Why Do People Blog? – 15 Benefits of Blogging

When blogs and blogging began, the original purpose was for individuals to share their personal lives online, similar to an online journal.

Over the last decade, blogging has evolved from having more personal to more professional goals. Instead of individuals solely blogging for their friends and family, blogging began to encompass professionals blogging for the public to promote their personal brand and their business. If you are thinking of starting your own blog, you should read our in-depth guide.

In this post, we’re going to look at the typical reasons why people choose to start blogging and examine some of the main benefits of blogging for business, personal uses, and more.

Main reasons: Why do people blog?

To share their passion

When you are passionate about something, you want to share it with the world. Whether it’s a passion for fishing, photography, or marketing, blogging is an excellent way to share that passion.

When you blog about something you are passionate about, it opens the door to connecting with those around the world who speak your language and have the same passions.

To educate others

If you are someone who loves to teach, blogging can be a platform for teaching people who have an interest in your areas of expertise. However, you won’t only get a chance to teach others. You will also get a chance to teach yourself more about the topic. After all, one of the main benefits of blogging for learning is that both the author and the readers can learn at the same time. 

You will learn because you will always be looking for more things to teach your readers. Teaching through blogging can naturally lead to monetization by creating online information products.

To gain exposure

Business owners who blog increase exposure for their business in a number of ways. Creating blog content on a regular basis for your website gives Google something new to index, thus increasing your website’s visibility in search results.

Creating blog content for other publications in your industry gives new, relevant audiences the opportunity to discover you and your business. This exposure gives you more traffic that you can convert into leads and customers.

Of course, exposure is just one of the many benefits of blogging for business. You’ll also get a chance to build authority and increase your ranking, as you’ll see below.

To build authority

For those that want to speak at events in their industry or become an author, blogging is a platform that you can use to build authority.

As you blog about the niche you are most knowledgeable about, people will begin to recognize you as an authority in that niche. This recognition will lead to interviews, podcasts, and ultimately invitations to speak and contracts to publish a book.

Since LinkedIn is generally considered the top business platform, as a business owner trying to build authority, you’ll enjoy the most benefits of blogging on LinkedIn.  

To rank in Search Engines

As mentioned earlier, your blog gives Google new content to index on a regular basis. You can use each piece of content to rank for specific keywords that will attract your target audience to your website.

For businesses, a combination of static web pages and blog posts allows them to target commercial keywords (those that attract customers) as well as non-commercial keywords (those that attract information seekers). Both audiences – customers and information seekers – can lead to new business.

To have content to share

Social media audiences are more receptive to blog posts than they are ads or sales pages, and likewise, are more likely to share blog posts with their connections than ads or sales pages.

By creating blog content, you give yourself more to share on your social media profiles, and you give your visitors something to share when they visit your website. Social sharing of your content will increase exposure to your target audiences and lead to more incoming traffic.

Blog posts also give you a non-sales way to promote your business. If someone were to ask to do something on a social network, you could easily reply with a blog post. As opposed to replying with a sales page for your products or services, replying with a blog post will be seen as helpful. It will naturally lead the person to your products and services, especially if you incorporate a good call to action at the end of each of your posts.

Moreover, having more content to share could be one of the major benefits of blogging for students. You can share your insights, knowledge, and expertise on social media, showing your future employees just how valuable you can be to their organization, even if you just got out of college and have little “real-world” experience.

Top 15 real benefits of blogging

As you might already know, blogging has been helping many people and companies over the last 10-15 years. It’s true that over two decades ago, blogging hardly existed. Today, there are millions of blogs online all over the world!

But, we still get agitated trying to convince people about the benefits of blogging platforms. Even if making money online isn’t a primary goal, the blog could help in many other ways.

Let’s look at all the perks bloggers can enjoy and see some of the biggest benefits of blogging every day.

1. You can manage your online identity and build trust

Both people and businesses have their information posted online. What happens then when someone searches your name? One of the advantages of blogs is that it allows you to build and to control your online identity.

Aside from social network profiles, people who are searching for your name can find your blog or your author page on other blogs. That information will help people to get to know you better by reading your work.

As mentioned, this can be one of the biggest benefits of blogging for students and recent graduates, specifically, as it allows them to showcase their expertise.

2. You will learn new things

Among the greatest benefits of blogging, every day is that you won’t only teach others when you blog. You will learn as well. At first, you will learn more about your niche because you need to educate yourself to teach others.

You will also learn a lot about other fields, such as online marketing, no matter what you write.

Whether you like it or not, there’s a certain amount of marketing knowledge you will need to increase the traffic to your blog. Your knowledge of email marketing, search engine marketing, and social media marketing will continue to grow. So, you’ll certainly enjoy the benefits of blogging for learning purposes.

3. You will improve your writing skills

The more you do something, the better you will become at that skill. Writing is no exception. Even if you don’t set out to study writing, your writing will improve the more you do it.

You can even invest in grammar checker tools, like Grammarly, to help you with the writing basics, punctuation, spelling, sentence structure, and style while you write.

Even those of you who do not focus on written content, such as podcasters and video bloggers, will improve your writing skills through blogging. How? You will have to write descriptions for your own podcasts and videos. And you will have to interact with your blog subscribers in the comments for podcasts and videos you publish.

4. You could become proficient in a new language

Speaking of learning and improving your skills, if you want to learn a second language, blogging is the way to go. Those of you who are blogging in a non-mother tongue will become more proficient in that language.

You will get a chance to interact with others speaking the new language through comments and social media engagement. Not only will you write better in that language, but you can start to speak better when invited to take part in audio or video interviews.

5. You can get technical knowledge

Whether you intend it or not, you will get to learn new vocabulary. As well as, tech-related systems, tools, and methods while going through the process of setting up and growing a blog.

That doesn’t have to be programming languages or professional web design expertise. These days there are many semi-automated tools and processes available online for new to the internet people. And you can learn how to use them by reading information online or watching video tutorials.

6. You will connect with new people

One of the greatest benefits of blogging is connecting with others. You don’t just grow some followers on social networks or email lists. You build genuine relationships. You make friends with people you wouldn’t have met otherwise.

Something that surprises many people is that they develop a fan base through blogging. If you attend events in your industry, you will get recognized by people you’ve never met. They will thank you for all the great work you have done.

Mainly the people you meet at the beginning of your blogging journey. They will be your most loyal fans if you continue to cultivate your relationship with them.

7. You will get proclaimed an expert

Real experts never need to call themselves experts. Others will do it for you. As you become recognized in your niche, you will get invited to take part in interviews and blog posts compiling expert tips or advice.

The last will put you in the company of other experts in your niche and help you become labeled as an expert more often.

One of the keys to gaining expert recognition is always to be helpful. While you don’t want to start offering free consulting services, you do want to help out as many people as possible in small ways. Answering a question here and there will make more people respect you.

8. You will get invited to speak

The next step after recognition as an expert in your niche is getting invited to speak at the related industry events. It might start with invitations to sit on a guest panel, or it might be outright requests to hold your session.

Speaking can help you continue to boost your reputation as an expert in your niche. You gain instant credibility when you can say that you have spoken at popular events.

For those who are looking for more ways to make money, you could start charging for speaking engagements.

9. You can become an author

Your blog is your portfolio. Bloggers who have interesting insights, exceptional writing skills, and large audiences have an advantage if they want to become published authors.

Many top bloggers are recognized by publishing companies and frequently offered book deals. Others have been able to send in pitches to publishing companies to secure deals for the books they want to write.

If you want to get noticed by a publisher, first do some research on the publishers that are most likely to have an interest in a book within your niche. Look at other bloggers who have written books in your niche and see who published them. Then start to interact with the publishing company on social media to get on their radar.

10. You will receive job offers

Blogging in a business-related niche can help you land a job. Businesses that recognize the benefits of content marketing always looking for employees who can create compelling content.

As you network with others in your niche, you will likely run into people who are recruiting for open job positions.

If you are in the market for a job, professionalism is the key. Your blog and public social profiles should be free of anything that could negatively show you. That includes those drunk party pictures or rants about your current employer.

11. You can start a new business

In some situations, a blog may start out as a hobby only to mature into a full-time, and well-paying business. For example, Pat Flynn created the Green Exam Academy blog to share his opinion and thoughts on architecture. Once dismissed from his job, he decided to take blogging seriously.

How did this change his life?

His blog turned into a real business, and he can make a living from it. Flynn’s story is one among many people who’ve started successful businesses through blogging.

12. You can sell more products

Are you running your own business website? Blogging will help you sell more. All you have to do is create content that leads readers to get interested in your products and services.

Promote your content to your ideal customers, and you will find that you start capturing leads and closing more sales.

Selling more applies to products and services that you offer, as well as some affiliate offers. For affiliate product sales, the same rule applies. Write blog posts that lead readers to engage with the items that other businesses might be offering. And you could receive a commission from them.

13. You can get immediate feedback

It doesn’t matter if you are running a personal blog or blog for the company you work at, blogging will help you to get feedback from fans and customers. It could be negative or positive, but it’s important to know what people think about the content you put out.

As a blogger, you get to read comments on the same day you post the content. This helps you to receive almost instant feedback and get an idea of how your content is performing.

14. You will create more blogs or write on other blogs

Most bloggers don’t stop at one blog. Some bloggers who start with niche specific blogs branch out into blogging about the blogging process itself.

Others tackle the making money online niche when their niche blogs become successful. Or, bloggers that start with very generalized blogs may branch out into niche specific blogs.

If you want to start a new blog, you will have a better understanding of how to make your new blog a success. With all the trials and errors you went through with your first blog.

This knowledge will help you make your new blog successful in a shorter period. And help you experience all the above benefits again or in greater depth.

15. Blogging can give you freedom

Blogging gives you the right to work from any location and at any given time. Besides, you also get a chance to do things you love doing!

Spend more time with your family, do sporting activities and take part in community development programs.

If you love traveling, blogging also helps you to go and see the beauty of the world. You can do all these while still enjoying a modest living from blogging!

Are you ready to start your own blog?

Creating a personal blog can be done so quickly. You need to choose a name for your blog first. It’s one of the most important steps when starting a new blog.

Recommended tool:

After choosing your domain name you need to decide on a blogging platform and a web hosting provider.

Conclusion

Do you want to share your passion, educate others, gain exposure, build authority, rank in search, or have content to share? If so, you might be ready to launch your new blog.

But remember one thing, your vision needs to be long term. Whatever you do today will impact your online presence in the future. And as you can see, there are various benefits of blogging that go beyond making money.