6 Biggest Blogging Trends to Watch This Year

The Internet is saturated with new content pieces every day, and most of it is just rehashes of articles that have already been written. However, readers are hungry for fresh insights. According to Polly Kay, Senior Marketing Manager at English Blinds, fresh content is the key to capturing readers’ attention. 

Visual Content

The importance of visual content is growing. According to a recent study, 44.6% of marketers say that 91-100% of their content contains visuals, while only 10.1% said they had no plans to use visuals in 2016. In the year 2020, marketers said they would spend more than 40% of their marketing budget on visual content. 

Visual content will increase your audience’s attention span and help you boost your brand visibility. It also gives readers a more engaging way to consume information. While only 16 percent of online readers actually read content word-for-word, adding images, videos, and other visual elements will keep them engaged and remembering what you’re writing. 

Creating and publishing visuals is becoming more challenging as more marketers realize the benefits of this type of content. A recent survey found that nearly half of marketers rate the process of creating visual content as difficult or very difficult, and a fifth rated it as impossible or very difficult. Fortunately, there are several ways to make the process easier by using advanced design software and tools. 

As more businesses move into the virtual world, visual content will become an increasingly important part of their online marketing strategy. This is particularly true with the advent of social media channels such as LinkedIn, TikTok, and Instagram. This means that brands will have to adapt to these new channels. 

Affiliate Marketing

With the recent introduction of GDPR, online marketers are being forced to rethink their cookie policies. They’re now required to disclose how they use personal data for advertising purposes and ask for explicit consent when using non-essential cookies. If you’re an affiliate marketer, you’ll want to be transparent about the process and help your visitors build trust by explaining why they need to be concerned. 

Affiliate marketers are increasingly looking for new ways to gain trust and exposure from their audience. They’ve begun using new social media such as vlogs and virtual assistants to engage more people. They’ve also started incorporating AI (artificial intelligence) into their content, which has the potential to make affiliate marketing more effective. Ultimately, the goal is to build a long-term business in this industry by providing quality content and not overselling. 

Today’s affiliate marketing practices require you to make quality connections and offer your audience a high-value experience. You’ll want to be educational and informative while using SEO and visual content to attract your audience. In addition, the FTC requires that you disclose if you’re a part of an affiliate program.

Fortunately, regular bloggers can choose to do this, too. But there are a lot of challenges that you may face, including public perception of online content. 

Another trend that is expected to continue to grow this year is the use of video content in affiliate marketing. YouTube ranks as the second largest internet search engine and is a great platform for affiliate marketing. Videos allow better connection with your audience and help build trust. 

Critical Readers

As the blogging industry becomes increasingly competitive, there is a need to provide valuable content to attract readers. With fake news and other bogus information spreading like wildfire, readers are increasingly unwilling to trust unreliable content. They expect authors to provide citations and sources. With this in mind, blogs should consider how wide the scope of their content is and what content they can trust. This is especially important now when more people are stepping into the blogging world every year. 

One of the biggest trends in blogging is creating a more personalized experience for readers. While original content is still preferred, you can use stock images and infographics to create a more compelling blog. Infographics are an easy way to digest information and are increasingly popular among consumers. Some sites like Oberlo provide free infographics. Another trend in blogging is the use of video content. According to recent surveys, people watch 2.5 hours of video content every day on the web. 

Blogs that focus on content marketing are important tools for businesses. Content that engages audiences is more likely to be remembered by readers. Using images and videos to help customers understand what they’re buying is an effective strategy for businesses. 

Mobile-First Format

If you’ve been reading blog posts for any length of time, you’ve probably noticed that there’s an influx of content that sparks conversation. These content-driven posts are quickly becoming popular, and they’ll likely continue to grow in the coming years. People want to be a part of a community, and bloggers who foster that community can expect to attract a loyal following. One trend to watch in this year’s blogging scene is the use of affiliate marketing links in blog posts. This allows affiliate marketers to create ongoing sales funnels. 

To ensure that you’re getting the most traffic possible, it’s important to optimize your content for mobile users. Most people read on their mobile devices. They swipe up news articles on Facebook or read blogs on Instagram. Mobile-friendly content must be easy to read and navigate. For example, users don’t want to see the entire article cut off on their phones. Additionally, mobile-friendly content is more engaging, relatable, and authentic. 

Another trend to watch this year is the mobile-first format. This approach focuses on creating websites that are optimized for smaller screens, where the most important content is displayed. This style forces web designers to focus on important content and remove any unnecessary elements. This allows for more layers of content and functionality to be added later on a desktop version.

Estimated Reading Time

Adding estimated reading time to your blog posts can increase reader engagement and boost your SEO. A study by Tempesta found that people who include this feature tend to read longer content. Search engines also take estimated reading time into account when ranking web pages. The longer a page is read, the more authoritative it will seem to them. A common method to estimate reading time is to divide the total number of words in your article by approximately 200 or 250 words. You can then round that number up to the nearest minute. 

Another popular blogging trend this year is increasing estimated reading time. Blogs that take too long to read may lose engagement and turn readers off. However, shorter articles can capture their attention and increase readership. For example, Salesforce has featured guest posts written by its coders and expert staff to boost its authority in certain niches. Other companies and research institutes are sharing their expertise by providing free content on their websites and social media. 

TL;DR Summary

A TL;DR summary is a type of short summary that answers a user’s main question without having to read the entire blog post. In addition to being more appealing to readers, the TL;DR format also benefits SEO. By creating content that answers a common question or query, bloggers improve their rankings and increase their click-through rates. 

One of the biggest trends in blogging is the use of visual content. According to studies, visual content can improve reader recall by 65 percent. It also increases brand loyalty and visibility. As blog posts get longer, it is more important than ever to make them visually appealing. People are increasingly skimming the text for information, and they can remember more of it if the information is visually presented. 

Another trend in blogging is the use of video content. Video content is engaging to readers because it breaks up long blocks of text. Videos also enable users to easily absorb information. A recent survey by Wyzowl found that people watch up to 2.5 hours of video material every day.

Disclosure: The blog above was largely written by an AI (in this case, Article Forge) as part of an ongoing SEO ranking test. Would you like to review other articles written by artificial intelligence?