Blogging Statistics and Trends: Survey of 1000+ Bloggers
What makes for good blog content? Millions of bloggers spend hundreds of hours each year creating blog content. A new blogger survey from Orbit Media asked 1,000+ bloggers about what goes into creating and posting content for their blogs. Now in its fifth year, the survey shows many trends and statistics showing how blogger content creation has evolved. From the length and frequency of posts to their process works and the different types of content they promote.
Trends from a Survey of 1000+ Content Marketers
The analysis from Orbit Media is broken down into three comprehensive sections:
Length, Time, and Frequency
- How long is the average blog post?
- How much time are bloggers sending on a typical article?
- How often are bloggers publishing?
Process and Measurement
- Are bloggers working with editors?
- What percentage of bloggers are using Analytics?
- Do bloggers update past articles?
Content Formats, Original Research, and Promotion
- What are bloggers including in their posts?
- Where and when do bloggers write?
- What percentage of bloggers write guest posts?
- How are bloggers driving traffic to their content?
Let’s dive deeper into these sections to highlight some of the callout data from the analysis.
Length, Time, and Frequency
In 2018, the average blog post took 3 hours and 28 minutes to write. That is up from 2.5 hours in 2014, showing that time spent per post has risen by 44%. As expected, the time invested per article can vary slightly between writers. Some bloggers spend less than 3 hours to post, and some spend over 6 hours on a single post. The survey found that bloggers spending more time on a post tend to see more returns on their time invested in blogging. Bloggers who spend over 6 hours on a single blog post are 56% more likely to report strong results than those who don’t.
The length of a typical blog post in 2018 is 1,151 words. That’s up from 808 words in 2014, a rise of over 42%. Bloggers who have posted over 2,000 words report are far more likely to report seeing strong results from their blog posts.
How frequently do bloggers publish in 2018? Most bloggers tended to publish several times a month instead of several per week just a few years ago. Most bloggers spend more time writing longer articles, so their frequency is decreasing. However, nothing in the data suggests any benefits to publishing less often. On the contrary, greater frequency has been shown to have stronger results.
Process and Measurement
Today nearly 1 in 4 bloggers have a formal editing process. That percentage has doubled over the last five years. However, most bloggers edit their work instead of using an editor. Most bloggers don’t have a formal editing process; however, those that do report stronger results with their work.
The survey also asked if updating old content is part of your blogging strategy. Only 38% of bloggers are currently updating old content. The survey found that bloggers with a strategy of updating older content are twice as likely to report strong results. Bloggers who also measure their content’s performance in analytics are twice as likely to report strong results.
Content Formats, Original Research, and Promotion
The survey found that over half of bloggers include multiple images in each article, and about half use lists in their posts. Video is rising, and only a small percentage of bloggers use audio in their posts. The survey found that the more media formats you use in a post, the more success you are likely to have.
A new question in the survey this year asked about original research. 55% of bloggers who conducted their original research saw strong results. However, only 1 in 4 bloggers currently do it. Bloggers who conducted their original research were almost three times more likely to see strong results than those who didn’t.
The survey also found that content promotion was extremely important. Close to 100% of bloggers currently promote their content on social media. More and more bloggers are turning to email marketing and SEO as alternative ways to promote their content. Influencer and paid promotion have been way up over the past few years.
The full blogger statistics and trends report from Orbit Media can be seen here.
