Content Marketing

59 Blogging Statistics

Si Quan Ong
Content marketer @ Ahrefs. I've been in digital marketing for the past 6 years and have spoken at some of the industry’s largest conferences in Asia (TIECon and Digital Marketing Skill Share.) I also summarise books on my personal blog.
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    Are you curious about the state of blogging in 2024? Then look no further.

    We’ve curated, vetted, and categorized a list of up-to-date statistics below.

    Click to jump to a category, or keep reading for our top blogging statistics:

    These are the most interesting blogging statistics you should know.

    1. 71% of marketers report that content marketing has become more important to their organization in the last year (Content Marketing Institute).
    2. 76% of content marketers use content to generate leads (Parse.ly).
    3. There are more than 600 million blogs out of 1.9 billion websites worldwide (Web Tribunal).
    4. 77% of internet users read blogs (Social Media Today), and nearly 26% of people in the U.K. aged 5–18 are reading blogs (Statista).
    5. There is a strong positive correlation between word count and backlinks, but only up to 1,000 words. For posts longer than 1,000 words, there is a strong negative correlation between word count and backlinks (Ahrefs).
    6. There is a moderate correlation between content length and organic traffic, but only up to 2,000 words. For posts longer than 2,000 words, there is a moderate negative correlation between word count and organic traffic (Ahrefs).
    7. 80% of bloggers report that blogging drives results (Orbit Media).
    8. The bloggers who publish two to six times per week are 50% more likely to report strong results (Orbit Media).
    9. Bloggers who use 7+ images per post are 2.3X more likely to report strong results (Orbit Media).
    10. 65% of B2B buyers cite vendor websites as one of their most highly influential content types. This is followed by third-party websites (48%) and third-party articles by independent publishers (39%) (MarketingCharts).
    11. 59% of links shared on social media are shared without ever being read (Chicago Tribune).

    What’s the state of blogging in 2023? Here are some statistics that may surprise you. 

    1. Tumblr hosts over 518 million blogs, while WordPress hosts over 60 million blogs (Web Tribunal). 
    2. WordPress powers over 43.2% of the internet (W3Techs).
    3. Roughly 70 million new posts are published on WordPress each month (WordPress).
    4. On average, 77 million new comments are added to WordPress posts per month (WordPress).
    5. From 2023 to 2027, the global content marketing industry is expected to grow by $584.02 billion (ReportLinker).
    6. 44% of buyers say they typically consume three to five pieces of content before engaging with a vendor (Demand Gen Report).
    7. More than half of consumers will stop what they are doing if they encounter issues when viewing content (Adobe).
    8. Only 40% of marketers have a written content strategy (Content Marketing Institute).

    Do bloggers really earn money? Or is it just a pipe dream? Check out these statistics on blogging revenue. 

    1. 33% of bloggers don’t earn any money at all (TechJury).
    2. The most popular monetization method for bloggers is Google AdSense, followed by affiliate marketing. However, for high-income bloggers, AdSense ranks third; these bloggers are 2.5 times more likely to sell their own product or service than use AdSense (GrowthBadger).
    3. Bloggers make most of their income from ads, affiliate products, sponsored product reviews, selling their own products, and online courses (RankIQ).
    4. 45% of bloggers who earn over $50,000 per year sell their own product or service, while only 8% of lower-income bloggers do that (GrowthBadger).
    5. 72% of bloggers making $2,000+/month use either Mediavine or Adthrive as their ad management company (RankIQ).
    6. The most profitable niche is the food blog niche. Food bloggers have the highest median monthly income ($9,169) as compared to bloggers from all major niches (RankIQ).
    7. The niches that have the highest percentage of blogs with over 50,000 monthly sessions are food (42.8%), lifestyle (13.3%), and travel (10%) (RankIQ).
    List of activities bloggers earning over $50K/year and lower-income bloggers do; bar graphs consistently show more higher-income than lower-income bloggers do each activity

    How long should your blog posts be? How often should you publish? When should you publish? These are questions bloggers always ask. 

    1. Engagement drops for posts with a reading time longer than seven minutes (Medium).
    2. 73% of people admit to skimming blog posts, while 27% consume posts thoroughly (HubSpot).
    3. 75% of the public prefers reading articles under 1,000 words (Contently).
    4. The average blog post takes four hours and 10 minutes to write (Orbit Media).
    5. The average blog post is 1,376 words (Orbit Media).
    6.  The typical B2B article is 1,460 words compared to B2C articles, which are 1,300 words (Orbit Media). 
    7. About 66% of bloggers publish weekly, monthly, or somewhere in between (Orbit Media).
    Bar graphs showing average no. of words per blog post across the years (2014 to 2022)

    As competition intensifies, bloggers need to create higher-quality content. Check out these statistics on content formats and quality. 

    1. “Quality of content” is rated the #1 most important success factor among all bloggers. However, higher-income bloggers put much more emphasis on promoting their content than lower-income bloggers do (GrowthBadger).
    2. Most bloggers add around one to three images per blog post (Orbit Media).
    3. 42% of bloggers are conducting and publishing original research (Orbit Media).
    4. 37% of bloggers work with editors (Orbit Media).
    5. The most common complaints about content—too wordy, poorly written, or poorly designed (Adobe).
    Bar graphs showing small minority of bloggers make highly visual content

    To get consistent traffic to your blog, you first need to get your article indexed and ranking in the search engines.

    1. 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine (BrightEdge).
    2. 90.63% of pages get no organic search traffic from Google (Ahrefs).
    3. Only 5.7% of pages will rank in the top 10 search results within a year of publication (Ahrefs).
    4. The average page in the top 10 is 2+ years old (Ahrefs).
    5. The average top-ranking page also ranks in the top 10 search results for nearly 1,000 other relevant keywords (Ahrefs).
    6. Generally speaking, the more backlinks a page has, the more organic traffic it gets from Google (Ahrefs).
    7. There’s no correlation between Flesch Reading Ease scores and ranking positions (Ahrefs).
    8. 71% of bloggers say SEO is the most important source of traffic (Orbit Media).
    9. Only 50% of bloggers are doing keyword research for most of their content (Orbit Media).
    10. 17% of bloggers never research keywords (Orbit Media).
    11. Bloggers who earn over $50,000 per year put a lot of emphasis on SEO. Their #1 traffic source is typically Google organic search; also, compared to lower-income bloggers, they are 4.3 times as likely to conduct keyword research (GrowthBadger).
    12. 73% of bloggers are updating old content (Orbit Media).
    Pie chart showing 90.63% of pages get no organic search traffic from Google

    Your blog can’t go viral overnight. It needs to be discovered, promoted, and marketed. 

    1. Only 32% of bloggers regularly check their blogs’ traffic analytics (Statista).
    2. Social media is the most popular channel for driving blog traffic (Orbit Media).
    3. 70% of bloggers who earn over $50,000 per year say they are active or very active promoters of their blogs, compared to only 14% of lower-income bloggers (GrowthBadger).
    4. Bloggers who collaborate with influencers get better results (Orbit Media).
    5. Bloggers who earn over $50,000 per year from their blogs are over twice as likely to focus on getting email subscribers compared to lower-income bloggers. They also use 343% as many email-collection methods as lower-income bloggers (GrowthBadger).
    Bar graphs showing how bloggers drive traffic to their content across the years (2014 to 2022)

    Guest blogging is alive and well, and it’s still a great way to acquire links and be exposed to a large audience. 

    1. The average cost of publishing a paid guest post is $77.80 (Ahrefs).
    2. 50% of bloggers perform outreach for guest posts to 10 or fewer contacts a month, while 7% of them pitch to 100 or more blogs per month (Referral Rock).
    3. 60% of bloggers write one to five guest posts per month (Referral Rock).
    4. 87% of bloggers come up with guest post ideas themselves, but only 52% of them do the actual writing (Referral Rock).
    Bar graphs showing percentage of guest posters who do each of six guest blogging tasks

    Final thoughts

    Want to learn more about blogging and content marketing? Get started with these guides:

    Do you have other interesting statistics to share? Let me know on Twitter.

    Article Performance
    • Linking websites
      675

    The number of websites linking to this post.

    This post's estimated monthly organic search traffic.