results.<\/span><\/p>\n

    How-to Service Query<\/span><\/h2>\n

    What happens when there is nothing to show at all? So, I tried running this query, \u201chow to choose content writer\u201d which is basically something someone would search for when they want to avail of or evaluate content writing services. This time, the SERPs were completely one-sided.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \"Mobile<\/p>\n

    No images, no videos. The SERPs are pure textual blogs. This is especially insightful for B2B businesses that are in the service industry. You can\u2019t show someone how to choose, what you can do is tell them what attributes to look for, and that makes blogging essential.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Best Product Query<\/span><\/h2>\n

    Okay, so when somebody is searching for how to do something, blogs seem to be all too pervasive. But, what happens when someone wants to know the best product from the innumerable product choices they have? I searched for \u201cbest running shoes for women in India\u201d and the results were as follows.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \"Mobile<\/p>\n

    What do we see? Lo and behold! Blogs!<\/span><\/p>\n

    So, Is Blogging Still Relevant?<\/span><\/h2>\n

    Blogging is still the number 1 method that Google uses to answer people\u2019s queries. Every single example we saw above shows that. Text is still key for the search engine to understand whether a searcher\u2019s question is answered.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    One additional insight these examples give us \u2013 if you want to use a video, use it with text to help the search engines crawl your content better. And yeah, at the risk of repetition, <\/span>blogging is still relevant<\/b> and will be for the next 10 years if not more!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I see the potential bias in my answering this question, since I run a content writing agency (one of the best ones in Mumbai, if I may say so myself, cough cough). So, let me attempt to remove some of the sharp edges of that bias by using the ever so credible Google as my trusted partner. I love examples, so in this blog post, I\u2019ll use real-life Google search results to explain to you why blogging is still extremely relevant, under what circumstances, and what\u2019s in store for the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3847,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"categories":[98,221],"tags":[179,92,235,285,280,228],"class_list":["post-3846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-content-writing-2","category-digital-marketing","tag-content-creation","tag-content-writing","tag-content-writing-agencies","tag-content-writing-agency-in-india","tag-content-writing-agency-in-mumbai","tag-content-writing-company","category-98","category-221","description-off"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacebar.in\/contentious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacebar.in\/contentious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacebar.in\/contentious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacebar.in\/contentious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacebar.in\/contentious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3846"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/spacebar.in\/contentious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3846\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8651,"href":"https:\/\/spacebar.in\/contentious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3846\/revisions\/8651"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacebar.in\/contentious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacebar.in\/contentious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacebar.in\/contentious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacebar.in\/contentious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}