While income, traffic, and computer skills are the usual and expected benefits of blogging, every blogger will be surprised of other benefits of blogging that help in thinking, communication, career, and more.
Benefit 1: You Become A Clearer Thinker
Being an effective blogger is a different type of writing than writing a novel. Blogging tends to make an author write in units, or blocks, and in a hierarchy. That’s how WordPress is set up, which is the Content Management System the vast majority of bloggers use (and the one I use).
For example, the title of the article is a H1 tag. The above “Benefit 1” headline is a H2 tag. This is standard in WordPress blogging. H1 is the overarching theme of the article and then the H2 tags breakdown the theme step-by-step. H3 tags breaks down the information even further under H2 tags. Then the paragraph tags are where the action is contained.
This forces a blogger to think much more clearly in how to break down information, and since I’ve done this a long time I’ve found that it helps me break down ideas in other life arenas, such as in my career, day job, and personal projects.
Example from my personal life:
- H1 I Need To Organize My House
- H2 Organize My Room
- H3 Organize Dresser Drawers
- H3 Make bed
- H3 Clean bathroom
- H2 Organize Kitchen
- H3 Clean Dishes
- H3 Clean Coffee Maker
- H3 Clean Our Refrigerator
- H3 Organize Pantry
- H2 Organize Garage
- H3 Bring Junk To The Dump
- H3 Organize Shelves
- H2 Organize My Room
The above could easily be an outline for a blog post because that’s exactly what they look like. See how clearly it breaks down tasks? I could even break it down further with H4 tags. After I wrote a lot of blog posts, I often found my thinking became much more clear, and I credit it to the natural way in which blog posts are outlined and how the articles are executed. Where are the paragraph tags in this outline? Well, that’s the action that is taken, such as bringing junk to the dump.
Benefit 2: You Become A Clearer Communicator
Blogging is a type of writing that requires clear communication. Writing with flare is fun, sure. But clarity is more important. Flare can be saved for the newsletter or novel. Clarity is a must for the blog.
Once your become a competent blogger you realize that in your day-to-day life your ability to communicate well skyrockets–from sending work emails, providing instructions verbally to co-workers, writing reports, etc. Part of that is due to clearer thinking that we talked about above. The other part is due to blogging requiring clear and concise writing.
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You tend to favor short, declarative sentences.
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You tend to figure out how to make your point in less sentences with less words.
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You tend to organize data into hierarchies.
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You tend to embrace simplicity over complexity.
Simple, clear communication trumps complex, overly wordy communication every single time.
Benefit 3: Surprising Career Opportunities
I always recommend launching a blog using the knowledge from you day job. It is the one thing in your life you are an expert in and you would never run out of things to write about.
Also, it forces clearer thinking about your day job and you will dig deeper into various subjects surrounding your occupation. Soon, you will have knowledge well beyond that of your coworkers and, because of blogging, new opportunities at work will arise. Promotions, leadership positions, special projects, and even consultation gigs from people contacting your through your blog.
Blogging about your profession will give you more credibility: “And this is John, he’s been in this field over 10 years, has advanced certifications, and is the founder of BestAccountingPractices.com. (Terrible name, I know, but you get the idea).
Benefit 4: You Will Become Competent In Using AI
Here’s my disclaimer I write every time I talk about AI: DO NOT USE AI TO WRITE YOUR ARTICLES. (I should probably write an article about how to properly use AI for blogging that I can just link to whenever this subject comes up).
AI is incredibly valuable to use in blogging, but it is useless if you cannot write well. Rather, modern day bloggers are using it for speed. For example, on this very blog post I used Grok AI to outline the post. I already had a good idea what I wanted this post to look like, but Grok helped me flesh it out. I used the prompt: “outline a blog article titled “The Surprising Benefits Of Blogging.”
It generated an outline in seconds, half of which I disregarded because it was trash. But there were helpful tidbits and it also quickly found sources scattered around the internet for me to review. Using AI for blogging has greatly improved my ability to use AI for my day job and for day-to-day things and those that do not embrace AI will get left behind. Blogging has jump-started my education in AI.
Benefit 5: You Will Read More Widely
In your blogging research, you will find yourself going down rabbit holes that are adjacent to you niche of choice, meaning you will expand your knowledge into meaningful areas that most other people in your niche do not have.
Since launching this blog, I have found myself reading deeply into SEO, internet marketing, copywriting, AI, and also biographies on Jeff Bezos, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Theodore Roosevelt. Knowledge expands and you’ll never know where the rabbit hole will lead you next.
Benefit 6: You Won’t Be Scared To Lose Your Job
There is immense peace of mind in knowing if you get laid off, you already have an asset generating income and the most likely scenario of losing your job would be having more time to build up that asset even more.
A lot of stress from the day job melts away when it’s not a do or die situation in being able to provide for your family and meet your obligations for paying bills. It doesn’t mean you don’t work hard at your day job, in fact, it means you can have clearer and more creative solutions to the day job. When you are scared of losing your job, you do not want to go outside of the box or outside of “how things are done here.”
Strangely, having this asset back at home makes you perform better at your job because you are thinking more clearly, as explored above, and aren’t afraid of looking for creative solutions that are outside of “how things are done here.” The most probable outcome of starting a blog is you get promoted at work.
Surprising Benefits Of Blogging Will Continue To Pop Up On Your Blogging Journey
This list isn’t exhaustive, obviously. The more you blog the more hidden benefits you will find, so keep on blogging friend!
Blog on, friend. Blog on.