While many slop factory websites have seen steep declines in audience there is no evidence to suggest that gloom and doom is called for (unless you were employed by or own a slop factory website, then you may need to consider pivoting wildly, but for the rest of us the time has never been better to get into the blogging game).
A look around the interwebs will display many dead blogs with the “latest posts” section ending randomly with a post from 2022. Truthfully, it’s getting harder and harder to find active blogs…maybe there is something to the gloom and doom?
No! Dead Blogs Mean The Blogmaster Refused To Adjust To Changing Landscapes
The writing was on the wall that the slopfest was over and Google 1.) wanted higher quality articles 2.) wanted articles that answers the searchers intent and not just matching key words 3.) wanted to unleash their AI answers which takes up a quarter of the search results.
Instead of making adjustments bloggers were like: “5 Things To See In California” 1.) Los Angeles 2.) San Francisco 3.) Grand Canyon 4.) Sports Game 5.) Los Vegas “WHY ISN’T MY ARTICLE RANKING?!! WAAAAAAAAA!!”
The Blogging Gloom And Doom Is Not Real
The gloom and doom is not real. The gloom and doom is slopmasters crying about how their terrible blogs got slapped far down the SERP results, which is great news for the rest of us because scammy SEO tactics to rank awful articles does not work anymore. What works now is writing good articles with non-scammy SEO tactics.
You may have unsuccessfully launched a blog in the past with articles that were objectively better than the top results but never got anywhere, that’s because scam artists had those top result slots locked up. But not anymore.
While there are less slots available on the Google SERPs page, there has never been a better time to launch a new blog. I believe that blogs being launched now that provide quality articles are going to have an epic 15+ year run and I, for one, am working furiously to make sure I catch this wave.
The New Golden Age Of Blogging Is About 3 – 5 Years Away
Blog demand and blog readership have been trending upward and it is going to skyrocket within the next several years. You must get positioned now! The readership is coming back to blogging.
Here’s what happened that drove readers away from blogging from the previous Blogging Golden Age which was approximately 2005 – 2015.
What Destroyed The Last Blogging Golden Age?
-
Rise Of Social Media This is obvious, of course. Prior to social media people hung around, on the internet, on blogs and forums. But then the readership shifted to FaceBook and Twitter and the other platforms that soon followed.
-
Google SERPs Became Unusable Readers tired of searching on Google for blogs and subjects that only brought them to spam websites. Readers shifted away from blogs because they couldn’t find any worthwhile blogs. Personally, it took me often until results page 6, 7, or 8 before I could finally find a good blog on a subject I was looking for. Most people aren’t willing to click beyond page one, so more people gave up on the blog format.
-
Blogmasters Made Their Websites Unusable With Ads You couldn’t even get past one paragraph without an ad jumping out in front of the words, it was a battle of wills to get to the bottom of an article before rage quitting. Readers rage quit blogs enmasse.
-
Blogmasters Forgot Who They Served There became this very arrogant attitude among many bloggers and they began to only serve themselves and forgot that the purpose of a blog is to serve the readers. Sometimes they would even mock their readers and would openly say stuff like “as a subscriber to my email list you are only worth $15.73 to me over your entire lifetime so I could care less if you unsubscribe, I’ll continue printing cash from my other subscribers.” Well, these blogmasters got what they had coming to them and got massive unsubscribes.
-
Rise Of Video Some people prefer video format over text format for gathering their information. YouTube became enormous.
-
Widespread Acceptance Of AI Chatbots The blogging free fall was already in full effect before the widespread acceptance of AI chatbots, but it made the blogging era fall even harder and faster. I have a lot to say about AI chatbots and how to leverage them for blogging and life, but that’s a lot of articles for another time. I’m still sitting on ~150 article ideas strictly on blogging before shifting gears to a new element of the written word (such as AI, Kindle, newsletters, social media platforms…there’s still a ton of content coming and I’m really excited about it, I just wish I could produce more than 3 articles a week.)
Why Are We On The Verge Of A New Blogging Golden Age?
There’s a lot going on. We are on the verge of a blogging explosion. It’s important to understand why so you can position yourself accordingly to meet the needs of the new audience.
- Social Media And Video Slopfest Remember how blogs became slopfests? Well, the same thing is happening to social media and video platforms and users are tired of it, and they are growing nostalgic for the early days of the internet and are actively searching for it. I’m not saying there will be a widespread abandonment of social media and video, what I am saying is there will be a widespread search for quality, including for blogs.
- The Rest Of The World Is Coming Online Not even half of the world was online back in the old days, the internet population was rather small, comparatively. Well, everybody is coming online now and you are incredibly lucky because you can read and write English, which is the language of the internet. This gives you an enormous edge.
- Nostalgia For The Old Days I touched on it above, but people are nostalgic for the old days of blogging and are returning, looking for similar blogs. Give it to them! Vinyl record sales are up! VHS sales are up! Tape sales are up! Physical books sales are up! People want high-quality blogs that are modern yet similar to the old blogs. People remember how those blogs made them feel. You have to give them that feeling back.
- Widespread Acceptance Of AI Chatbots Many people are rediscovering the joy of the written word via chatbots, and the vast majority of chatbots deliver their answers in, basically, a blog post. Users are being fondly reminded of the awesomeness of blogs and a new generation is growing in appreciation of the blog format. I firmly believe chatbots will help, not hinder, the re-rise of blogging.
- Users Are Looking For Connection Remember your favorite bloggers? You felt a connection with them. You felt like you were on a journey with them. There were little connected communities that formed around blogs. Faceless YouTube channels don’t cut it anymore. Bland blogs written by a “team” doesn’t cut it anymore. Not only are we on the verge of a new blogging Golden Age, but specifically the big winners are going to be solo-bloggers who make a genuine connection with their audience. Be fun! Be helpful! Be interesting! Share your journey for whatever it is that you are doing!
You Must Position Yourself NOW To Ride The New Wave Of The Golden Age
It’s coming, it’s not here yet, but it’s coming. I can see it in the distance. I can see all the trends lining up perfectly to create the perfect tidal wave that will be known as the New Golden Age of Blogging (Or perhaps the Second Golden Age Of Blogging). I don’t really care what it gets called, but I do care about being prepared to ride that wave.
In order to ride that wave the hard work of getting in the right position starts now. How does one get in the right position?
-
Launch You Blog NOW if you do not have one, if you do have one, skip to #2.
-
Put in the hard, hard work of building the blog. I recommend embracing hard mode for building your blog. At minimum, you should be posting 3x per week for the next 3 years in order to build a very solid foundation and allowing all of your posts to be deeply intertwined with the internet.
-
Launch multiple blogs (as many as you can manage) which focus on your strengths and not your interests. You must play to your strengths!
-
Build out social media and video. I hate the term “synergy” but that’s exactly what we need to do. The blog is more than your website. It must extend to YouTube, 2-3 social media platforms, and third party platforms. You must build up the superstructure that is your blog.
-
Work your butt off for the next three years and when the new blogging Golden Age hits you will be free. Your blogs will generate more than enough money for you to live your life in whatever way you see fit, working as much or as little as you would like. But the work starts now and you cannot stop until the new Golden Age wave carries you to freedom!
Until next time! Blog on, friend. Blog on.