Who Reads Blog Posts These Days?

Ten years ago, I read an article in Panorama Magazine. It explained how both amateur and veteran writers were beginning to make money on their own, without the intervention of publishers. Yet, they were not doing it through independent publishing of printed materials - it was something new (at that time) and perfectly legal.

The Internet became an avenue where essayists, storytellers, and even shallow naysayers were able to pick some pieces of gold and silver. The terms online advertisement and affiliate marketing came into existence. These were the new means through which writers could extract some bucks from the Internet. Later on, established publishers and big publishing companies would come into the picture and claim their piece of the pie.

I have no intention of discussing how to make money by blogging or writing stuff on the Net; there are quite a number of articles online about it already. By the way, if up until now you still do not know how the word “blog” came to be, then I may have to give you a bit of a service. Blog is actually an acronym of 2 words - web log. In quite a short time, the online community got tired of saying and typing “web log,” so they coined them into one. So now, we have the word blog.

The Blogging Boom

The years 2004-2009 were the time bloggers got their heyday. Those were the years when struggling writers become instant publishers, and ordinary enthusiasts - who were passionate about some certain lifestyles or hobbies - evolved into professional writers. The latter could also be called as chroniclers. Yes, they were chroniclers of different matters - politics, celebrities, current events, gossips, gadgets, gizmos, and anything under the sun.

Yet, most (if not all) of them were not even journalists by profession. The only background they had on writing was their ordeal during their schooling days. The thing was that their online works were being read by countless people hungry for news, trivia, and entertainment. The more people reading their stuff, the more money they got from the advertisers.

Of course, these things can (and are) still happening today. Blogging is (still) an excellent opportunity for writers and enthusiasts, who can write well, to showcase their craft and earn some bucks. The thing is, there is this feeling among online marketers that bloggers who got the first course of the meal have already eaten the entire course, and those who came in late would have to be content with morsels.

‘The More The Merrier’ Has Become a Challenge

Consumers tend to patronize goods and services which have established brand names attached to them. The behaviour is pretty much the same when people surf the Net; they will often go to websites and blogs they are familiar with, believing that these would provide them better information and/or entertainment than those sites and blogs that they have not come across with.

Even Google, Bing and other search engines work using a somewhat similar principle. Their algorithm will index webpages in a way that favors the more popular ones over those with less (to no) popularity.

Getting Readers from an Audience of Watchers

So who reads blogs nowadays, particularly the ones owned by “uncelebrated” essayists and storytellers? Well, in fairness to the online community, there are quite a number of people who love reading articles on a decent blog site like this one. The fact you are here just proves you belong to this splendid group of Internet surfers.

Thanks to social media, you will not put a good content down the bin. I am not talking about the likers and followers (because they too are influenced by popularity), I am pertaining to the shares, which can make a post viral around the web. Virality results to more pageviews and an increasing number of readership.

Here is the thing, the competition does not limit itself with a blog vs. other blogs. Blog writers and publishers also have to compete with another type of content, one that is more dynamic and requires less reading (or maybe no reading at all) - and this is the online video.

Statistics show that people who surf the Web prefer watching videos than reading articles. For a writer whose talent lies more in putting his/her insights and creative narratives into written from, this is very much of a challenge.

How do you make people read your article if they have an inkling to watch and share videos rather than strain their eyeballs poring over your write-up? I do not have a clear answer to such question. Whatever product you produce as a writer - be it a novel, short story, essay, or poem (Geesh! Who is interested in poetry these days?) - the greatest gratification you can get is the knowledge that people are reading your works. The wider the audience who read them, the better the influence you gain.