Forrest

As of today, blogging has been around for at least 25 years. But things have evolved a lot.

What about the next 25 years? What does the future of blogging have in store for us?

Big Picture Giveaway: Jump to the Answer (skip Forrest’s ranting)
Practical Stuff for Bloggers: Jump to the Practicals (skip even more B.S.)

Additional Reading: Some practicals for you if you’re considering starting a blog.

I considered titling this post The Future of Content, to immediately give away some of the goodies of the post.

I want to jump in and address the difference between content and blogging, but before I even do that, I want to tell you why I think you should blog (and/or create content) in the first place (from a Futurist Mindset).

Your Future (if it’s to be Happy) Must be Meaningful and Authentic

I know the words “meaningful and authentic” get tossed around a good deal these days. But stay with me.

Your blog is a resource that can provide you a place to work out the pursuit of meaning.

Writing about a topic, becoming an authority and a thought-leader will be a crucible that both accelerates and challenges your purpose.

Communicating with 7 billion people has a way of calling bullshit on your authenticity. If you don’t really care about what you’re saying, you’ll find out quickly.

If you do care about it, you will have discovered a long-term sustainable way to market something that brings you fulfillment, joy, and money.

Now, What Exactly is Blogging?

This definitely deserves an entire post of its own. But for the time being, an abbreviated definition of a blog will have to do.

Blogging is distributing content using the medium of words.

What is Content?

Not content-ment, but content.

Broadly (perhaps philosophically), content is:

• Content is the water inside the bowl
• Content is the air inside the atmosphere
• Content is what you see (vs. seeing)

Written content is a sum of words that convey an idea to an audience

What is a Content Creator?

Someone who shares what is within them with others, typically as a profession to earn money or pursue vocational fulfillment.

And What is a Blogger?

A blogger is a content creator who focuses on the written word as their chosen instrument of communication.

Now, certainly there are many bloggers who also record podcasts, vlogs, graphically design images to enhance their message, and so on and so forth.

A Few Famous Content Creators…

Throughout history, humanity has been shaped by the ideas of Great Minds. Or perhaps one might say, by courageous minds (those willing to create).

I like to emphasize the difference, because while we are born with a certain level of intelligence, I’m not so sure that the metrics we use to gauge “greatness” are all that fair. Or accurate.

I’m of the opinion that we’re all best off embracing a growth mindset.

But have you ever considered the fact that these individuals listed below were content creators?

• Plato (I leave out Aristotle because Plato recorded his works)
• Jesus (apparently he created so much it couldn’t all be written down)… remember, this was even before the floppy disk’s debut
• Michelangelo
• The Beatles
• Rumi
• Mary Oliver
• Walt Whitman
• Mr. Money Mustache

In the days of yore, content creators were some of the greatest artists of all time.

What is a Content Consumer?

Well, it’s what all of us are! Unless we ignore the rest of the world.

The reason I mention this, is because it’s an important shift to look at yourself as both a content creator and a content consumer.

Most people go about their lives never creating content. They just consume it.

But lasting joy and fulfillment come when we offer value to the world– not just receive it. Or consume it.

Pause and take a look at your last month of life… when did you feel alive? My guess is that you were showing up and contributing.

The Future is Creative

By 2030, it is estimated that between 30% and 45% of all present-day jobs will be automated. There is no competition between big-data algorithms and human beings, we lose to the robots.

Sorry about that if you were confused. 

We already cannot compete with the capabilities of machine learning.  It is astounding to witness the sheer volume of data being collected today.

Feeling down? I have great news for you.  You don’t really want to be competing for the jobs these robots are automating anyways.

You just want to be creating!

Your life is truly remarkable.

Even the stuff of your subconscious is creative, pulling raw material from your day life to form imaginative dreams.

What Will the Crowd Demand in the Future?

The most cherished resource for humans is not money, but time.  Of course, this isn’t new information.

Philosophers like Seneca have said as much for millennia.

The most precious commodity of the 21^st century is attention. 

Attention is the first currency of marketing

This is the Z-axis of Time and Space. (Consciousness/attention)

Not just humans but robots will be itching to get our attention.  “Watch our YouTube!  Look at my Instagram!”

Did you know that robots are already composing music?

So what content will people want? That’s up to you to figure out!

The Future of Search Engines

Building Short, Medium, and Long-Term Blogging Strategies

Before I go deep-future on you, and every next step in your short-term strategy feels dismantled and deconstructed, I want to clearly articulate that it is my opinion that blogs will be around for a good while, even if the only medium they distribute is words.

The Future of Blogging is Expansion

If you jumped down here, you skipped some good stuff. So scroll on back up, and read the intro, it’s going to help contextualize much of what I say.

Expansion is the future. What do I mean?

Practically, I mean that humans desire to consume the best content (see also: give their attention to).

And that means more than just words.

We’re already seeing this happen today, in 2019. Consumers of content don’t just want to read words, they want to watch videos, listen to podcasts, and more.

Surely there will be even more vivid enhancements to content creation in the coming 5 years, with virtual reality making huge strides into the digital marketplace.

This expansion is bringing the form of the content outward into more mediums– not just words.

Facing Reality with Courage

When we look at the future with a futurist mindset, we recognize the infinite, unlimited possibility before us.

We have to face…

• The reality of uncertainty. No one knows exactly what the future holds.
• Death and destruction. Empires rise and fall. (ideas, humans… mortality)
• Terrifying expansion. Going beyond what’s current… with courage.

When I say terrifying– I also mean exhilarating.

With this terror, this fear, as an energy source, we are well equipped to create.

Because it’s not fear that’s the problem. It’s fear of fear.

It’s being unwilling to move forward. Crippled, debilitated, we get stuck. We blame the fear. But it’s not the fear’s fault.

It’s our choice not to create. Create what? The future. Now.

But when you hold fear, and let it bring the dangerous smile to your face…

It’s damn near addicting to live. To live with boldness. To expand. To grow.

The Future of Blog Monetization

At present, blogs are typically monetized three ways:

• Advertising
• Affiliate Partnerships
• E-Commerce (sell your own products or services)

Even with roughly 1 million monthly page sessions, there are some affiliate blogs out there earning over $100,000 per month. (net profit)

In blog-o-speak, that’s an RPM of $100.

That’s important because at a per-site-visitor ratio, advertising doesn’t make nearly that much money.

It’s certainly possible with e-commerce websites to make this much.

But in the future, it’s likely that algorithms and big data will reverse this.

Why?

The selective choices that the blog-owners are making are rational, calculated choices.

• Which products to create
• Affiliate partnerships to promote to their audience

In a future where algorithms know us better than we know ourselves, (and certainly better than bloggers know their audience), these choices will be handed over to Artificial Intelligence.

Moreover, offering only one product or one affiliate link to an entire aggregate body of consumers/readers/audience members will miss opportunity.

Collective vs. Individual Offerings in Advertising

When an Affiliate Blogger composes an email (hypothetically to 10,000 email subscribers), they choose a piece of content and link it to something of value for the reader.

They use their knowledge of things like…

• Who the audience is (generalized)
• What this type of audience is looking for (generalized)

… to determine what would be valuable to their audience.

But this is determined collectively. About the “audience as a whole”.

The example above shows the power of algorithms in the context of email subscribers, but what about blog posts themselves?

I’m sure you can guess, but it will be no different.

Rather than products, services, and offerings being selected by humans for their audience (aggregate data, generalized experience), in the future, the RPM’s for blogging will be highest for pure advertising sites.

(Glass ball predictions anyone? I’m throwing out 10 years)

What Should Bloggers Do About This?

We focus on content. Content is the asset.

• Content is the honey that draws in the bees
• Content is the foundation for the blogging world
• Content is the commodity

Now there are plenty of opportunities to become a Data Scientist or Data Engineer and create these algorithms if you’re just looking for opportunity.

But if you’re into blogging, and you’re looking to create profits, this post is meant to reinforce the fact that what you’re really doing is creating content.

So keep creating the best content you can. Make this your focus.

Here are a few things you can do:

• Keep creating the best content you can
• Dive deep into the heart of humanity
• Write authentically
• Don’t do stuff that doesn’t matter to you (especially blogging)

Additional Reading: Here are some blogging tools and resources I recommend.

Back to the Practical Future of Content

(And why blogging isn’t going away anytime soon…)

As we speak, machines are learning to speak the language of pictures and video.

But you know what? Humans don’t speak those languages.

And sure, in the future, it’s probable that machines will be purchasing your products. They are already reading your words, listening to your voice, and recording a lot of your moves.

But for the near-term, the economy is still driven by purchasing decisions made by the race of yours truly.

And that means that we humans will be searching with words.

We speak words, we write them, and that’s how we’ll be looking for stuff.

When we blog, we build on the primary foundation of words.

We also create pictures and video. Pinterest and Google can find these other mediums quickly because we assign words to those other mediums with meta tags.

But did you know that machine learning algorithms are learning to understand our pictures and videos as well? In the present, and more so in the future.

Concluding Remarks

Remember that when we look to the future, we don’t know. We must admit our own frailty to imagine all the possibilities.

This post was super fun to write, because I love imagining possible futures. Please think of my ideas not as prophecies, but as possibilities.

I hope this post is helpful to you as you ponder the future of blogging.

If so, please tell me in the comments.

If you were helped, please say so (and be specific on what helped you).

And if you REALLY liked this post, Share it with others! Tell them about it, link to it in your own blog, and/or email me to say thanks.

I’ll appreciate it.

Also, if you want more helpful content like this, and you’re considering blogging (or just getting started), be sure to signup for my emails. We’ll journey together.

If you’re ready to start blogging, and you need an experienced leader… I would recommend any of these courses below

I also list several free tools, (and paid tools), and there are affiliate links included in this post– I’m sharing stuff I use and have found helpful.

Be sure to read how to start a blog, and how to write a blog post.

The Tool Kit for Accelerating Progress

Learning How to Blog

• Create and Go’s Launch Your Blog Course
• UberSuggest (free keyword research)

• The Pinterest Traffic Avalanche Course
• SEMRush  (Use this link for a 7-day free trial)
• Get Simple Pin Media‘s free dashboard for Google Analytics

Ebooks I’ve Benefitted From Reading

• Easy Backlinks for SEO (Debbie Gartner)
• Easy On-Page SEO for Beginners (Debbie Gartner)
• Virtual Freedom (Chris Ducker)

Affiliate Networks Use to Make Money

• Share-a-Sale (find affiliate programs)
• Amazon Associates
• Rakuten

Tools to Leverage Your Time

• Tailwind for Pinterest (+ Tailwind Tribes)
• CoSchedule
• ConvertKit for emails (I’m obsessed)
  
• Thirsty Affiliates (keeping data on links clicked, etc)
• Yoast for SEO (I use the premium version on all my blogs)

More Information on the Tools Above

Tailwind is a scheduling platform (and so much more).

We use Tailwind for everything Pinterest.

• Analytics (better than Pinterest’s native)
• Scheduling (better than Buffer and others)
• Tribes (this is the coolest part)
• SmartLooping (automation)

Tailwind Tribes allows you to (quickly, efficiently) share your Pin with likeminded bloggers and gain quick traction for your Pins.

It’s like joining a community group. Your network instantly grows, even if you’re not a celebrity blogger (yet).

SmartLooping is an automation tool that lets you set your best pins to autopilot. You can create custom schedules that are evergreen or seasonal depending on your content, and you can assign which boards you want the Pins to go to.

Pinterest Traffic Avalanche is an e-course

The important thing to know about blogging, along with all of the tips in this article, is that these things go deep.

Anyone can get started. But going deep will take effort, education, and time.

That’s why e-courses are so helpful.

 I know that it’s hard to justify spending anything more than the price of a cup of coffee at the beginning of your blogging days… but if you were going to school, you’d be paying a lot more for your education 

.

Included in the purchase price, you get access to the private Facebook group of two enormously successful bloggers (former CPA and fitness instructor), and you’ll be walked through Pinterest strategy from a beginner’s day one to advanced Pinterest Strategy.

At the start of this course, I thought I knew a good bit about Pinterest, but I wasn’t getting the results I wanted.

So I turned to two people I discovered who had a proven track record of success.

Admittedly, I was concerned with the price. But when I realized that all of my content assets will benefit from this, the potential return on investment seemed worth the risk.  

And it was worth it.

After watching 2-3 slides, I immediately felt energy surge through my body.  I had clarity.  I had knowledge.  I had direction.

I told other people about it. I had one of my VA’s complete the course.

Now, I know I can grow my Pinterest traffic and I feel like every penny I spent was worth it.

Click the image above, or down below to buy the course.  You won’t regret it.

If you need a recap of the resources we suggest, here are our Favorite Programs:

• Tailwind for Pinterest
• Pinterest Traffic Avalanche Course

(This post contains affiliate links)

In reality, learning how to write a blog post is easy. You just write. And you get better.

What you wouldn’t know about the internet if you just arrived here, a full-fledged writer with exceptional talent is how to write things people want to read.

This is where Keyword Research, Search Engine Optimization, and Content Strategy come in.

Open a new tab with UberSuggest <– (by clicking the green link), and let’s get started learning together.

Type “how to write a blog post” into the search bar and hit Enter.

 You should see something like this: 

In this blog post, I’m going to zoom in on a couple of the data points. We’ll look at “Volume” (the number of monthly United States searches) and “SEO Difficulty” (with a glance at the number of backlinks).

What is Monthly Search Volume? (SEO)

Volume is the answer to the question, “How in demand is the content I’m producing?” (or if you’re reading this post… considering producing, I hope).

You should do your keyword research up front before you go about pouring 10,000 hours into writing content no one is looking for.

 Volume helps you decide if deploying your writing resources is worth your time. 

It’s the quintessence of, “Give the people what they want”.

Win the crowd

What is the crowd asking for? How quickly does blogging become dictated by the masses?

Let’s call out the elephant in the room.

Forrest, weren’t we supposed to be doing something meaningful to us? This sounds like a slippery slope to confinement.

To ignore creativity, my gut, my instincts– and just writing the same shit everyone else is writing, because it’s in demand?

That’s true, it could become that. Don’t let it.

Don’t sell your soul to the market.

But also, don’t show up to the fruit and vegetable market selling paper-mâché unicorns (unless they’re made by blind nuns, those sell like hot-cakes).

It’s very hard to create demand for your content

It’s easier to supply what people are looking for.

And often times, this is simply a matter of rephrasing, or shaping the content you have in mind.

For example, I could have titled this post, “What is monthly search volume?” and that would have generated a result like this:

(Note: This image is from SEMRush, but it’s basically the same as UberSuggest… just more expensive and has more under-the-hood features).

Can you see the difference? One search query, “how to start a blog” is searched for 1,900 times [monthly] while the other, “monthly search volume” is only queried 10 times per month.

But I’m writing about the same thing.

Conclusion of the story– keyword research is not 100% selling your soul to the devil, nor is it frolicking about in a meadow and asking people to donate money to your cause.

Selecting Keywords That Resonate

Let’s reflect on the above lesson, while speeding up a bit to some practicals.

1. Consider a topic for your content
2. Research what the crowd wants
3. Strike balance between your voice and the words people query
4. Craft the major theme of your blog post

These steps are the framework of content strategy for one blog post. And the fifth step is what we are doing now— selecting keywords for your post.

5. Select Keywords for Your Blog Post

The prerequisite is #4– crafting the major theme of your blog post. This is the distilled idea of the post, without the constraint of keywords. This is what you originally thought you would be writing about, in your own creative imagination.

We’re not abandoning you, or your voice.

What we do with keyword selection is add your selected keywords into your writing.

Please hear me loud and clear: choosing keywords that do not represent that idea you have is a bad idea– choosing keywords that DO represent your idea is a GOOD idea.

Or else this is all fluff.

Choose a Handful of Keywords That Stick Out to You

Pick the keywords that most closely represent the idea behind the blog post you want to write.

Add those to your note sheet.

Now, write your post.

Strategically Compose Your Article (Search Engine Optimization)

Let’s pretend that you were writing a post called, “how to write a blog post” and that your website was forrestwebber.com

You have selected the keyword, “how to write a blog post”, with a monthly search volume of 1,900 U.S.A. queries.

You also selected the keywords, “monthly search volume”, and “search engine optimization” (it’s a hail mary, but this last keyword is heavy in demand with a whopping 135,000 monthly searches).

Now, one more interesting observation before I move on. The query, “selecting keywords” also receives 110 searches per month.

NOTE: this keyword (“selecting keywords”) was unplanned! And that will happen as you write too.

Add your keywords in headlines (like this one)

Headlines are the big section-breaking texts that tell the reader what the next few paragraphs will be about.

These headlines communicate both to readers (human) and robots (google, etc.)

Using your keywords in these prominent areas helps both of them find you and your content.

Add your keywords in the opening paragraph

In our culture, attention spans are shriveling. So you need to communicate to the reader that they’ve found the blog post they want, right away.

And the robots see it too.

The robots are trying to understand what you’re saying, so they can bring humans to the food they are looking to devour– and those first sections of writing give them a sniff of what the rest will be about.

Don’t let keywords consume your focus

Add them, be sure to follow the basics, but don’t let the robotic nature of writing for SEO make you miserable.

Crafting Your Content Strategy

Understanding your own Content Strategy has several components.

• Technical aspects (monetization and value offerings)
• Philosophical underpinnings (think Theory of Content)
• Brand-centric focus (the macro-view of your brand and content)
• Content Pillars (discussed in a separate post)

Remember in How to Start a Blog, that we discussed YOUR goals? What it is that you want to RECEIVE in your blogging endeavors?

Let’s take a moment to recall your goals.

And let’s say that your goal is to help educate people. You want to reach multitudes with the information they are looking for and supply it. You want to help people.

But you also want to make money, and you’ve decided that dollars will be a quantitative metric for you to gauge your success.

The qualitative measure will be “how much I helped others” and you’ll quantify it by seeing how much money you earn.

This is the water for your tree.

It’s the way you get fed. It’s how you receive the energy and nourishment to keep offering value in the reciprocity of relationship. The relationship between you and your readers.

Your Content Strategy Needs Aim to be Effective

The simplest method that I’ve found to create an effective Content Strategy surprisingly easy: write the goal of your content first.

And make your goals qualitative and quantitative.

The qualitative ones like, “help people”, will be harder to measure (sometimes impossible). But try.

The quantitative ones like, “make money”, are easy to measure and you can add detail to them.

Define Your Content Goals

“I want to make $500 in 2019”.

“I want to feel like I’ve added value to people’s lives”.

“I want to help 3 people start a blog in the next 3 months”.

“That which is measured improves”

Peter Drucker

The interesting part of qualitative goals is that they are hard to measure, yet they are imperative to your fulfillment.

The good news in this example is that the money you make often does reflect the value you delivered to your customers, clients, or in this instance… readers.

Back to the practicals.

The Content Strategy is the guiding force behind what each blog post is written about, each adding an important link in the chain of the Content.

Content Strategy that’s focused on “a series of 9 blog posts” would have an overall agenda for the 9 blog posts. There’s a thread between them.

Create the Content Process (Around the Goals)

“I’m going to write 12 blog posts that help people who want to start blogs learn the basics”.

“I’m going to monetize the content with advertisements and [helpful] affiliate links”.

“I’m going to optimize said blog posts for maximum organic traffic (SEO) and also share them directly with friends who I know want to read them”.

These are process-oriented decisions that help me manifest the vision and goals. These processes and decisions do the acting to bring back home the boons of accomplishment, the rewards I’m seeking from my endeavor.

This is how I think of Content Strategy.

What is Content Strategy Not?

Each and every word, each blog post, each decision, needs to be focused on the goals that you have. The authentic goals that you really want.

That means blog post 4 can’t be about how bananas smell bad.

And your writing time can’t be spent watching Netflix.

It means that you don’t email 1,000 people who don’t give a shit about blogging telling them about your new blog post.

Content Strategy is not incredibly challenging. It’s the execution and discipline that trip most people up.

So don’t overthink Content Strategy

Really, it just means forming a plan. A plan that will actually get you what you want. As simple as it sounds, it’s not “easy”, and not many people do this.

They spray-and-pray their content.

It’s like rapping. There are some super talented rappers who can flow on command.

And yes, there are some insanely talented writers who can probably ooze poetry at whim.

But both of those content forms AND types of people are not the norm.

Most diligent creators that make things DO plan.

Instructions for Writing Format (Readability, SEO)

To wrap things up, let’s look at two screen shots of a Google Doc, so I can illustrate the message into visual form, then we’ll talk about it.

Then, understanding what I’m saying will be 60,000 times easier for you. (yes, go look at that link).

See the above two examples?

Which one looks easier on your eyes?

It’s important to say that more and more people are reading on their phones, too.

When you read a book, longer paragraphs with more sentences is fine. But on our tiny screens (and even larger screens), we need more eye-relief as we scroll.

You’ll notice that I break this post up with the frameworks of an outline, and that I rarely use more than 2 sentences per paragraph (frequently 1 sentence!).

As you write blog posts, do these three things:

• Add headers to breakup the text (H2’s, H3’s)
• Insert bullet-point lists
• Add color-backgrounded elements (like my grey boxes above)
•  Highlight  things that are important (or bold them)
• Use very few sentences per paragraph

These will help your reader stay sane as they read your long-form content.

Recap (or Revisit)

This article on how to write a blog post is broken into four main steps, all of which have been briefly summarized here in this post. Stay in touch for more depth in the coming months.

• Keyword Research
• Search Engine Optimization (Monthly Search Volume)
• Content Strategy
• Readability (User Experience)

Concluding Remarks

I hope that this has been helpful for you, reader. But I understand there may be other things you want to know.

If so, please tell me in the comments.

If you were helped, please say so (and be specific on what helped you).

If not, please tell me what I can add to this post, and I’ll do my best to keep it updated with the info you need!

And if you REALLY liked this post, Share it with others! Tell them about it, link to it in your own blog, and/or email me to say thanks.

I’ll appreciate it.

Also, if you want more helpful content like this, and you’re considering blogging (or just getting started), be sure to signup for my emails. We’ll journey together.