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Blog Trends
2019 brings changes to users to interact with bloggers and influencers. There will be changes in how information is written, delivered and searched for. Changes in social media, targeted audience and technology will bring more quality blog post. Blue Water Marketing has listed out the top 20 trends to get ahead of in 2019.
1. People utilizing online resources is going to keep growing
The correlation between the number of online users and people using blogs are closer linked than you might think. As the number increases of user the size of the potential audience for bloggers increase as well. There are more than 7.5 billion people in the world and out of that more than four billion are online, and that number is only expected to continue to grow. Which leads to the second trend.
Source: International Telecommunications Union
2. People are going to keep reading blogs
The best trend is that out of those four billion people online nearly half reads blogs. They are expected to keep on reading blogs and that percentage should remain the same and possibly increase throughout in 2019.
3. Mobile-Friendly Blogs
With more than half of all internet users using a mobile device and the average person spends around 3.5 hours on a mobile device daily, it is imperative to make sure your blog is mobile-friendly. What this means for bloggers in 2019 is that your blog must be optimized for mobile devices, and be able to transition to fit any size screen.
4. Brands Should Focus on Blogging
The top priority in 2018 for around 55 percent of companies had stated that blogging was a top marketing priority. Like everything, it’s estimated that the bulk of those companies and more will continue to focus on blogging.
5. Trust
Google uses E-A-T in its algorithm, trust is an important ranking factor. Building a trustful relationship with readers will set a blog apart from the fake news and the Facebook drama. During 2019, it’s expected that bloggers will focus even more on building and maintaining trust with their readers.
6. Increased focus on Stories
Readers are wanting to see Stories being built out and developed across channels. You can see this with the improvement of Instagram Stories, Facebook Stories, and TikTok. Looking at 2019, it’ll be interesting to see how bloggers use Stories to develop their posts and draw attention to their blog.
7. Video, Video, and more Video
“I want more cowbell” has been a running joke since it aired on SNL, now we can switch that to “I want more videos.” This has been the rallying cry of marketers for years now, however in 2019, it will be critical to have videos. Videos are estimated to be about 85 percent of search traffic in 2019.
8. Short-Form Content
There is a time and place for long-winded blog posts, other times, readers just want a little tidbit. They have no need for an in-depth, detailed report on every single topic. In 2019, go ahead and jump to the point using short-form content, for instance, micro-blog posts, quickie videos, and attention-grabbing graphics.
9. Don’t Neglect Long-Form Posts
Google’s still a big fan of longer posts, with the average word count of a blog post on the first page of search results coming in at nearly 2,000 words. So it is important to have a good mix between short-form and long-form content, to draw readers in and appease Google crawlers.
10. More visual content
56 percent of marketers said that they used visual content in all of their content, all of the time. However, 88 percent of marketers used blog posts, and of those blogs, about 86 percent of the posts contained at least one visual. A visual can be photographs, infographics, charts or videos.
Visual content in blogs is expected to continue to grow throughout 2019, with 32 percent of marketers anticipating that they’ll spend more than 30 percent of their budgets on it.
11. Interactive Content
With the focus on organic engagement, there is an increase in interactive content. This is expected to appear on more blogs as they will be jumping on the interactivity bandwagon in 2019.
What’s interactive content? Blog posts that include features such as quizzes, surveys, and infographics. Try this interactive marketing quiz:
12. More Personalized
People want to have more real and relevant content that solves their problems and meets their needs. Having more understanding and knowledge of your target audience will help in writing more personalized. The intent is to reach a large audience while making them feel like it was written for one individual.
13. More niche content
In 2019, blogs are going to need to be more specific to be able to reach their targeted audience. “General” subject blogs are no longer going to cut it and therefore blogs need to be written for their niche market. Consider giving us a call today to better understand what your niche market is.
14. More posts optimized for voice search
Users are moving away from typing in their search queries instead they are speaking to search engines. With devices like Alexa and Google Assistant, voice search is expected to increase. One way bloggers can optimize their posts for voice search is by using questions in their titles.
15. More posts optimized for visual search
Partner voice search with visual search, internet users seem to be embracing the new visual search. This will continue to gain popularity throughout 2019 and moving forward. Tools such as Google Lens and Pinterest’s Lens are worth learning more about. People can take pictures of things they are interested in with these tools and ideally find their way towards your blog posts.
16. “Micro-moments”
A micro-moment is a period (usually a minute) when a consumer needs something immediately — whether it is a need to know something, buy something, do something, or go somewhere. To have successful blog posts in 2019 you need to be the ones that capitalize on these moments.
17. All About Gen Z
For substantial blogging results in 2019, bloggers are needing to focus not just on Millennials but the new generation, Gen Z. It’s time to start taking the new generation seriously and creating content for them. For the past several years the focus has been on millennials and capturing their attention. Why you don’t want to forget about millennials, you need to start understanding Gen Z.
18. Let’s get Connected
It’s going to be worthwhile to look at how your blog connects to your social accounts, and how your social accounts connect to your blog. Consumers are moving freely between them, and it’s essential that you put your best foot forward on every channel. Facebook and Instagram are now connected and the ease of linking accounts together can lead to cross-branding.
19. Connection
Micro, that is the buzzword for 2019 — from micro-moments to micro-influencers. When you work with bloggers and influencers, they don’t have to have massive followings. What they will need is to do is connect with those who follow them. Whether they have only 500 or 50,000 followers, a connection is key.
20. Chatbot
Unfortunately, bloggers and businesses can’t always be around to answer questions in the comments, but chatbots can. Chatbots can help with increasing people’s engagement with a blog and social media, potentially increasing their interest in a brand.
