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Business Blogging On The Up – Part 2

The full Technorati State of the Blogosphere 2008 report has now been published. The report was released over five days and these are the highlights for days 3-5, from a business blogger’s point of view. I covered the first two days in an earlier post.

Blogging is a time consuming activity. This is confirmed by the report which shows that a quarter of bloggers spend over 10 hours per week on their blog and nearly half spend 5 hours or more:

As I mention in my book, WordPress for Business Bloggers, many bloggers take on help to run their blog. This is particularly true for corporate or business bloggers, of whom nearly 20% have paid staff working for them.

Blogs with higher Technorati authority are updated more frequently than those with less authority, as the report states:

“The Technorati Top 100 are prolific, with 43% posting ten times per day or more often. Only 8% post once a day or less frequently, compared to 13% of the next 500 bloggers, and 22% of the next 5000 bloggers.”

I highlight the importance of using tags in my book, and this is borne out by the data. Technorati top 100 bloggers are twice as likely to tag their posts:

Promoting a blog is key to its success and the report shows us the top traffic-building strategies used. These are particularly important for business bloggers, so all the techniques highlighted in the chart below are covered in WordPress for Business Bloggers, you’ll find many of them in Chapter 7, Supercharged Promotion:

The vast majority of bloggers are tracking their site visitors and monthly page views, with Google Analytics being used by two thirds of them. Using Google Analytics with WordPress is covered in detail in WordPress for Business Bloggers.

Direct revenue generation is becoming an important aspect of blogging, with the majority of bloggers now displaying ads, affiliate marketing or other form of revenue generation (this subject is covered in detail in Chapter 10 of WordPress for Business Bloggers):

The report data seems to suggest that the medium of blogging is gaining credibility and being taken more seriously as a source of information. 37% of bloggers have been quoted in the traditional media as a result of one of their posts. This is encouraging for business bloggers who use their blog as a PR tool.

All in all, the State of the Blogosphere 2008 report makes encouraging reading for business bloggers as well as anyone who is thinking about starting a blog for their business. A blog can be a tremendously powerful tool for any business and using a top quality platform like WordPress makes running a blog extremely easy.

Paul Thewlis

3 Comments

  1. WP for Business Bloggers was recomended in a WP online course I studied. http://www.WebsiteCreationWorkshop.com by Cristina Hills I’m 60 years old and trying to get a hook on the next stage of my life, the 60-80 period. Your book was so good (and detailed) that I thought my head would explode after the first 4-5 chapters..but I pesisted and am now in the process of prioitizing the implementation… trying to take one small, imprerfect step at a time. Your book is a great referenc and staff communication tool. Thank you.

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