9 Reasons Why People Love to Read Blog Posts

Recently, there has been some concern that blogging may be dying. HubSpot, a blogging brand that is renowned for its expertise, found that 40% of respondents reported not reading blogs at any point in their research. Yikes!

Is this a sign that we are losing the core component of our content marketing strategies, blogging? Are blogging and content marketing strategies going extinct?

Let me assure you that blogging is not going anywhere. Not at all soon. According to the same HubSpot research, 40% of people don’t read blogs. However, 60% do. Brands face a problem engaging their blog audience. It's not that people don't want blogs to read. They came to your site in the first place.

Problem is, to create blog content that people love and keeps them coming back for more, you need to understand why they read your blog posts. Particularly, your blogs. What brought them to your brand? What are they trying achieve by reading your blog?

In other words, you need to write content that is valuable from your customer's point of view. Blog posts about company events and product features These posts are fine to be included in your larger content collection, but they don't drive organic traffic to the site.

This article will discuss why people read blogs, and how to use this information to increase your blog audience.

Quick Take-Aways

• Brands can increase their blog audience by writing from the customer’s perspective.

• The majority of blog content is found at the top of a buyer's journey, the awareness stage.

• Because they solve problems and help people accomplish tasks, how-to guides and checklists have become very popular.

• Brands can come up with creative ways to make posts look professional and fun.

• Smart companies use data to understand their readers and adjust content accordingly.

Learn more about the customer's view

Let's first discuss the reasons why your blog audience is reading your content. Next, let's look at the customer's perspective.

Let me start by asking you a question. When brainstorming ideas for your blog do you discuss what customers might find valuable or interesting?

They are not the same thing, trust me. It takes time and research to truly understand value from the customer's perspective. Without it, you are just guessing.

My most important piece of advice is: You must understand your customer's goals in order to create valuable content that they will enjoy reading. This is why blog articles such as how-to guides, checklists and listicles for top strategies or tools are so popular. They help people solve problems or accomplish important tasks.

Your buyer journey can be used to guide you in thinking from the perspective of your customer. Almost all buyer journeys look like this.

Source: Image Source

The awareness stage is where most of your blog content will fall. A user is aware of a problem or need and seeks information online. It is important to rank high on the SERPs for the problems your customers are facing. This will help you establish your company's expertise, and increase your blog audience.

9 reasons people read blog posts

HubSpot's survey found that people read blogs for three main reasons: to learn, to entertain, and to find out about industry trends and news. This is a good high-level overview of what motivates people to read blogs.

Source: Hubspot

It's also quite general. Let's dive deeper into the specific reasons each umbrella covers.

Learn something new

Achieve a task

You can search online for the best way to find the information you need, even if you don't know how to do it. Blogs are a great resource for step-by, detailed instructions, tutorials, how-to videos, and checklists that will help you accomplish the tasks in your daily life and at work.

These types of posts are actually the most popular.

Source: Image Source

Find a solution to a problem

This is why most brand research online starts. Professionals and companies today look online for solutions to problems they face. More than half of all age groups use search engines to find solutions, according to research.

Source: Image Source

Here's the problem: You shouldn't dive into your company or its solutions. We already discussed how blogs tend to be dominated by top-of the-funnel content. This is where it becomes clear.

People search for blog content that will help them solve their problem. They start by looking for content that can help them understand the problem and direct them in the right direction. If you create blog content that educates and gives valuable information to users, you will see more people return to your brand when it's time to make a purchase.

Find hobbies and interests that you enjoy

Blogs aren't all about business. Not for readers anyway. Many blogs are built around hobbies and niche interests. Even though users may read your blog content for entertainment, their ultimate goal is to learn something new. It is important to create content that informs and instructs users.

Be more educated

Blogs can be used by people to learn for many reasons. Perhaps they are simply interested in learning more about a topic they like (e.g. a science blog or museum blog). Perhaps they want to be more knowledgeable about practical subjects that they will use in their daily lives, such as finances and childcare. Maybe they are conducting research for a work project. An informative blog can help you grow your blog audience. Similar to the how-to guides, educational blog posts can help you establish your brand expertise and position yourself as the solution for potential customers.

To entertain

Traditional entertainment content should be enjoyed

Blogs are the best way to entertain people. There are many types of blogs, including those that cover TV, movies and sports. This type of content is often covered by blogs that do a good job and have high-revenue readers.

However, these blogs are not as SEO- and keyword-driven as business blogs. They are driven by current events. Entertainment blogs are often established as authorities in their field and consumers look for their content.

Enjoy your work

People still enjoy professional content. This is where creativity comes in! How can professional content be entertaining and fun?

Engaging content can be published on blogs. Infographics can make complicated information more easily understood and understandable. To make it easier for your readers to connect with you on specific topics, create videos. Think about how creative you can make relevant brand content more interesting!

This piece, written by Haley, our Marketing Director, on the lessons The Bachelor has taught her about content marketing, is a great read. Although her article is centered around a reality television show, it has tons of great tips for creating better content.

Content marketing isn't supposed to be fun. !

Get involved in hobbies and other interests

This one is being included again as it drives readership in different manners. People read blog posts that relate to their interests and hobbies to learn new things. They also read them for entertainment (e.g., an artist reading blog posts about museum exhibits).

To find out the latest and most relevant information in my industry

Keep up-to-date

Professionals are kept informed by blog posts on news and trends. It is crucial to understand your industry and the trends that will affect its future. This knowledge can help you make smart business decisions. This is where professional bloggers come in handy.

Source content

You can think of this in two ways when creating content. The first is that you can create highly shareable content about news and trends within your industry. This allows professionals to share it (and make comments) on it on their own platforms. This is what people look for in blog posts.

People look for news sources and trends to cite. If you create an infographic that shows the trend of a particular industry, it is more likely that people will read your content and link to other content. This establishes your brand's thought leadership.

Data can be used to increase your blog audience

When it comes to growing your blog audience, understanding why people read blogs doesn't mean you have to stop there. Without data, you can't measure the content marketing ROI. You need data-driven metrics to track your users' behavior and create quality content.

Google Analytics and your website's CMS system are two great places to find this information. You can identify the motivations of your users' readers by looking at metrics such as page views or search volume and then create more content to satisfy them.

With great content, you can grow your blog audience

The best blogs post multiple posts each week. This takes a lot of time, time that you may not have if your business is small. Marketing Insider Group's SEO and writers can provide optimized content that is ready to publish every week for up to a year.

To learn more, visit our SEO Blog Writing Service or to schedule a consultation with me to get going!