Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Blogging Tools And Techniques: State Of The Blogosphere 2008

The How of Blogging

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We have discussed who the bloggers are, what they're blogging about, and the role of blogging in their lives. But what about the how? Bloggers invest significant time in creating and updating their blogs, as well as driving traffic and retaining their audiences.

One in four bloggers spends ten hours or more blogging each week. The most influential bloggers are even more prolific. Using Technorati Index data, we analyzed the posting and tagging behaviors of bloggers according to their Technorati Authority. Over half of the Technorati top authority bloggers post five or more times per day, and they are twice as likely to tag their blog posts compared to other bloggers.

From their use of RSS feeds, video, photos, and mobile updates, bloggers are also tremendously sophisticated in leveraging the available tools to make their blogs more robust.

Bloggers employ a variety of technologies to attract visitors. Top audience-building strategies include: listing their blog on Technorati and Google, commenting or linking to other blogs, and tagging blog posts so that they are more easily searchable. All of this hard work has paid off -- half of active blogs attract more than 1000 monthly visitors.

Time Spent Blogging

Time Spent Blogging Each Week
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Bloggers invest a significant amount of time in creating and updating their blogs, as well as other blog-related activities.

One in four bloggers spends ten hours or more blogging each week, and about half spend more than five hours weekly on their blog. Only 15% of active bloggers spend less than one hour per week on their blog.

Blogging with Help

Employ Any Staff For Blogging
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While the majority of bloggers manage their blogs solo, among professional and corporate bloggers, one in ten pay staff to contribute to their blogs.

One in five corporate bloggers have paid full-time or part-time staff. Across both professional and corporate blogs, a higher percentage have unpaid help.

Technorati 100, Next 500, and Next 5000 Comparisons

Posting by Technorati Authority
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We analyzed the Technorati index data to see whether higher-authority bloggers behaved differently from other bloggers.

Blogs with higher authority are typically updated more frequently than blogs with lower authority. The Technorati Top 100 blogs had more than twice as many postings in June 2008 as the next 500, and more than 12 times as many postings as the next 5000.

Posting Frequency
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Technorati Top 100 bloggers are twice as likely to post ten or more time daily compared to the next 500, and 14 times as likely than the next 5000. Looking again at Technorati's tracking data shows how often the Top 100 bloggers post each day compared to the next 500 and the next 5000. The Technorati Top 100 are prolific, with 43% posting ten times per day or more often. Only 8% post once a day or less frequently, compared to 13% of the next 500 bloggers, and 22% of the next 5000 bloggers.

Technorati Top 100 bloggers Are Twice as Likely to Use Tags in Their Posts

Percentage of Bloggers who Use Tags
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Tagging blog posts is another way of ensuring that people can search for relevant content within a blog.

Technorati's tracking data shows that the Technorati Top 100 bloggers use tags much more frequently than the next 500 and the next 5000 bloggers. The Technorati Top 100 bloggers are twice as likely to use tags in their blog posts compared to the average of the 5MM active bloggers tracked in June.

Broad Categories Are the Most Popular Tags

Technorati index data uncovers the most popular tags during the month of June. "News" was the #1 most-used tag by bloggers, appearing close to 200,000 times over the course of the month.

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General categories such as news, music, video, politics, and business tend to be the most popular tags.

Technorati's Top Bloggers Had Eight Blog Posts Tagged "News" on Average

Average Number of Tags / Blogger by Technorati Authority
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Technorati's Top 100 bloggers use this tag more than two times as much as the next 500, and 19 times as much as the next 5000.

Shown here are some of the more popular tags and how many times those tags were used on average by the Top 100, next 500, and next 5000 bloggers. This data reinforces the fact that Top 100 bloggers use all tags more frequently than other bloggers.

Trends Can Also Be Tracked by Looking at Tag Growth Over Time

Andy Murray, the Scottish tennis player who made it to the finals of the U.S. Open, saw his popularity grow once he beat Rafael Nadal on September 7, 2008.

Posts by Day about "Andy Murray"
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Posts tagged "Obama" peaked during the Democratic National Convention, reaching their highest point on the day of his acceptance speech and the day following (August 28 and 29, 2008).

Posts by Day about "Obama"
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Posts tagged "McCain" spiked on August 29, 2008, the day he chose Sarah Palin to be his Vice Presidential running mate, and then again during the week of the Republican National Convention.

Posts by Day about "McCain"
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Sarah Palin had more tagged posts than Obama or McCain after her speech at the Republican National Convention on September 3, 2008, confirming the intense interest about her across the media and the blogosphere.

Posts by Day about "Sarah Palin"
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Bloggers Are Using Tools on Their Blogs

Tools Used on Blog
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Bloggers are also tremendously sophisticated in leveraging available tools to make their blogs more robust or easily updatable.

More than eight in ten have a commenting system, archived posts, and have built-in syndication. Others use video and photos on their blog, or update their blog via a mobile device. On average, bloggers use seven of the 13 tools listed.

Among those with widgets, the majority of bloggers use at least four widgets on their site and two-thirds would include a widget with an ad on their blog.

Among those blogs with RSS feeds, three in four support full-content feeds.

How Bloggers Attract Visitors

How Bloggers Attract Visitors
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Bloggers are savvy and resourceful in generating traffic.

Top traffic-building strategies include: listing their blogs on Technorati and Google, commenting on or linking to other blogs, participating in a blogroll or blog directory, and tagging blog posts so that they are more easily searchable. Active bloggers have learned a variety of techniques for attracting visitors to their blog, conducting an average of five different activities to attract visitors. 28% do at least seven activities.

Bloggers are also adept at linking to and from other sites -- they have a median of 29 links from their blog to other web sites (with a mean of 3400), and a median of 30 links from other web sites to their blog (with a mean of 4800).

To Build Loyalty with Readers, Bloggers Create Events for Their Readership

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In order to retain visitors to their blogs, sophisticated bloggers are creating readership events.

The majority of these events are in person, with one in five personal bloggers hosting an in-person event and one-third of corporate bloggers hosting an in-person event.

The Vast Majority of Bloggers Are Tracking Their Site Visitors and Monthly Pageviews

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Only 5% of bloggers did not know how many monthly pageviews their blog received. All this hard work has paid off for active bloggers in terms of site visitors. Half of bloggers attract over 1000 unique visitors per month.

Tool usage

Google Analytics is the most common tracking tool (used by 2/3 of bloggers)

Sitemeter and Statcounter used by one in five bloggers

42% use more than one service/provider for their analytics

Over 100 different tracking tools used

The majority of bloggers use Google to track blog visitors. However, bloggers do use a range of tools for site analytics, as our survey respondents mentioned more than 100 different tracking tools.

Bloggers Are Investing Money

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Select bloggers are investing significant money in their blogs (including hosting, marketing, staff, and paid contributors).

Bloggers with advertising invest significantly more money in their blogs than bloggers who do not accept advertising. The mean investment in blogs is $1,000 over the past year. However, the median investment is only $50. European bloggers and corporate bloggers invest more in their blogs on average, as do those bloggers who have advertising support.

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