Content marketers use a huge range of strategies. There are hundreds of techniques used by thousands of bloggers to produce millions of articles. How do we all do it? And what’s working?
We asked these questions 11 years ago and right away, we knew that a survey was the only way to find answers. The Annual Blogger Survey was born and we got 1000 bloggers to respond. The insights were excellent so we did it again the next year, and the next, and the next…
Welcome to the 11th Edition of the Annual Blogger Survey. This is a big, ungated research piece filled with trends, charts and inputs from experts. We keep updating this same URL because “digital ink is never dry.”
We’re going to answer a lot of content marketing questions:
- How are bloggers using AI?
- How long does it take to write a blog post?
- How long is the typical blog post?
- How is traffic to blogs changing over time?
- Are bloggers publishing more or less often than before?
- Which formats are driving results?
You find answers to these questions and many many more. In the final section, we’ll show what top bloggers do differently, so you can score your own strategy against what’s working for others.
Find this interesting? We welcome you to use any of these charts or insights in your own content, social streams and meetings. Let’s jump in…
Is blogging getting harder?
Yes, apparently. Most bloggers are getting results. Three out of four report that blogging is working for their brands. But fewer bloggers than ever are reporting strong results. Only 20% of bloggers report “strong results” which is down from 30% just five years ago.
What specifically is getting harder? We asked and learned that driving traffic is now the number one challenge for bloggers. Fewer bloggers report challenges in creating content or getting support from their organizations. There’s actually a lot more buy-in for content today than five years ago.
If driving traffic is the main challenge, which channels are the problem? Email and social media have gotten a bit more difficult over the years, but attracting visitors from search is much more difficult than before. Probably, these bloggers have seen a search traffic drop. Google is much better at keeping their visitors and so organic traffic is down.
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Rand Fishkin, SparkToro“Most bloggers need to throw out their previous idea of what “success” means. For two decades, it was all about traffic. Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, and other sites referred traffic. But, in 2024, traffic-hoarding, zero-click platforms are the standard. Bloggers will have to embrace the zero-click marketing on these platforms and use their blogs as places to build and serve smaller, more loyal, more dedicated followings through alternative forms of content delivery (e.g. partially gated premium newsletters) and alternative means of monetization (e.g. paid subscriptions, premium ads to highly targeted groups, etc.). As you can see in the survey answers, reliance on traffic and traffic growth in this new era is swimming against the tide.” |
How long does it take to write a blog post?
Bloggers put a lot of time into their content, but a bit less than before. After climbing for nine years, the average time spent creating blog post is coming down. The average blog post takes three hours and forty eight minutes to write. That’s still a substantial effort.
Maybe bloggers are getting more efficient or getting help from AI. More on that in a minute.
Bloggers who spend more time are getting better results. Here you can see the correlation between effort and results. Across the dataset, 20% of bloggers report “strong results” but bloggers who spend 6+ hours on each article are much more likely to be in that high-performing group.
More time often means more words. Bloggers who spend more time are writing longer articles. No surprise. Over time, you can see that the word count for the average blog post has grown. The average blog post is around 1,400 words. After rising 77% over ten years, it’s finally leveled out.
Why the arms race for blog length? Content marketing is competitive. But only a small percentage of bloggers go really big. Blog length is a bell curve. Just 3% of us write 3000+ words on a regular basis.
But it’s those bloggers who write longer posts tend to get better results. There’s a clear correlation between content length and marketing performance. The bloggers who write 2000+ words on average are far more likely to report “strong results.”
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Casie Gillette, Customers.ai“The reason blogs are longer is twofold – one, longer posts tend to perform better in search. Two, there is so much content out there that to really drive value, you have to go more in-depth. I find that our extended “guides” and research-driven pieces significantly outperform our traditional 1,200 word “how to” posts when it comes to traffic, engagement, and certainly leads. Why? They are interesting, unique, and they offer information other content does not.” |
How often do bloggers publish?
More time on longer articles means publishing less often. Bloggers are choosing quality over quantity and blogging frequency is down. Compared to 11 years ago, half as many bloggers publish multiple times per week. Twice as many bloggers publish monthly.
Again, there is a correlation between effort and performance. The bloggers who publish more often are more likely to report “strong results.” Monthly blogging is more popular but less effective than ever. The data suggests bi-weekly is the minimum for content performance. Publishing 10-12 posts per year won’t cut it.
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Maddy French, Blogsmith“Content marketing success isn’t about publishing a target number of articles but rather showing up consistently so that your audience sees you as a trusted resource. Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines specifically mention content ‘freshness.’ By publishing content at a regular cadence, you’re offering that ‘freshness’ and building a case for why your content should rank in relevant searches”. |
How are bloggers using AI?
An interesting question. I was anxious to see the data myself.
Last year we asked this question, so now we can start seeing the trends. There are many AI use cases for content marketing, from brainstorming to first drafts to social posts. Overall, AI adoption is way up.
In 2022 …almost no one was using AI
In 2023, 65% of bloggers were using AI.
In 2024, 80% of bloggers are using AI.
Here is the breakdown of AI use across tasks, from the beginning to the end of the blogging process:
- 54% use AI to generate ideas (up from 43%)
- 41% use AI to write headlines (up from 29%)
- 40% use AI to write outlines (up from 28%)
- 25% use AI to write first drafts (up from 21%)
- 6% use AI to write complete drafts (up from 3%)
- 40% use AI to suggest edits (up from 22%)
- 12% use AI to create visuals (up from 6%)
- 15% use AI to write promotional emails (up from 9%)
- 28% use AI to write promotional social posts (up from 17%)
You can see, that the popularity of some uses has doubled in a single year.
Do bloggers who use AI get better results? Not really. Those few bloggers who use AI to write entire articles are slightly more likely to report success. Personally, that is my least favorite AI use case. For the most part, bloggers using AI are getting the same results as everyone else.
Our contributing experts offer some very different perspectives on AI.
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Mark Schaefer, Schaefer Marketing Solutions“I predict that in the near future, there will be a correlation between the use of AI and blog success, meaning, the more AI, the less success. At least for now, the AI shortcut is creating an unmistakable pandemic of dull.” |
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Chris Penn, Trust Insights“The big story in the use of AI is significant adoption across the board. The number of bloggers holding out has dropped by almost half. This indicates the significant pressures on content creators to be more productive, to be more effective and efficient, and to acknowledge competitive pressures. AI enables all creators to create more stuff, and for good or ill, if you don’t want to be drowned out, you also need to engage AI to accelerate your own content creation efforts.” |
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Ryan Robinson, RightBlogger“Most bloggers haven’t figured out quite what to make of AI yet. We’re seeing bloggers experiment with trying AI in everything, and those getting the strongest results have figured out how to weave these tools into their creation process in ways that save time while still keeping themselves—what makes their content truly special—front and center.” |
What content formats are bloggers using?
A “blog post” can be many things. We asked bloggers which formats they use and the most common is the how-to article. Guides are also popular. This makes sense. Educational content is the foundation of most content programs. Influencer-focused formats, such as interviews and roundups, are far less popular.
Ironically, the less common formats are the ones that drive results. There is an inverse relationship between the popularity of a format and its effectiveness.
We track the use of original research over time. 43% of bloggers report conducting original research in the last 12 months. That sounds high to me. Regardless, it’s also encouraging to see the numbers rise over time. Bloggers who conduct studies like this one are the bloggers who are getting results.
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Jay Bear, Business Growth and CX Researcher, Author, Advisor and Speaker
“The future of successful blogging will inexorably tilt toward original research and multi-perspective roundups. Not because those formats are inherently better, but because they are harder to be disrupted by AI. Already, if I need to learn something, it’s more common for me to ask one of my AI tools rather than go spelunking through Google to find a blog post that purports to have the answer. Original research wins because it’s…..original. No GPT can steal that thunder (until it’s sucked into the gaping maw of AI). Same with multi-perspective roundups which essentially function as original research from many authors.” |
What are bloggers putting in their articles?
We also asked bloggers what elements they are adding to their articles. Are bloggers adding videos? Quotes? Images? How many images?
Virtually all bloggers add images to their content. But bloggers use more visuals than others. A small minority of bloggers (just 6%) add seven or more images to a typical article. But the more visual the content, the more likely it is to succeed.
Similarly, video isn’t something more bloggers do. Although the popularity of video has doubled since 2015, just 25% of bloggers add video to their articles. But the bloggers who add video are seeing the impact, possibly because it gives them more ways to measure beyond the typical stats. Example: these fun GA4 reports that show how video impacts website engagement.
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Wil Reynolds, Seer Interactive“I find it interesting that from 2019 to 2024, we’ve been flat in terms of the bloggers who use video. But if you were to look at video views on platforms like TikTok and YouTube, you see those growing exponentially. Customers are looking for video content more than ever. But in terms of bloggers incorporating video into their content, it seems some are falling behind. Now with that said, maybe it’s because they leave video on those platforms up to other people, but my recommendation is to start to incorporate it everywhere.” |
Even more striking, bloggers who produce audio content (that’s you, podcasters) are the most likely to report strong results.
Are bloggers collaborating with influencers?
Earlier, we saw the effectiveness of the collaborative formats, interviews and roundups. We also asked bloggers specifically about influencer collaborations. Around half of bloggers occasionally collaborate with subject matter experts. But very few do it most of the time.
Here we see more evidence of hard work and differentiation paying off. The bloggers who collaborate with influencers on most of their articles are almost twice as likely to report strong results.
On this blog, every article includes multiple points of view. It’s a standard we hold ourselves to. Our thinking? Journalists don’t write articles without sources, so why do bloggers write articles without contributor quotes?
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Amanda Milligan, Brand Authority Club“This looks like a great opportunity to differentiate content if only half of folks are doing it some of the time. I’ve always seen it as an amazing cobranding opportunity that allows you to leverage multiple audiences and establish brand “friends” that have similar missions and values. This can improve the authority of your content but having these types of organic partnerships can improve the authority of your brand, too. If another trustworthy brand decides to work with you in some capacity, that means you must be worth working with!” |
Are bloggers working with editors?
Blogging has professionalized over the years, with more bloggers using more rigorous processes and workflows. Although it’s dipped recently, the use of editors is up over time. Twice as many bloggers use editors today than 10 years ago.
Editors are making a difference. Bloggers who use a formal editing process are more likely to succeed.
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Melissa Harris, M. Harris & Co.“It’s nearly impossible to climb out of our own minds and judge our own writing impartially. We too often use a butter knife when an experienced editor would use a machete. Great editors coax us to accept slimmer versions. They persuade us to be more direct, more clear. They help us seize our readers’ attention and keep it.” |
Are bloggers updating older articles?
Like the use of editors, a process for updating older articles has become more popular over the years, but is seeing a slight dip this year.
It’s another blogging strategy that drives results. Bloggers who update older posts are 2.5x more likely to report “strong results.”
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Russ Henneberry, theCLIKK“I’ve seen the best SEO results when I not only strengthen and update a piece of content that was popular, but also promote the content again through email, social media, and even paid traffic. That resurgence of traffic immediately following the update will send positive signals to search engines (assuming you truly improved the content) and can lead to more search visibility.” |
How are bloggers driving traffic to their content?
Almost all bloggers share content on social media. This has always been true. Two thirds promote content through SEO and email. Those channels have become more popular over time.
Paid promotion and influencer collaboration rose in popularity, but then fell. The popularity of co-promotion with influencers has fallen hard and fast. This is surprising considering the clear effectiveness of influencer collaboration.
Across the board, content promotion is facing headwinds. None of the promotion channels seem to be driving traffic the way they used to. Of course, some content strategists are looking at past traffic and adapting to a low-click reality in digital marketing.
YouTubers don’t worry about traffic. Neither do B2B marketers with LinkedIn newsletters.
Although search isn’t driving traffic the way it once did, bloggers with SEO skills are still more likely to report success. Bloggers who apply those SEO skills more often, making sure to never miss a keyword opportunity, are more likely to report success.
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Lidia Infante, SurveyMonkey“Successful content marketers know how users will reach their content before they start writing. They ask if users will be reached through ads, email, social media or search. They ask if the content is timely or evergreen. They know if they should invest in keyword research. The best content marketers know that if they put themselves in the shoes of their users, content can be repurposed in a million ways. A data piece for a media partnership can be turned into an evergreen blog post. An expert quote can be repurposed into social media assets or even a collection of quotes. So do all pieces of content need keyword research? No, but they all need user research.” |
Are bloggers checking their Analytics?
Not all bloggers are measuring performance. About 1 in 5 bloggers do not or cannot check Analytics. Those are exactly the bloggers who are least likely to report “strong results.”
Reading the short answers from these respondents helps explain some of these are bloggers with limited roles. They are contributors or consultants with no access to Analytics. Others are simply hoping for comments and likes. That’s a problem because the most visible marketing metrics are the least important.
Bloggers who measure performance more often are the most successful. They’re more likely to find insights, iterate and improve.
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Karen Hopper, Bully Pulpit International“Regular data review is one of the most crucial parts of content marketing. Producing content without knowing the return on that investment makes it impossible to reliably grow over time. What’s more, being able to point to positive performance through hard, indisputable data takes the HiPO out of the room (the Highest Paid Opinion… not Moo Deng, she can stay), leaving you to your craft and giving leadership the confidence that you know what you’re doing.” |
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Jim Sterne, Target Marketing of Santa Barbara“I can state the obvious: Bloggers who check their analytics more often are more likely to improve. They are more engaged, but more important, they are interested in improvement. Why are bloggers using analytics ever-so-slightly less now than before? My supposition is that they understand the numbers better, they internalize the learnings and do not need to repeatedly go back to the well.” |
What works in blogging now?
That was a lot of blogging statistics.
It’s really only useful if we use it to discover the most effective tactics and adjust our content strategies accordingly. To make that easier, we’ve put together a combined chart showing the blogging aspects that are most likely (and least likely) to correlate with performance.
There are millions of articles and videos about content marketing. Advice is everywhere. But this single chart might be the most helpful in shaping an effective content marketing strategy.
Let’s summarize some of those key points into a sentence or two:
- Consistently produce in-depth, highly visual content, including original research
- Collaborate with influencers and editors.
- Align your content with keyphrases when possible and keep content up-to-date.
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Amanda Natividad, SparkToro“Blogs are still necessary from a credibility perspective. You can get all the zero-click reach you want on social media, but if people Google you and you have no blog or website anywhere that substantiates your viewpoints, that’s the easiest way to look like a grifter.” |
Final Takeaway: Make your next article look like a social stream
They spent millions of dollars figuring out how to keep a visitor engaged.
They use those insights to create insanely compelling, even addictive, experiences.
They are social media platforms. You see the results of their research every day.
Obviously, a blog post isn’t a social stream. But there’s a lot to learn from social platforms.
If a social stream is the UX for maximum engagement, how does it align with the blogging statistics we’ve shared here? Top performing blogs and social media streams have many elements in common.
- Multiple points of view: top blogs have contributor quotes, social streams have comments
- Many visuals: both have images at every scroll depth
- Videos: both have embedded videos
- Timely: top blogs are kept up-to-date, social streams are current posts
- Length: top blogs are long, social streams are infinitely long
Let’s compare. Here’s my LinkedIn feed from this morning side-by-side with my recent article about using AI to analyze GA4 data for lead gen timing analysis.
Boring topic? Maybe. But pan out and it looks like a stream, doesn’t it? It has 12 images, 3 contributor quotes, 12 images and 2100 words and a video.
Gratitude
First, a big thanks to the 12,163 bloggers who responded to the survey over the last 11 years. By far, the biggest challenge of this annual project is gathering the data for the blogging statistics. We use email and social media, but it always comes down to a lot of one-to-one messages to bloggers on social media. We know it’s no fun to be the target of direct outreach. We sincerely appreciate everyone who responded. So grateful.
Next, we need to thank our contributors. We basically outsource the analysis to some of the smartest minds in marketing. Especially the one and only Ann Handley, who helped with questions and promotion.
Thank you to all the influential experts who were part of this.
And finally, to the Orbiteers who do so much to support this project, from the first steps to the last. That’s you Amanda and Jantzen! So so grateful for your help.
Methodology and Data
The respondents to this survey are self-described bloggers with whom we connected over many years on social media and from the blogging community. Data was captured using a simple one-page survey of 23 questions.
- No one was incentivized to take the survey in any way.
- The dataset is heavily populated with my personal network, which skews toward LinkedIn users, B2B marketers and people in the US active in business blogging.
- Responses were gathered in September of 2024.
- This is a survey of bloggers (individuals), not companies or brands (groups).
- “Strong results” is deliberately left vague because respondents’ goals are diverse.
- AI was used to help find correlations in the dataset. Everything else was done by hand.
How is this survey promoted? Read our original research playbook here.
