August 25, 2015
When people think of paid advertising in social media they usually think of platforms like Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.
Nothing wrong with that. They have hundreds of millions of users.
But how about blog sites?
Already blog sites offer thought-provoking and eye-catching content, and the likes of leading blog site WordPress offer advertising on hosted sites.
They might not compete with the volumes of low-hanging fruit like the social networks, but it is increasingly evident that blog sites are gaining users at quite some speed and offer a community of writers and thought leaders.
When that community runs into millions and often covers related or overlapping content, there is room for them to follow each other – and for the blog sites to help promote the acquisition of such followers
Given as Twitter, a micro-blogging site is already doing that, there is no business reason excluding blog sites from following suit.
Strength in numbers and in content
The single-most prominent and popular CMS site for blogging (and podcasting) is WordPress.com Set up just over a decade ago, the leading blogging site has more than 75 million users, many of them active daily.
The New York Times, cable broadcaster CNN, satirical site Mashable, and online shopping mall eBay all run their blogs on the most popular CMS in the world – WordPress. Many of our own clients now use WordPress too.
To show how pervasive WordPress has become, consider that while 70% of the world’s websites are not powered by a CMS system, WordPress alone represents a further 20% of the worldwide web – leaving just 10% to other CMS drivers.
The continued growth in the popularity of WordPress also goes uncurbed. Every month around 450,000 searches for the word “WordPress” are made, and it is five times as likely to get searched as another CMS system, Joomla, or nine times as often as Drupal.
More popular than Amazon?
In 2014, WordPress.com recorded 126 million unique visitors per month, while Amazon clocked up 96 million unique visitors per month, one article has claimed.
What all of this suggests is that, WordPress is ripe for advertising. Sure there are certain criteria open for authors on WordPress to accept advertising on their proud pages. But how about opening up WordPress to the potential for enriching what is already an active community of bloggers?
If it is possible to reach out to and build a large audience for brands via Twitter or Facebook, then why not WordPress?
People may find your blog stories thanks to optimal choice of keywords and tags. That is organic growth and akin to what you can do with Twitter, for example. But how about promoting specific blogs on key issues to other authors, thought leaders and brands? If that succeeds there is no reason why you can’t take that to the ultimate level and reach out to people who are currently outside the WordPress ecosystem.
As businesses become more adept at monetising what they offer, expect more innovations from WordPress and others.