In the early to mid 2000s, blogging became an extremely popular way for people to document their lives and share it with the world on a whole new medium: the internet.

What started as a journal more than anything soon became a way to gain clout and popularity and thus monetise and make a living. But is blogging still popular? Is it possible to make a sustainable income from it in the age of video content? Today, I’m going to explore… in a blog article.

The History of Blogging

The term ‘blog’ was coined in the late 90s, and with the ‘dot com’ bubble around 2000, many platforms such as LiveJournal and OpenDiary allowed people to blog at their convenience. With the launch of Wikipedia in 2001, people were also able to collaboratively blog in online forums, pushing it to a new level.

By 2006, there were an estimated 50 million blogs available worldwide, some being used as credible news sources for major world events such as the Iraq War. The Huffington Post (now HuffPost) was originally a blogging platform, which blurred the line between basic blogging and detailed journalism.

The introduction of social media platforms such as MySpace and Twitter introduced new ways for people to blog, where people could share short updates or thoughts with their social network. This ‘microblogging’ also gained in popularity, and is still prominent in internet culture today.

By 2007, which is widely thought to be the peak of blogging, people were beginning to monetise their blogs through Google AdSense, affiliate marketing and sponsorships. Microblogging reached a new high with the release of Tumblr, and bloggers began niching down into fashion, food, travel and more. In under a decade, blogging had changed from a simple journaling outlet to the centre of people’s livelihoods.

Social Media – The ‘Death’ of Blogs

The early 2010s saw the rise of Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. This drew people away from extensive blogging and towards short-form content that was easier to produce and consume. The average person no longer needed to sit and write a 500-word blog article in order to have an online presence; instead, they could upload a photo straight to Instagram and write a short caption.

Long articles started to feel outdated and time-consuming, and weren’t giving users the dopamine hits that social media provided through likes, comments, shares, and follows. Attention spans began to dwindle, and people began to prefer scrolling through their feeds rather than traipsing through multiple websites in order to consume content.

YouTube had also been released in 2005 and had seen consistent growth since its launch. This introduced a new way to blog: video blogging, or what we now know as Vlogging. Many bloggers migrated their audience over to similar social media platforms as a new, fun way to engage with their audience and share their lives – and it worked!

Early blogs thrived on raw, diary-style writing, and social media provided a space for that emotion tenfold. Blogs lost their sense of community as comment sections grew sparse and conversations shifted to new platforms.

The Shift in Blogging

Whilst social media certainly challenged the blogging community, it didn’t entirely kill it. I mean… look where you are right now! Instead, there was just a large cultural shift towards content marketing and business utilisation.

SEO-driven blogging boomed. Businesses researched and focused on specific keywords and long-form written content that they realised helped them to rank on Google in ways social media couldn’t. This is because social media content is largely unsearchable, and with its rise in popularity, it quickly became saturated, making it easier for posts to get lost in the chaos. On the other hand, a blog post can drive traffic for years depending on its topic and relevance.

Professional and niche bloggers continued to post and build their profitable businesses, but didn’t resent social media. Instead, they utilised it to promote their blogs and funnel users, rather than migrating them entirely to a new platform.

What is Blogging Today?

So far, it may have sounded like the current blogging landscape is looking pretty dire, but that’s far from true. As of 2026, there are over 600 million blogs worldwide, and 7.5 million posts are published every single day.

It is certainly true that the blogging world is more dominated by marketers, professionals and businesses rather than casual writers nowadays. The content marketing industry, which has blogging as its core channel, is projected to reach $107.5 billion in 2026. Also, Fortune 500 data shows the number of companies with business blogs rose from 54% in 2020 to 77% in 2024.

Don’t let the numbers and statistics overwhelm you. In simple terms, bloggers aren’t going anywhere – especially not business bloggers. Before writing this article, I, too, wondered whether blogging was a dead art, until my research showed that 77% of internet users still regularly read blog posts. In a world of so much short-form content, this number is promising.

However, blogging is increasingly competitive and the ceiling continues to rise. The majority of blog pages receive zero traffic from Google, putting emphasis on the importance of high-quality, SEO-driven content. Moreover, the average blog post length has increased to 1,427 words in 2026, with blog posts over 3,000 words receiving the strongest results. This calls for more detailed, higher-quality content that can be time-consuming for businesses, especially those with a smaller team.

The average time it takes to write a blog post is 4 hours and 10 minutes, a 74% increase from 2014. With AI, bloggers are shortening this time, yet it still takes a substantial chunk of someone’s day to write a strong blog post that is going to reap results. This is why businesses are increasingly hiring blog writers, more specifically, ones that can utilise AI in their workflow. As AI becomes more deeply woven into our society, we are likely to see yet another cultural shift with blogging.

Quality or Quantity?

It’s the age old debate, and in most cases the answer is usually quality. The data shows that it’s the same case here, too. Bloggers who spend more than 6 hours on a single post report strong results of nearly double of those who spend just one or two hours. Posts over 3,000 words earn 3x more traffic and 4x more shares than shorter, lower-effort posts.

However, quantity shouldn’t be disregarded. Businesses that publish 16+ posts per month get 4.5x more leads than those publishing 0-4 times. Also, 22% of the most successful bloggers publish weekly, proving that consistency is key. Research shows that you need at least 50-100 high-quality, SEO-driven blog posts in order to drive consistent traffic. This takes time to build.

Blog posting is not as easy as uploading on social media, so there needs to be a good motivation behind it, otherwise you’ll either burn out or give up. Most of the time when I write a blog post, it’s something I genuinely want to learn more about, so writing the article is a fun way for me to consolidate my knowledge, and building my website’s SEO score is just an added bonus ;).

What is the Future of Blogging?

As with the rest of the content online, we are seeing a huge shift with the introduction and growth of AI. Similar to website content, there is now an increased focus on AI-optimised content, so that you can show up in AI engines and in features such as Google’s AI Overview. But how can you make yourself more AI-optimised, I hear you ask?

• Use short paragraphs in your articles to make your post easier to select information from
• Use clear headings
• Use conversational language
• Introduce FAQs

Whether you like it or not, if you want to succeed and grow your blog, you need to ensure that your content is trustworthy and adapted for AI so that it’s cited and referenced by these engines.

Now, whilst you should be considering optimising your content for AI, it doesn’t mean that you should be using AI to write your blog posts for you. Whilst there is use in using AI to help generate ideas or proofread your articles, completely writing articles solely using AI is a sure way to decrease the quality of your content and create distrust with your audience.

AI can generate information, but it cannot replicate human-led experiences. Authenticity is what people are craving most, and there is likely to be a rise in popularity of posts that are relatable and most importantly: human. Expressing genuine opinions and thoughts is more engaging to a reader than a post that, whilst maybe informative, lacks character and individuality.

Some may say this is ironic… a cyclical narrative. We are circling back to where it all began, with personable, diary-style writing. However, that’s not to say that you should be posting your deepest, darkest secrets online, it’s just about being yourself and reflecting that in your writing. People will appreciate it in a world of AI-slop.

Whilst there are humans and the internet, there is going to be blogging. Moving with the times is the best way to ensure you stay afloat in the everchanging landscape. AI can reduce your blog-writing workflow by up to 70% whilst maintaining authenticity, and this is just one way you can adapt in order to keep your head above water.

In writing this article, I’ve been shocked by some of the information that I have found. But most of all, I’m just happy to see that long-form content is still popular and sought-after.

Blogging isn’t dead, it’s just different. The blogs that will survive are those that focus less on Google rankings and more on building genuine authority and credibility that makes readers return again and again, regardless of how they initially found them.

And if you found me here today… welcome! I’m glad to have you. I’ll be here every Monday, for who knows how long. Why don’t you stick around and find out.