Blogging Is Not Dead, But Blogging *JUST* for Traffic / SEO Is

It is time to change your (business) blogging strategy!

The web is changing faster than anyone expected.

Hence, many previously efficient tactics stop working.

>>>> WATCH US TO DISCUSS THIS TOPIC LIVE ON LINKEDIN!

Peter Caputa over at LinkedIn has a great discussion on how business blogging is no longer worth the investment because no one subscribes to blogs anymore, and information-intent traffic has declined so much that it is not worth pursuing. He also claims that businesses need to invest in social media rather than blogs.

I don’t disagree with any of those claims (to an extent).

But I am also the one who never depended on traffic that much, in the first place (I know it is funny because I am an SEO professional).

None of my businesses was ever created with “SEO” in mind. I’ve always relied on brand awareness and branded traffic, in the first place.

And I’ve been talking about that since I can remember

Back in 2008, I wrote about how to be everywhere in order to build your brand and find more opportunities for your business.

I’ve always been urging businesses to build a presence that is not solely dependent on Google traffic (the earliest I could find was 2014).

Most of the websites I’ve been writing for are not even there anymore; that’s how long ago I started talking about that.

Depending on Google’s traffic has ALWAYS been “it works until it doesn’t” thing.

And it hasn’t been working for more than a few years for most publishers and businesses.

I’ve always said: Enjoy the traffic while you have it, but make sure to convert into long-term assets asap.

Is blogging dead?

If you have been blogging for SEO, it is.

But it has never been a good idea anyway.

Blogging (if you do it right) has much more powerful benefits than traffic, including branding and, now, also the ability to influence AI training data.

Is email marketing dead?

No, it has evolved.

I’ve been enjoying Substack, for example, because it is more than a newsletter. It is a collaboration between creators, helping one another, making you feel part of the community.

Your business blog can be more than an island now. It can be part of a great ecosystem that helps you grow beyond Google traffic.

Can we all just do social media?

Also, no.

We should do everything.

This has never changed (refer to my 2008 article linked above).

This has always been the only way to build visibility (including rankings but also beyond that).

Should I change my blogging strategy?

Most likely, yes. Here are traditional blogging best practices that are most likely obsolete in most cases:

• Blogging frequency isn’t that important (used to be a great SEO signal: The more, the better). You can commit to a monthly or even quarterly article, but make it absolutely great. Instead of working on the next one, you can commit to promoting it properly everywhere. (This can vary, of course. I still blog weekly, but that’s because I cover timely and newsworthy content, so I have to react quickly).

• Keyword targeting is changing. It is still useful to know your keywords, but you need to address human problems rather than trying to optimize each and every one of your articles for a particular keyword. (In fact, most blogs that were not “for SEO” have always been managed like this, including mine).

Business blogging works on many levels but only if you use it for cross-channel marketing, not just SEO. Create something linkable and shareable (like infographics and digital PR), spend a lot of days promoting it and you will be see a lot of great results from it (including, still, organic traffic if you focus on creating content that requires a click).