AP 0190: Is Blogging Over?

AskPat 190 Episode Transcript

Pat: Hey, what's up everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 190 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. We're only 10 episodes away from Episode 200. How amazing is that? I am just so thankful for all of you, who have spent time to listen to the show, whether it's one show this show, or many shows. I know some of you who have listened to all of them, and you're all amazing. Thank you so much.

Now let's get to today's question from Phoenix.

Phoenix: Hey Pat. This is Phoenix from the TheTattooTrade.com. Thanks for everything you're doing on SPI, and AskPat. My question is around . . . is blogging over? So, I was reading an article today on September 3, 2014 by Single Dad Laughing, a really great blog I follow. He talks about how Facebook is structuring their Likes system, that it makes it very difficult to post your article and then get the likes, or it doesn't get to the right news feeds. He also talks about how advertising has become very difficult because everyone is on mobile or tablets, and you don't make as much money. Do you agree that blogging is over? Do you believe that there is no way to deliver useful content via the web? Or has it gone completely to mobile and tablet? Anyway, thanks for all your help, and I hope to hear from you. Bye bye.

Pat: Hey, Phoenix. Thanks so much. I love your name, and I appreciate the question. I think this is really interesting because a lot of people, every year everybody says everything is dead, right? We always hear, “Oh email is dead.” Or, you know, “Facebook's dead.” Or, “Twitter is dying, and blogging is dead,” and we hear this every year. How can it be dying every year? It's not. Blogging is not over. I think the idea of putting up a blog and just having everything happen immediately after that is dead. That is definitely dead, just kind of building it and expecting people to come to your blog. There's got to be some work involved. So that is what is over.

Back in the day when we first started out, even then it wasn't so much as you just put up a blog and you get more traffic, but there was a lot less competition. You know, everything was still pretty new but now we're at a point where, really the cream has to rise to the top or it is rising to the top. So blogging is not over, and let me go over each of those points that you made really quick, Phoenix, about what this person said about, you know in this article that you were referencing.

Facebook. Likes and, you know getting shown in the news feed, yes that is absolutely true. It's so much harder now than it was when, you know even a year ago or two years ago, to be found in people's news feeds when you post something onto your page. So for example when you post a status update, your fans, only about five percent of those people will see it if that. Maybe three to five percent, and that's pretty crazy when you think about all the people who have liked your page, who have pretty much said, “Hey, I like your content. I would love to see it in my newsfeed.” It only shows to three percent of them, and you know that percentage can change as you increase engagement and authority on Facebook you know, what they call your EdgeRank score.

The Smart Passive Income Facebook page has done pretty well. It gets about a twenty percent engagement factor, but even then that's, I mean twenty, one out of every five people see those posts, and then sometimes those posts go viral and then that will help more people find it but still, that's crazy and yes it's getting harder and harder, to just write a blog post and then post a link to it on Facebook and having, you know expect a huge amount of traffic. I will say however that Facebook still is the number one referring website for Smart Passive Income. It is every day, but that took a lot of work to make that happen, and I wouldn't rely on Facebook just for traffic. You've got to reach out. I would do guest posting, I would do other types of mediums like video and guest blogging and podcasting; those types of things will help you get in front of audiences who may never find you otherwise, with just a blog.

And, yeah, so Facebook's getting a lot tougher but that doesn't mean you still shouldn't use it. I would still engage with your audience on Facebook and the people who do see your newsfeed if you're delivering value, that's going to be useful for them, and it's going to get traffic back to your site. Now of course there are different strategies, like using images, and telling stories on Facebook that are going to help you get more engagement, and more shares, and more people finding that and liking your page, and eventually having more things found in people's news feeds of yours.

Now in terms of advertising, you know I've heard and I've witnessed myself with some of my websites that advertising is getting a little bit more difficult on websites, but I don't really think it's getting more difficult because of mobile per se. I think mobile is gaining on us faster than we can realize. I think that's what the problem is. And let me give you some interesting statistics. So if, for instance, you have advertising on your website, and you know, people who come to your website, if they're having a good experience they'll go through the site and they might see an ad and click it and you get paid for that advertisement; however, if they're coming on mobile, that experience is going to be completely different, especially if your site is mobile optimized. It doesn't provide a user friendly experience when people come on the site, they're not going to see those ads. Some ad providers don't have mobile-friendly advertisements, you know or responsive ads so that takes that away.

So think about this. Here are some specific numbers from my own sites. So, SecurityGuardTraininghq.com, 38 percent of the visitors to that site are coming from a mobile device. You know a cellphone or a tablet. Let's see, 43 percent on FoodTruckr.com. That is huge, almost one out of every two people. That is mind blowing. So if I'm not giving a good experience to those mobile users I've pretty much cut out half of my advertising potential, if that makes sense. But not just advertising. I mean that's the thing, I think, Phoenix, with what you're saying this person is potentially just making money through advertising, but whether somebody comes on mobile or views through their desktop, there's always the opportunity to provide a good experience. There's always an opportunity to get people into your email list and then put them into a funnel to sell something.

So, if advertising may not be working for you or this other person, I would definitely think about how you can drive them through a sales process. The moment they come on your site. You know, first establish that relationship and that trust of course and then get them onto your email list but then you can provide them more information, and then help lead them to some sort of sale.

And on SmartPassiveIncome.com, 30 percent, that's the lowest percentage of the bunch of the sites there. Thirty percent of the people come and visit through mobile. But that's 100,000 visitors a month. That's a lot. So you got to be thinking about mobile and I think that's why a lot of people are seeing sort of a decline in their advertising revenue, and even their product revenue because they're not catering to those mobile visitors. I think it was Greg Hickman from Mobile Mixed who said that, you know if somebody comes on your site, and doesn't have a good experience through mobile, there's like a 10 percent chance they'll come back. I don't know what the exact number is, but it's very very unlikely that somebody will come back, if they've had a bad experience on your website.
So, there you go. So, back to blogging and my final thoughts about that. It is not over. It's not going away any time soon. Yes there are other mediums coming on board to sort of round out the user experience through your site, through different types of content. Audio, video, but the written content is still extremely important. I mean, for FoodTruckr.com over the last year, we've been pouring content into that, and it's getting found on search engines now, on the first page for many relevant keywords for people looking to start a food truck and how to enhance their food truck that they have, and it's now making sales. Over the last two months it's grossed about $5,000. And that was a result of blogging.

There's also a podcast to go along with it but the numbers are very small compared to how many people are visiting and finding us through the written content on FoodTruckr. So, definitely definitely not over, I would make sure that it is a crucial core component of your brand, and in terms of what kind of content to blog about, you really have to know and understand what your audience is looking for answers about. You know, what are their problems, pains, and issues, needs and wants, and how can you through written content, provide those solutions? Provide those answers? That's how you're going to gain that trust. That's how you're going to get people into your email list. And eventually get them down some sort of sales funnel perhaps, or clicking on affiliate links.
Blogging is definitely not over. But we do have to be smarter about how we go about doing it. And, see how we might be able to add other components to our blog, to our core, to expand our brand, expand our reach. And increase our authority.

So, Phoenix, thank you so much for the question. Fantastic, thank you. And an AskPat t-shirt is going to be headed your way. Best of luck to you. For those of you listening, if you have a question you'd like potentially featured here on the show, just head on over to AskPat.com and you can ask right there on that page. Many questions coming in every day, great questions actually and I'm getting to them as fast as I can. Love you, guys. I mean the show would obviously not be around if it wasn't for you asking questions so thank you, all of you.

And finally, I'd love to end with a quote and today's quote is from Seth Godin. And he says, “People rarely buy what they need. They buy what they want.” Cheers, take care, and I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat.