Are you curious about the state of blogging in 2022? Then look no further.
We’ve curated, vetted, and categorized a list of up-to-date statistics below.
Click to jump to a category, or keep reading for our top blogging statistics:
These are the most interesting blogging statistics we think you should know.
- Long-form content gets an average of 77.2% more links than short articles (Backlinko).
- 60% of marketers report that content marketing generates demand/leads (Content Marketing Institute).
- 74% of companies indicate that content marketing is increasing their marketing teams’ lead quality and quantity (Curata).
- There are more than 600 million blogs out of 1.9 billion websites in the world (Hosting Tribunal).
- The number of bloggers in the U.S. is estimated at 31.7 million in 2020 (Statista).
- 77% of internet users read blogs (Social Media Today).
- There is a strong positive correlation between word count and backlinks, but only up to 1,000 words. For posts longer than 1,000 words, there is a strong negative correlation between word count and backlinks (Ahrefs).
- There is a moderate positive correlation between content length and organic traffic, but only up to 2,000 words. For posts longer than 2,000 words, there is a moderate negative correlation between word count and organic traffic (Ahrefs).
- 77% of bloggers report that blogging drives results (Orbit Media).
- Bloggers who publish more often are more likely to report “strong results” (Orbit Media).
- Bloggers who include 10+ images per post are the most likely to report “strong results” (Orbit Media).
- 65% of B2B buyers cite vendor websites as one of their most highly influential content types. This is followed by third-party websites (48%) and third-party articles by independent publishers (39%) (MarketingCharts).
- According to an article by Chicago Tribune, 59% of links shared on social media are shared without ever being read. But Twitter’s new prompt to get users to read before sharing has led people to open articles 40% more often (Vox).
- 73% of marketers report successfully using content marketing to nurture their leads, while 64% of marketers report successfully using content marketing to generate sales and revenue (Content Marketing Institute).
What’s the state of blogging in 2022? Here are some statistics that may surprise you.
- Internet users in the U.S. spend 3X more time on blogs than they do on email (Social Media Today).
- Tumblr hosts over 518 million blogs, while WordPress hosts over 60 million blogs (Hosting Tribunal).
- WordPress powers over 42.8% of the internet (W3 Tech).
- Roughly 70 million new posts are published on WordPress each month (WordPress).
- On average, 77 million new comments are added to WordPress posts per month (WordPress).
- From 2021 to 2025, the global content marketing industry is expected to grow by $417.85 billion (ReportLinker).
- 44% of buyers say they typically consume three to five pieces of content before engaging with a vendor (Demand Gen Report).
- More than half of consumers will stop what they are doing if they encounter issues when viewing content (Adobe).
- 89% of marketers used blogs in their content strategy in 2020 (Content Marketing Institute).
Do bloggers really earn money? Or is it just a pipe dream? Check out these statistics on blogging revenue.
- 33% of bloggers don’t earn any money at all (TechJury).
- The most popular monetization method for bloggers is Google AdSense, followed by affiliate marketing. However, for high-income bloggers, AdSense ranks third; bloggers are 2.5 times more likely to sell their own product or service than use AdSense (GrowthBadger).
- Bloggers make the vast majority of their income from ads, affiliate products, sponsored product reviews, their own products, and online courses (RankIQ).
- 45% of bloggers who earn over $50,000 per year sell their own product or service, while only 8% of lower-income bloggers do that (GrowthBadger).
- 72% of bloggers making $2,000+/month use either Mediavine or Adthrive as their ad management company (RankIQ).
- Blogs are responsible for around 40% of all publisher commissions in the U.S. (Awin).
- The most profitable niche is the food blog niche. Food bloggers have the highest median monthly income ($9,169) as compared to bloggers from all major niches (RankIQ).
- The niches that have the highest percentage of blogs with over 50,000 monthly sessions are food (42.8%), lifestyle (13.3%), and travel (10%) (RankIQ).
![Bar chart showing breakdown of different types of content marketing bloggers earning over $50K/year and lower-income bloggers do, respectively](https://ahrefs.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/1-blogging-revenue-sources-statistics.png)
How long should your blog posts be? How often should you publish? When should you publish? These are questions bloggers always want to know.
- Engagement starts to drop for posts with a reading time longer than seven minutes (Medium).
- 73% of people admit to skimming blog posts, while 27% consume posts thoroughly (HubSpot).
- 75% of the public prefers reading articles under 1,000 words (Contently).
- The average blog post takes just over four hours to write (Orbit Media).
- The average blog post is 1,416 words (Orbit Media).
- About 50% of bloggers publish weekly or “several posts per month” (Orbit Media).
![Bar chart showing from 2014 to 2021, time taken to write a blog post has increased. In 2021, bloggers reported taking 4 hours to write a post](https://ahrefs.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2-how-long-to-write-a-blog-post-stats.png)
As competition intensifies, bloggers need to create higher-quality content. Check out these statistics on content formats and quality.
- “Quality of content” is rated the #1 most important success factor among all bloggers. However, higher-income bloggers put much more emphasis on promoting their content than lower-income bloggers do (GrowthBadger).
- The majority of bloggers add around two to three images per blog post (Orbit Media).
- 41% of bloggers are conducting and publishing original research (Orbit Media).
- Only 26% of bloggers work with editors (Orbit Media).
- The most common complaints about content—too wordy, poorly written, or poorly designed (Adobe).
![Bar chart showing small minority of bloggers create highly visual content](https://ahrefs.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/3-visual-blog-content-statistics.png)
“On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.” — David Ogilvy
- “Very long” headlines (14–17 words) outperform short headlines by 76.7% in terms of social sharing (Backlinko).
- Headlines with a question mark get 23.3% more social shares than non-question headlines (Backlinko).
- 91% of bloggers write only a few headline drafts (around six) before publishing (Orbit Media).
![Bar chart showing long headlines correlate with increased social sharing](https://ahrefs.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/4-headline-length-statistics.png)
To get passive, consistent traffic to your blog, you should ensure the content ranks in the search engines.
- 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine (BrightEdge).
- 90.63% of pages get no organic search traffic from Google (Ahrefs).
- Only 5.7% of pages will rank in the top 10 search results within a year of publication (Ahrefs).
- The average page in the top 10 is 2+ years old (Ahrefs).
- The average top-ranking page also ranks in the top 10 search results for nearly 1,000 other relevant keywords (Ahrefs).
- Generally speaking, the more backlinks a page has, the more organic traffic it gets from Google (Ahrefs).
- There’s no correlation between Flesch Reading Ease scores and ranking positions (Ahrefs).
- 71% of bloggers say SEO is the most important source of traffic (Orbit Media).
- 85% of bloggers are doing keyword research (Orbit Media).
- Bloggers who earn over $50,000 per year tend to put a lot of emphasis on SEO. Their #1 traffic source is typically Google organic search; also, compared to lower-income bloggers, they are 4.3 times as likely to conduct keyword research (GrowthBadger).
- 71% of bloggers are updating old content (Orbit Media).
![Pie chart showing 90.63% of pages get no organic traffic from Google](https://ahrefs.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/5-blog-seo-statistics.png)
Your blog can’t go “viral” overnight. It needs to be discovered, promoted, and marketed.
- Only one-third of bloggers regularly check their blogs’ traffic analytics (Statista).
- Social media is the most popular channel for driving blog traffic (Orbit Media).
- 70% of bloggers who earn over $50,000 per year say they are active or very active promoters of their blogs compared to only 14% of lower-income bloggers (GrowthBadger).
- Bloggers who collaborate with influencers get better results (Orbit Media).
- Bloggers who earn over $50,000 per year from their blogs are over twice as likely to focus on getting email subscribers as compared to lower-income bloggers. They also use 343% as many email-collection methods as lower-income bloggers (GrowthBadger).
- 97% of bloggers promote their blog posts via social media, and 66% use email marketing to direct people toward their content (Statista).
![Bar chart of how bloggers drive traffic to their content where 90% use social media](https://ahrefs.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/6-blog-traffic-statistics.png)
Social media is apparently the most popular channel for driving blog traffic. How can you optimize for this channel?
- 1.3% of articles get 75% of the social shares (Backlinko).
- The ideal content length for maximizing social shares is 1,000–2,000 words (Backlinko).
- There’s no “best day” to publish a new piece of content. Social shares are distributed evenly among posts published on different days of the week (Backlinko).
![Bar chart showing ideal content length for maximizing social media shares is 1K-2K words](https://ahrefs.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/7-content-length-shares-statistics.png)
Guest blogging statistics
Guest blogging is alive and well, and it’s still a great way to acquire links and be exposed to a large audience.
- The average cost of publishing a paid guest post is $77.80 (Ahrefs).
- 50% of bloggers perform outreach for guest posts to 10 or fewer contacts a month, while 7% of them pitch to 100 or more blogs per month (ReferralRock).
- 60% of bloggers write one to five guest posts per month (ReferralRock).
- 87% of bloggers come up with guest post ideas themselves, but only 52% of them do the actual writing (ReferralRock).
- 93% of editors plan to publish the same amount of guest content or more (Influence & Co.).
![Bar chart showing what guest posters do. Most come up with ideas, do the outreach and prospecting](https://ahrefs.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/8-guest-blogging-statistics.png)
Final thoughts
Want to learn more about blogging and content marketing? Get started with these guides:
Do you have other interesting statistics to share? Let me know on Twitter.