10 Interesting Findings from the 2017 State of Blogging Report

The 2017 State of the Blogging Industry Report was recently released by ConvertKit.

There were about 850 bloggers that were surveyed. I was surpised to see that nonprofit was in the bottom of the topics blogged about. Even though not many bloggers were nonprofit related, the findings are interesting for nonprofits to read.

Here are some the findings and how it might relate to nonprofits:

1. The 3rd and 4th top reasons for starting a blog was to build an audience and to teach what they know.   Nonprofits start blogs to share what they know about their mission. They want to build an audience of readers who will support their organization.


2. The top blog topic was professional development. This fits well with the nonprofit blogs people are reading. When asking others about favorite nonprofit blogs, people mention blogs that are nonprofit related not blogs that an organization writes. These are blogs that nonprofit staff can benefit from. Topics include technology, communication, and fundraising.


3. The top 20 blog topics include marketing, technology, web design, and web development. These are some of the topics that are written about on nonprofit related blogs.


4. The only topic that could be nonprofit related in the top 20 is art.


5. The survey had an other category. Some of the write-ins were education and health.


6. Most of the bloggers intend to publish blog posts once a week, but they actually post more than once a day. Every organization is different and there isn't an answer on how often to post. It depends what is best for your organization. It's suggested to at least post once a week.


7. Bloggers measure success on their blogs post the most by website visitors and e-mail subscribers. Social shares was also one of the top ways.


8. Bloggers grow their audience by using social media and e-mail marketing. Nonprofits can gain new readers by including links to blog posts in their e-newsletters. 


9. Facebook and Twitter are used the most to promote blog posts. 


10. Finding time and growing audience were two top struggles that bloggers have. These are the same struggles nonprofits have.