10 Latest trends that should worry every blogger!

Are the good time for blogging over? Do you think or feel the relevance of blogs is on the decline? This post is a thought on this topic. Do read and let us discuss.

I have noticed (through tools like similarweb) that monthly visit for many popular blogs in India are going down, compared to an year ago. I did speak to many bloggers in person recently- many admitted the drop in visitor counts despite the usual activities like regular updates, social sharing and so on, while a few didn't notice any significant change or eve had an improvement. Of course there would be a dozen factors contributing to a blog’s success/failure but I feel the primary cause is the fundamental shift in the way users behave now, compared to how things were 5-10 years ago. Below are some of my observations- shift in internet usage pattern that is adversely affecting bloggers. Do read and share your thoughts.

1. People don’t want to research anymore- they just ask!

A decade ago internet was used extensively for research. People would use browsers, search for what they are looking for, go through multiple websites till they find the information they need. Now a lot has changed. People don’t spend much time researching- they just ask- on Quora or FB etc. For example even for fairly simple and straight forward stuff like- “How much baggage is allowed on Indigo Flight” or “what is the distance between A and B” many users don’t want to check on airline website or on internet for existing answer/info- they would rather add a new question on Quora or put it as a status update and let others respond with an answer. This is very convenient and saves time, so many don’t care to spare a few moments and check if the information they need is already available.

I get many queries from people about travel plans- when the query is generic, I give them the link to my blogpost on that topic and ask them to go through it and revert with specific questions, if any. From what I have observed, most never return. They probably go and ask someone else, who might be willing to give them customized answers.

This "I'll post my question and let the world answer" trend is bad for blogs and websites as organic reach goes down. Plus it adds more repeat content to already overcrowded internet. Of course, I can’t say “Don’t ask questions” but my thought is, with so much content already in internet, we should make an effort not to add duplicate content. Try to make use of existing stuff, add more only if it doesn’t serve a purpose or if you have something unique to add.

2. Too much time spent on facebook: 

All of us are spending most of our internet time on facebook- it has become such an addiction. What this means is people have no time or interest for things happening outside of facebook. A link shared on FB may get lots of likes and few comments within FB, but most won’t care to click, go to external site and read the content fully. Even FB tries various tricks to ensure its users spend maximum time within faecbook. Facebook wants everyone to pay and boost, hence won't give a blogpost shared the organic reach it deserves. Even when we boost, most engagement is a mere 'like'- many like stuff without even reading- to me engagement is if people click and read the post or share it- which is almost negligible even when boosted [Read my FB boost experience] This directly affects bloggers.

This is bad for internet as a whole-allowing one company to dominate our lives is dangerous- it kills other smaller companies/businesses on the internet and allows facebook to control us- what we see, what we read and so on. I believe it is in the general greater interest of internet we should cut down our time on facebook and spend on other things on internet.

3. No one has time to read- it is the zamana of videos and stories.

I think the appetite for reading long content is vanishing. Everyone want it short, crisp, preferably visual. It is convenient to watch a video on mobile while traveling in train, than read a blog post. So this is bad news for bloggers who don’t have a video content. Data cost is no longer a worry as it was 5 years ago.

This is made even worse by thousands of SEO focused, keyword stuffed articles- instead of keeping a post crisp and to the point, most blogs elongate it for 1000s of words, hoping to get better visibility on the search engine. But for a human reader, finding key information he/she might be booking for gets tougher if the article is unnecessarily long. Within first few seconds if they don't get the confidence that this blog is worth reading further, they will close and move on.

4. Google’s reduced importance to blogs

From what I sense, google isn’t crawling blogs as frequently as it used to do earlier. Or it could be that there’re too many blogs now to crawl. Due to exponential surge in number of blogs in recent times, as everyone wanted to be a blogger, be popular and make money, Google is flexing its muscle to deindex poor quality domains and blogs, put in place stricter rules to decide which blogs show up where in a search result and so on. This is a further blow to blogs whose main source of traffic was through search results. Even if a blog shows up in search, patience levels of users is all time low- if the blog doesn’t load within a second or two, or if they can’t find what they are looking for within first few seconds, most will close the page n move on to next result, hurting bounce rate.

  

5. Bloggers harming themselves through poor quality content

Blogs are supposed to be a journal of first hand experiences, high quality contents, reviews and a source of trustworthy information that readers can make use of. Blogs are supposed to provide insights and information often not disclosed in advertisements or not possible to explain in a product brochure. But with too many blogs and too little quality control, many blogs have become dumping yards of guest posts, press releases, sponsored posts, marketing/advertising materials without a personal touch or honest review. Naturally readers don’t find enough substance in such blog posts to warrant their time. This make them rely less n less on blogs and hurts even good blogs and blogging community overall in the process.

6. App controlled life

Today everything happens through app. Food order, taxi booking, movie booking, news and so on. Again this has reduced usage of browser. People don’t search online much- like say best movie in town or how to reach XYZ or hotels in ABC City and so on like it was the practice earlier- instead they open specific apps on their smartphone- this has further reduced discovery of blogs or websites through organic reach.

Should bloggers have their own App? Ami Bhat has an app for her blog. I had created an app for this blog 7 years ago using an API given by Nokia [Details] But not very sure how successful the apps for blog will be- blogs don't offer a transaction or service like taxi booking- a user can't install individual apps of each and every blog he/she may wish to read- that will be too many apps, too may notifications. Do share your thoughts on this...

7. Search engines keeping traffic themselves

• Google often shows content of a website within its window, claiming original website is slow to load or internet connection is weak
• People can see and copy google images right from search results, without having to navigate to website that hosts the image.
• Lots of utilities are now built inside google results- like forex conversion, local time and so on, eliminating need to go to any website for this info
• Often websites that syndicate content get higher positioning in search results, denying visibility to original site that published the content
• I’ve often seen facebook making it inconvenient for me to leave FB app and open a URL- asking me to login into facebook on chrome and so on

8. Convenience over savings

Our parents generation- those borne in 50s, 60s were extremely careful with spending- they compromised on lots of comfort, convenience and luxury to save every possible rupee that was spend on giving us best possible education and facilities. Our generation (those born in 80s, 90s) had a taste of internet revolution, access to various products and services and reasonable financial freedom- we did indulge in some spending occasionally on luxury, comfort and experiences but still maintain some vigil as to which one is expensive, which one is worth etc. We do check for some reviews, feedbacks and spend once we’re satisfied that this product/service is worth it at this price. The younger generation- the millennials seem to value comfort and convenience a lot more over savings. Consider this.

• Swiggy inflates restaurant menus and makes its customers may much more than what it would have cost to walk in and eat. Many are aware of this but are either don’t care as they find it convenient to order on app even if it is expensive or too lazy to do anything about it or find an alternative. [Read more]
• Amazon n Flipkart regularly hike original price to show increased discount, but most shoppers don’t seem to care
• Uber/Ola manage to get customers despite 3x/4x surge prices-as many prefer convenience and comfort than finding a cheaper alternative.
• Even expensive phones costing 30-40k manage to sell in lakhs of units within minutes through the techniques of creating hype and flash sales

Thus a blogger writing extensive detailed reviews may not matter to most younger consumers who simply don’t care to read so much before a purchase decision. May be a short photo/video may have a better impact w.r.t brand recall and many make their decisions based on convenience, 'cool factor' of a product and the image it may give to its owners. Concept of 'value for money', durability, real need/worth etc are secondary.

This means customers today have a different set of needs and priorities, not all of which can be met by conventional blogs.

9. Everyone wants your content, but no one wants you to leave a link to your blog
Facebook, Google, Tripadvisor everyone wants you to contribute by providing photos, reviews, tips from your visit, travel etc. But no one will allow you to leave a link to your blog on that topic. We spend to travel and collect information but are expected to provide everything for free to these sites. A link to blog post that has all the details- photos, videos and so on is often useful to readers of these sites who wish to know more- but most sites have a blanket ban on links in reviews, irrespective of how relevant it is. Countering spam is the official excuse but in reality they don't want their readers to leave their site and go elsewhere.

10. AI powered bots & virtual assistants

More and more Virtual Assistants are being used by individuals, who would use these things to delegate a task- like Order Pizza, Book a movie and so on. These virtual assistants like Etho, Siri, Ok Google don’t care to read any blogs. They do their action-like booking or ordering using their AI algorithm which won’t have any consideration for blogs and would deal directly with websites/apps providing a service- even less audience for your blog posts.

What do you think about all these?
If you’re a blogger, has your traffic been steady or going down or going up over past 1 year?
Do you think blogs will lose their relevance in another 5-10 years?
What can bloggers do to recover? Do share your thoughts.

What can be done?

I don’t have concrete answers, but below is what might help to some extent.

1 Build a secondary profile?- if you were dominant on blog alone, build and nurture another secondary profile- may be quora or Instagram or Zomato etc. This secondary profile would get you some reach, visibility and be able to complement your blog activities. Diversify and reduce dependency on blog.

2. Stay put n wait for better days?- past few years, thousands of people have become bloggers overnight, hoping to gain some publicity and make money. As it dawns upon them that it is not that easy, most of them will abandon blogs and move to more greener pastures. Then hopefully less quality, non serious blogs will make way for more serious, better quality blogs and reliability and interest in blogs may get revived.

3. Build email subscriber base?- I think this is crucial to maintain a regular base of repeat visitors- but too many emails will also annoy users-not every reader is interested in reading all your posts as soon as it is published. So pushing too many emails may also backfire.

4. Support each other?

A good way will be to link to other bloggers, do occasional cross posting on each other’s blogs etc- this will help both bloggers. But I know this is easier said than done.

5. Advertise? This is exactly Facebook n Google want us to do- spend our money to promote our blogs on their platform. FB Ad will get lots of likes but these likes are practically useless as very few people will care to click on the link, read your post. Liking is easy, might even be done by some click farms to give a sense of false engagement to advertisers. Killing organic reach and forcing content owners to spend is core to how FB makes money. I don’t think it is an effective way but I could be wrong- if it works for you great- do share your thoughts.

May be the concept of blogging has reached its peak. Every concept/product will have its ups and downs and things do get irrelevant over time, more so if not adapting to changes. May be there's no immediate danger for blogs but will they continue to have relevance 10 year from now? Something we need to wait n watch and be ready to evolve with the times or adapt to changing social media dynamics.

What do you think? Are there more causes? Do you think these aren’t affecting you and your blog viewership is growing at decent phase? What is the way out?

Similar: 12 Years of Blogging * A decade of blogging-SWOT analysis * Relevance of blogging- my talk at LIBA 8 years ago * Sponsored posts- how much to charge *