I’ve been noticing more than a few long-time bloggers announcing their transition to infrequent posting or decision to abandon/close their blog. Many of these veteran bloggers wrote daily or 3+ times a week for years.
Some no longer have the time, but more common reasons include:
- the online community is different now;
- they have grown uncomfortable placing personal stories out into this wild kingdom of a society;
- they claim blog platforms have become like social media outlets, using algorithms, etc., promoting some content and sites over others
- WordPress pricing and updates have become too costly in money and time.
No one mentioned: ‘because I’ve run out of thoughts to share’…
Those recent heartfelt writings led me to read articles and statistics/data points regarding blogging on a broad scale. These topics aren’t technically related to writers dropping/reducing their posts, but perhaps you’ll find these few things interesting as well.
Most I agree with, some I don’t…
1. 70 million new posts are published on WordPress monthly. 70 million just on WordPress, not including the other platforms. It’s a miracle you’re reading this right now!
2. The majority of people and entities blogging are seeking sales and financial “results” from their posts.
3. The average writer spends nearly four hours writing one blog post. I’m interested: Do the majority of your posts take around four hours to write?
4. Blog Post Length: According to this article here, a post between 1500-2500 words is an ideal blog length for maximum views. The author says it’s a myth that we need to write shorter posts for maximum views, claiming, “Longer posts perform better in search results, which means longer posts are what readers want.”
Considering our flip and scroll attention spans, this is hard to believe. Whether researching for a new automobile or reading about someone’s vacation, shorter blogs seem to generate higher views.
Similarly, this author confirms: “The bloggers who write 2000+ words on average are far more likely to report “strong results.”” Maybe I’m unclear on their definition of “results” (more on that under Worth).
5. Time Spent Reading: A related article claims the average time spent reading a blog post is 52 seconds. Maybe more people are taking Jim Kwik’s speed reading course than I realize. 2000-word posts are preferred, but only 52-seconds are spent reading them?🤔
6. Images and videos increase blog post views.
7. What do people want to read? About your life and other people’s lives. No surprise TMZ and People.com are among the highest viewed “blogs”. Who knew these were even in the “blog” category?
8. Considering #7, this tells me ‘average bloggers’ (sharing life and thoughts online) no longer comprise the bulk of WordPress users. According to IBM, WP was originally built for these types of blogs, but “has extended into many other areas” (such as business owners and content marketers). Thus, the ‘average blogger’s’ frustration with rising costs, tech enhancements and strange comments they didn’t receive ten years ago.
What captures the corporates, frustrates the personal bloggers. Posting personal reflections on the same platforms hosting big box store ‘blogs’ helps us imagine how vastly different blogging has become.
Worth: When you search whether blogging is still worth it in 2025, worth lies in traffic, financial profit, brand awareness. The answer is yes, it can be money-making. It’s also important for anyone publishing their writing for profit. “Brand awareness” includes building the reputation of individual writers.
What is the writer’s goal? If the blog is just for fun, a goal may be irrelevant. What does the term “results” mean for each individual blogger? If the writer isn’t seeking current or future sales of their writing or another product/service, “results” may be irrelevant because the writer is simply recording their adventures for grandchildren. Or, writers may want something from the reader in the future-views being their version of “results”.
Inconsistency: As always, there will be stats and writings about blogging that hit close to the truth, while my mini-internet-scan (hardly in-depth research) revealed significant discrepancies between articles covering the exact same topics (there are plenty of other sites to reference who exclusively research/publish this type of information).
In Summary: All blogs are unique and can’t be placed into specific categories or statistics across the board. “It depends” is a relevant phrase when discussing blogging in 2025.
- For example, a newbie on WP may discover shorter posts generate more interest as the reader gets to know them.
- Years ago, blog advice included: “know your audience”. That’s increasingly difficult, based upon the entities (not humans) liking and spam-commenting.
- Perhaps most important: there are distinct differences between the corporate and personal sites, even though all are still referred to as blogs.
Thank you for reading my brief dive into modern blogging these days. The longtime, personal bloggers (that prompted this post) have created special sites and meaningful writings – and despite the ongoing platform upsets, I hope they continue sharing their heart here. Each site is an original!
Featured Image: geekflare.com – the page I linked lists the 16 best free blog sites.
Tales from a Mid-Lifer 
Leave a reply to Looking for the Light Cancel reply