Is Blogging Saturated?

Isn’t the internet getting like one of those train stations where professional passenger pushers shove people into carriages?

People tell you your business should be blogging. But is it really worth blogging when there are so many blogs out there already?

Well, the internet doesn’t get full, but it does seem more crowded. 

Standing out is hard. Which is why…

…we need quality content now more than ever.

Now is really not the time to be turning our backs on internet content. 

If we walk away from contributing to the internet because of the over-saturation of average, lackluster, dispassionate content, I suspect the internet risks drowning under the weight of average, lackluster, dispassionate mediocrity.

Somewhere among the piles of mediocrity hides a good article, but how to find it?

AI is not to blame, though the way many content creators use it doesn’t help. Remember that chatGPT and the like are simply well-developed text generators. So unless a human responsibly fact-checks their output before publishing, you could easily get inaccurate information.

But that aside, AI content tends to be informative but flat. It’s like staying behind in class to ask a teacher a question and having her look right through you with glazed-over eyes as she recites something word for word. It’s not so much the creepiness. It’s the dissatisfying lack of interaction, the lack of expertise, the lack of passion, the lack of care.

Write the Content You Want to See in the World

It’s worth creating more of the kind of content that you’d like to see. People remember the online spaces where you can enjoy content with heart, written by real people who care. 

When one year’s mass-produced, flat-packed content becomes another year’s soggy kindling, the content you carved out of stone will still be standing tall.

More posts mean more keywords, more eyes on a business’s products and services, and a broader digital footprint. But there’s something to be said for leaving a deeper impression. 

Quantity is nothing without quality. In fact, quantity without quality can take you into spam territory.

How will people find this increasingly rare, quality content though?

Google and other search engines are in the business of delivering the most useful and relevant content to their users. 

To stand out, your content needs to be among the most useful and relevant. 

Being strategic and targeting your content will also help you achieve your objectives in the least time with the greatest results. 

Being authentic and creating something that means something to both you and your customers seals the deal.

Your content will have a people-first focus

Google prioritizes human-centric content written with real people in mind. So it’s an excellent idea to think hard about user intent before writing a single word. 

User intent is the reason behind a search. The user might be seeking information with which to make a buying decision, for example. They might be looking for a solution to a problem. Or they could be trying to decide which solution to buy.

Write for people, not algorithms.

By knowing how to help a user through a blog post, you can hone that content to make it as useful as possible, which will make it more likely to do well in search engine results pages.

Building a customer persona can also help you — and any professional content writers you work with — understand your audience more intimately. Your customer persona will include your ideal customers’ demographics, needs, and preferences regarding how they consume brand information.

Your content will swim in quieter waters

To occupy a marketplace comfortably, it’s wise to check out the competition. It’s looking before leaping.

You’ll know who the biggest players in your industry are. It will help you to investigate their web presence and, specifically for content SEO purposes, what keywords they target.

Online services such as Semrush, Google Trends, and Ahrefs can help you identify this information. Content writers – like ours – can also help you target keywords if that’s a venue you want to explore. In particular, look out for the metrics keyword volume, and keyword difficulty for the typical keywords your customers would be using.

• Keyword Volume AKA Monthly Search Volume (MSV) tells you how many searches are performed for that keyword each month, suggesting the size of the audience. The bigger the volume, the more opportunity for your business.
• Keyword Difficulty goes hand in hand with MSV as it provides vital information to balance your initial excitement: the likelihood that your content will rank based on various factors pertaining to competitors targeting the same keyword.

That’s not to say you can’t enter a busy marketplace. You’re big enough and strong enough. It’s just good to go in with your eyes open and make the most of your business’s advantages.

Your content will be in a niche you’ve identified

One marketer’s “evergreen content” is another marketer’s “pulped and recycled toilet paper.” 

Some topics are tried and true. Others are just tired, it’s true.

With some brainstorming and a keen look at the Venn diagram of your customers’ interests and your business’s expertise, you can probably come up with an angle that hasn’t been worded to death.

You may get fewer people, but they’ll be the right people.

However, it’s also wise to identify your niche and suck up the rich content ideas within. While niche content may attract fewer readers, the visitors you do get are more likely to be loyal, reliable, engaged, and passionate consumers. They are your future brand ambassadors.

You’ll also have less competition to contend with, which means a larger share of the market and more traction when you target keywords. 

Your content will express your perspective

Being different from other companies within your niche helps your business stand out even more. We don’t recommend being different just for the sake of it.

But if you do have an unusual perspective on your industry or approach to serving your customers, be brave and make the most of it. A unique perspective helps businesses build audiences that can’t get the same kind of content from anyone else. 

On day one, you’ll be the only business doing it. After a while, others will probably copy you but you’ll have been the first. Your experience and leadership will give you authority that helps you build relationships with your customers.

Your content will demonstrate expertise, experience, authority, and trust (EEAT)

Google also cares a lot about EEAT. If your blogging demonstrates these characteristics, it may receive a boost and thus be more likely to reach your intended audience.

Expertise refers to not only your proficiency at a thing but the depth and breadth of your knowledge surrounding it, too.

Experience is something that keeps building over time and with dedication. When businesses put in the hours, keep performing, and keep learning, that adds up to a growing track record that reassures users and potential customers.

You can demonstrate authority by commenting on your industry, sharing insights, making predictions, coming up with solutions to industry problems, and anticipating the needs of your customers. Blogging is an excellent way to demonstrate authority and become a thought leader, the go-to voice within your community and industry. 

You build trust by doing what you say you will do, being transparent about your policies and processes, and being authentic in your communications. 

Your content won’t only sell

Not everyone who visits your website will be there to buy something. Your website and blog content provide opportunities to learn about customers, provide information, and build relationships. I don’t know anyone who enjoys the hard sell.

You’re creating solutions and building a beautiful community.

Blog about your industry and topics relevant to your audience’s needs and desires. By all means, use your blog content to sell your products or services directly, but note that you can provide so much more value than that. The skill and authenticity with which you do this can elevate you above the noise of the competition.

Your content will be authentic

Online real estate is continually being bought up by big companies wanting to serve ads to potential customers. Businesses that communicate authentically tend to stand out in this increasingly commercial space. 

Without making money, a business is not going to be in business very long. Agreed. But what are the reasons that you went into business in the first place? What are some of the values of the business and its staff? What’s the reason the founder doesn’t give it all up and become a llama farmer?

Try making some of your blog content about things that will interest your customers aside from how, where, and when to buy your products and services. As long as these subjects are relevant to your industry and of genuine interest to you, they can add richness to your brand and deepen your relationship with your customers. 

Your content will be shareable

Google isn’t the only thing that boosts content. People do, too. 

When creating content, think about making it the kind of thing that people will want to share.

That might mean making it very entertaining, incredibly useful, or super accessible. If it’s all three, even better.

Sometimes people need a clear instruction about what you want them to do. A call-to-action or social media badges encourage people to share great content with their friends, families, and professional networks. 

Make the content so good that they’ll want to fulfill your call-to-action.

Your content will incorporate SEO techniques

SEO is a critical part of making and sharing excellent content. The great thing about SEO is that optimizing websites for Google and other search engines normally leads to changes that human users will appreciate. 

SEO involves integrating keywords into your content as naturally as possible, but it’s about much more than that. It also requires that the content has a clear structure to help people read it, that the images are optimized to load quickly, and that it answers the readers’ questions rather than going off on irrelevant tangents.

Someone will promote your content

Just because your content moves you to tears of laughter or joy, doesn’t mean that people are going to see it. Yes, quality content rises to the top, but it won’t hurt to give it a leg up.

That means spending time or money promoting the content. A reusable promotion plan can help every piece of content. 

• Use your favorite, most relevant social platforms to share your content. Don’t share once; do it multiple times for each new post.
• Encourage your colleagues and workers to share new content.
• Link to the new content in email newsletters.
• Update email signatures to promote new content.
• Directly tell relevant groups and businesses, but be careful not to spam.
• Repurpose content to extend its life.
• Use internal links – have your blog posts link to other blog posts to increase reads.
• Publish regularly – it sets the tempo for search engine crawlers and gives readers a timetable than can depend upon.

Can outsourced content achieve this level of quality?

A content writing team has the people power, expertise, and experience to create persuasive, results-oriented SEO content for whatever audience you choose. An excellent team produces content of which both you and your team can be proud. 

One of the top benefits of outsourcing content writing is that the right team can help you produce original, polished blog posts at scale. Quantity and quality. 

Using a content writing team doesn’t give you a rubber mallet to smash your competition. It gives you an entire store of heavy machinery, precision tools, and the expert operators to go with them.

The rubber mallet is optional.

There are many blog posts out there, but:

1. There’s room for more. It’s the internet, not Mr. Creosote.
2. Your content will stand out, because…
3. …You know your audience, and…
4. …You have us.

Writer&Co helps you grow your business by shaping your ideas into professional, strategic, authentic content that your customers will love.

Written by Dean Edwards

Dean lives in Southern France but was born in the UK, where he studied business and IT, and earned a degree in Writing. When he’s not creating content, he’s writing fiction, making music, and practicing martial arts. This is part bio and part affirmation.