The evaluation of data is behind every major decision you’ll ever make. It’s how we make sense of the world. Leaning on statistics can help you make better decisions about your blog, especially when first starting. With over 600 million blogs out there as of 2023, it’s vital to get it right. Especially since 77% of Internet users report reading blogs regularly, according to LinkedIn.
That is, you need to create a blog that is set apart from the rest, that speaks to your target audience of internet users, and that you can grow over time.
And to do that, you can use data about blogging to choose better niches, monetization methods, and more.
We recently conducted a survey using Pollfish.
The majority of the data here reflects the 500 responses we received from this survey.
To round out this compilation, we’ve compiled several more of the most current blogging statistics from other surveys and studies on the web.
Let’s dive in.
Blogger Statistics:
- 77% of bloggers say blogging drives results. (Orbit Media)
- 92% of marketers consider blogging as a worthwhile investment. (Content Marketing Institute)
- Websites with blogs attract 55% more traffic. (QuickSprout)
- Only 38% of bloggers indicate they regularly refresh old posts for SEO (OptinMonster)
- Blogs with 21 to 54 posts boost traffic as much as 30% (Traffic Generation Cafe)
- Blogs that have over 400 posts published receive 2X as much traffic as those with fewer posts. (Marketing Insider Group)
- Blogs that publish content frequently receive 97% more backlinks. (Business 2 Community)
Blogger Demographics
- There are 31.7 million bloggers in the United States (Statista)
- 60% Of Professional US Bloggers are White (Ecommerce CEO)
- 30% of professional bloggers have been blogging for 3+ years (Ecommerce CEO)
Blogger Earnings and Spending
- 36% of Pro Bloggers said generating content ideas was their biggest barrier to entry. (Ecommerce CEO)
- 1 in 3 bloggers make money with blogging. (FinancesOnline)
- 33% of professional bloggers make less than $10,000 year. (Ecommerce CEO)
- 52% of bloggers earn less than $25,000 a year. (Ecommerce CEO)
- 6.6% earn $100,0000+ year (Ecommerce CEO)
- 23% of bloggers earn money with ad and media networks. (Ecommerce CEO)
- 18% use affiliate marketing to earn money. (Ecommerce CEO)
- 41% of bloggers spend less than $3,000 a year on blogging expenses. (Ecommerce CEO)
- 67% of professional bloggers spend more than $1,000/month on their business. (Ecommerce CEO)
Blogger Habits
- 37% of bloggers use WordPress (Ecommerce CEO)
- 21% of bloggers post new content once a week. (Ecommerce CEO)
- 15% of bloggers post new content daily. (Ecommerce CEO)
- Nearly 1/4 of professional bloggers post reviews as their typical blog content (Ecommerce CEO)
- 38% of bloggers spend 2 to 4 hours on content from ideation to publication, while another 29% spend 4 to 8 hours. (Ecommerce CEO)
- Those who spend at least 6 hours on content report “strong” content marketing results 31% of the time, compared to 23.5% of the time for those who spend 2 to 4 hours (Orbit Media)
- 75.8% of bloggers write their own content (Ecommerce CEO)
- 10.4% say they use a combination of freelancers and creating their own content (Ecommerce CEO)
- 38% of bloggers say posts are between 550-1,000 words, while another 32% say they’re between 1,001 and 2,000 words long. (Ecommerce CEO)
- Articles of less than 3,000 words perform the best for content marketing (Content Marketing Institute)
- Other data suggests posts between 2,250 and 2,500 words performs the best. (HubSpot)
The Demographic Makeup of Our Survey
Before we begin, let’s take a look at a breakdown of the demographic data of our survey respondents, so you have a better idea of who we were talking to, specifically. For clarity’s sake, this is a US-based survey.
Ethnicity
The overwhelming majority of those surveyed identify as White.
This is followed by Black, Hispanic, Asian, Latino, and Multiracial.
A handful of respondents fell into the Arab, Prefer Not to Say, and Other ethnic categories.
Education Level
Most respondents have a high school education but were closely followed by those with university and postgraduate-level educations, respectively.
Rounding out the results were those with a vocational or technical college education and those with a middle school-level education.
Organization Role
There was another split between those who are the owner of a company and those who prefer not to say when it came to identifying their organizational role.
After that, the results are all over the place, with a few of the remaining top categories including other non-management staff, middle management, senior management, and president.
Now, onto the business blogging statistics.
Length of Time Spent Being a Professional Blogger
The first question we asked pro bloggers was how long they’ve been blogging professionally.
This is what they had to say:
- 40% of our survey respondents have been blogging professionally for seven months to one year.
- 30% said they’d been professional bloggers for two years.
- And 30% said they’ve been in the blogging business for over three years.
What Did Professional Bloggers Find to Be Their Biggest Obstacles to Starting?
While we were on the subject of starting a blog, we asked our survey participants what they found to be their most significant obstacle to creating their blogs or what they’d consider to be their biggest barrier to entry.
- 35.8% of the respondents said generating content ideas, including keyword research, was their biggest barrier to entry.
- 34% said the time required to set it up and create content was their biggest issue.
- 16.4% found starting a blog to be cost-prohibitive
- Lastly, 14% found setting up hosting and the CMS or blogging platform a challenge.
So, starting up a blog, allocating the funds, and coming up with and creating high quality content can create issues for bloggers getting started.
Additionally, according to Databox, the initial foibles are worthwhile, given that 50% of marketers they surveyed admitted they would make their blogging efforts their primary marketing focus if they could start over again.
The biggest takeaway?
Blogging takes commitment and persistence, but it can be more than worth the effort in the long run.
Do Bloggers Find Blogging to Be a Fruitful Endeavor?
Some in marketing have asked the question, “Is blogging dead?” in recent years. And with the rise of social media, it’s easy to see why some would think this. Building on the above stats, it’s also important to discuss whether bloggers find the blogging industry to be worthwhile in its ability to drive results.
And the data confirms it.
77% of bloggers say blogging drives results, according to Orbit Media, which is an overwhelming majority of respondents.
Likewise, 92% of marketers consider blogging to be a worthwhile investment, according to the Content Marketing Institute.
And websites with a blog attract 55% more traffic, according to Quick Sprout.
What Content Management System (CMS) Do Bloggers Use?
Another critical aspect of setting up a blog is selecting the appropriate content management system (CMS) for the job.
Not every blogger will have the same needs, so not everyone will need the same CMS.
We asked bloggers which CMS they use, and 37.2% said WordPress sites were their preferred choice.
This is mainly in keeping with what W3Techs has found as well, which they’ve noted 43.2% of blogs are run on WordPress.
Our survey found that 24.2% of respondents use SquareSpace. W3Techs only reports 1.8% of bloggers using this platform.
Wix was next in line, with 16.8% of respondents to our survey stating they use this website builder.
W3Techs only reported 2% of bloggers relying on Wix.
After that, our survey noted the following:
- 14% of bloggers said they use Webflow.
- 2.8% said they rely on Drupal.
- And lastly, 5% selected the “Other” category.
Now that we’ve gathered some essential blogging statistics about the platforms bloggers use, let’s move on to the juicer details: making money with your blog.
How Do Professional Bloggers Make Money?
Now onto the good stuff!
According to FinancesOnline, one out of three bloggers makes money at it. A third of bloggers employ some sort of monetization method on their blogs.
Likewise, blog posts can be highly influential.
According to Demand Metric, 60% of people indicated they bought a product after reading a blog post or review about it.
And it seems the respondents to our survey got the memo on the potential of blog monetization.
Note: respondents could select more than one option.
- 58.4% of respondents to our survey said they use ad/media networks to make money.
- This was followed by 48.2% of respondents who use their blog to sell services.
- Next up was affiliate marketing, which 44.2% of respondents said they use.
- 37.2% of professional bloggers we surveyed sell physical products to earn income.
- And 33.2% create ebooks to sell from their blogs.
- Lastly, 26.6% of respondents said they sell online courses on their blogs.
Some more interesting stats about blog monetization include:
- 40% of publisher commissions come from blogs, marking a large boost in affiliate marketing, according to Awin.
- Plus, bloggers report getting 42% of their income from affiliate marketing, according to Rankiq.
- Likewise, 33% get income from displaying ads or using ad networks.
Now that you know how professional bloggers make money, we can discuss the dollars and cents.
How Much Do Professional Bloggers Make?
Broader stats tell us just 10% of bloggers make more than $10,000 per year. But out of our survey focused on professional bloggers, we found that:
- 33% of pro bloggers make less than $10,000 per year.
- Nearly 20% reported making between $11,000 and $25,000 per year.
- 18% make between $26,000 and $50,000 per year.
- 16.2% make between $51,000 and $75,000 per year.
- 6.4% make between $76,000 and $99,000/year
- And 6.6% make more than $100,000 per year
Let’s recontextualize this. To look at it a different way, 52% of professional bloggers are lower-income bloggers and make less than $25,000 per year.
29% of bloggers make more than $52,000 per year.
And just 6.6% would be considered higher-income bloggers and make more than $100,000 per year.
All of that is fine, but how much are bloggers actually getting to take home? That’s what we explored in our next question.
How Much Do Professional Bloggers Spend on Expenses?
Though starting a blog doesn’t have to be an expensive prospect at all, you may still find that you need to spend some cash to keep things operational and to invest in a better design, quality content, or new features via plugins.
In our recent survey, we found that:
- 41% of respondents spend less than $3,000 per year on expenses.
- Meanwhile, 25.8% spend between $4,000 and $10,000 per year on blog-related costs.
- 14.2% spend between $11,000 and $25,000 per year.
- And 9.4% spend between $26,000 and $50,000 per year.
- Lastly, 5% report spending between $51,000 and $75,000 per year on blog expenses.
Again, let’s look at this from the big picture standpoint. When some of these categories are combined, we find that just 67% of bloggers spend more than $1,000 per month on their blogging businesses.
With a budget in place, you’ll need to think about your approach to blog content, too.
How Frequently Do Pro Bloggers Publish Content?
If you’re wondering how often you should blog, might we suggest you defer to the experts?
When we surveyed bloggers, here’s what they had to say about how frequently they publish blog articles and they’re rate of posts per month:
- The majority of bloggers at 22.6% said they have a posting frequency of twice a week.
- In a close second, 20% said they publish blog posts once per week.
- Next, 16.4% said they post sporadically.
- Then 14.8% said they are active bloggers who publish content daily.
- Then rounding out the results, 13.8% said they publish twice a month, and 11.6% publish just once per month.
Regardless, bloggers are publishing a lot of content. In fact, according to The Small Business Blog, there are over 7.5 million blog posts published every single day in 2023.
What Types of Content Do Professional Bloggers Prefer to Publish for a Content Marketing Strategy?
According to Content Marketing Institute, the most successful content marketers and bloggers were more likely to use case studies, ebooks, white papers, longer blog posts or long-form content, and research reports to build blog readers and grow organic traffic.
That primarily checks out with the results from our survey, too. When we asked bloggers about the types of content they publish, here’s what they had to say:
Respondents could select more than one option.
- 60% of bloggers said they prefer to publish reviews.
- While 46.8% said how-tos and tutorials were their preferred content type.
- Next up were the 39% who said news posts were their preference.
- And that was followed by 36.4% who preferred interviews.
- Next, 29.8% said they like to publish in-depth guides, case studies, or white papers.
- Lastly, 20.4% said they preferred listicles, while 17% preferred roundups.
How Long Does it Take Pro Bloggers to Write a Blog Post?
Of course, how long it takes you to write a successful blog post will come into play when selecting the types of content you wish to publish as well.
The bloggers we talked to encompassed a wide range of responses:
- 38% said writing a blog post took them 2-4 hours.
- 29.4% said 4-8 hours was more realistic for them.
- On the other hand, 18.4% said writing a blog post took less than 2 hours. Speedy!
- And 10.2% said the writing process took between 8-12 hours.
- Lastly, just 4% said writing a post took over 12 hours.
It makes sense responses would be all over the map here, especially given that a news post won’t take nearly as long to write as an in-depth case study. It just depends on your content strategy.
And the results bloggers experience back this up. According to data compiled by Orbit Media, bloggers who spend at least 6 hours on their blog posts report “strong” content marketing results 31% of the time, as compared to those who spend 2-4 hours (23.5%).
What Considerations for SEO Must Bloggers Make?
Search engine optimization or SEO is another vital factor to consider when managing a blog. But what you may not know is that:
- Updating old blog posts can offer an SEO boost, but just 38% of bloggers indicate they do it regularly, according to OptinMonster.
- Having a blog with 21-54 blog posts published can foster a boost in blog traffic by as much as 30%, according to Traffic Generation Café.
- Blogs that have over 400 posts published receive twice as much traffic as those with fewer posts, according to Marketing Insider Group.
- Lastly, active blogs – meaning those that publish content frequently – receive a whopping 97% more backlinks, according to Business 2 Community.
How Do Professional Bloggers Handle Content Writing?
Back to our survey results, we asked bloggers how they produce content. And their responses may surprise you:
- A whopping 75.8% of respondents write their own blog posts.
- 8.6% have an in-house team that takes care of their content.
- 5.2% of respondents say they hire freelancers.
- And 10.4% said they use a combination of these methods.
Budget is a factor here.
The Average Blog Post Length, According to the Pros
How long your blog posts are will play a role in how long they take to write and whether you outsource the work.
If you’re struggling with what length is best, we’ve rounded up some blogging stats to help you out:
- According to HubSpot blog posts between 2,250 and 2,500 words perform the best.
- In our survey, most bloggers (37.6%) said they write posts between 550-1,000 words on average.
- And 32.4% said they prefer a length of 1,001 – 2,000 words.
- 11% said their posts are shorter and clock in under 500 words.
- Meanwhile, 10.6% said their posts are between 2,001 – 2,999 words.
- Finally, 8.4% said their blog posts are typically over 3,000 words.
What Role Do Blog Headlines Play in Results?
A lot, apparently!
- According to HubSpot, blog titles or headlines with between 6-13 words get the most traffic.
- Likewise, 36% of blog visitors like to see numbers in headlines, according to Conversion XL.
- And a study conducted by Backlinko showed headlines that ask a question receive 23.3% more shares on social media than those that don’t.
Do Blog Posts With Images Get More Shares?
In short, the answer here is yes.
- According to BuzzSumo, articles with an image every 75-100 words get twice as many social media shares as those with fewer images. So the answer to this is unequivocal, yes with regard to visual content.
- Likewise, creating original graphics for blog posts has increased in popularity, thanks to the rise of graphic creation tools like Canva.
- Plus blog posts that contain at least one image get 94% more views than those made by content creators who don’t use images, according to MDG.
FAQs
Make Better Blog Decisions with Data In-Hand
Hopefully, the general blogging statistics presented here today will help you make more informed decisions about the direction of your blog in the future.
