“We need to do a blog this week” is not a content strategy

These words will trigger something in anyone that’s worked in marketing. 

There might be an overall marketing calendar, there might even be a content calendar with these things planned out. 

But there’s a constant nagging feeling that it’s a waste of time. Is anyone going to read this?

In my experience, this is how most businesses still approach new website content. 

I’ve audited around thirty sites so far this year, and more than 90% of them suffer the same fate. It’s a shame because the positive intent is there. New content, site looks current, business feels relevant. Quite often brands will publish something ‘just to look as if the business is still going’. I sort of understand that sentiment. But it’s misplaced. Someone senior asked for it. Someone junior gets landed with the writing. It’s all a bit of an afterthought.

There are millions of blogs out there, and most of them are a waste of time

These stats by the way, are before the AI slop era. I’d expect those to be rookie numbers in 2026 and beyond, as more people continue to post absolute drivel. Just like LinkedIn.

It’s problematic because 96.6% of all web pages get zero traffic from Google³. 

If you got as far as measuring performance of your blog and saw that well, there was none. You’re not alone. The issue is near-universal. And the outcome — businesses say ‘it doesn’t work’ and then give up. Or even worse, lower the quality bar and continue to just blast out even-less appetising content. I’m looking at you, ChatGPT… Volume has increased exponentially overnight, strategy, sadly, hasn’t.

In 2026, we need less, better content, not more drivel.

Some business owners might see this and worry — if all this content is basically, invisible, ’why should we be spending time and money creating content then?

I’d reframe that thinking and say that if you can create something valuable, that’s actually worth reading, you’re going to set yourself apart from nearly every business out there.

Nobody asked the only question that really matters

“What do our customers actually want to read?”

OK, some businesses might brainstorm this and come up with some good ideas. An excellent team might even ask the sales department what the most commonly asked queries they receive is. Bravo to you guys.

But the problem isn’t the content that’s being produced, it’s that it doesn’t align with customers search intent. It’s the difference between:

Again, this isn’t an isolated problem — fewer than half (47%⁴) of B2B marketers have a documented content strategy — and B2B is where content marketing arguably matters most. Content without direction typically isn’t worth creating.

The real cost of directionless content creation

For every blog post written that takes the team the best part of a day, and receives 3–4 clicks when you post it on LinkedIn, that could have been something useful that:

• Answered the questions your customers are already searching for
• Built trust with potential buyers before they ever contact you
• Ranked for terms your competitors are already gathering market share from
• Moved people closer to a purchase decision at every stage of the funnel
• Worked for you for years, long after you hit publish
• Turned one piece of research into months of compounding traffic
• Given your sales team something worth sending to a warm lead

Are your blogging efforts a waste of time? A checklist

If you’ve got more than a couple of these, it might be worth understanding what’s going on:

• Are you publishing often but none of them are driving any traffic?
• Posts don’t have target keywords?
• Posts are written when someone has time, not as a priority
• Topics are chosen by ego, not using data
• Nobody is even reporting on blog performance metrics
• The blog exists because the web development team said you should have one
• You’ve published multiple posts which feel as though they’re basically the same
• The most recent post is dated during COVID
• ‘The person that writes the blogs’ has left and now it’s no one’s responsibility
• You’re writing for your industry, your chums, or your peers — not your customer
• Content sounds like a stream of press releases

You don’t need to do more, you need to do it better

For some reason, business owners tend to be sceptical here. Perhaps it’s the addiction to ‘instant ROI’ channels like paid search.

If you’ve been posting consistently, building out a content calendar, and getting familiar with your CMS, you’re getting there. What’s missing (for most brands, anyway) is strategic. As it usually is, it’s the important bit.

Blog content strategy can range from super simple, to super complicated. It depends what type of resource you can throw at it, how well it is likely to work as a channel in your niche, how commoditised your product is, and how search engines reward content around the specific query. 

Your team can do the first one for sure, and that’s a great start. For the later, you might need my help.

Companies with a documented content strategy see 33% higher ROI⁵

The sheer amount of content out there, demonstrates that companies know that this can work. They just often are misaligned in terms of effort and strategy.

Businesses blogging consistently with a plan see 13x more positive ROI⁶. The strategy isn’t just a nice to have, it should guide every decision, and will determine whether your blog section earns attention, or burns through your resources.

Curious about how blogs can drive performance in the real world?

Case study: What I did in financial services to get the attention of global banks
Case study: Using blogs to support your most commercial pages and keywords
Case study: Using your teams’ expertise to help with blog creation

If this sounds exactly like your blog strategy (or lack of)… 

You are not alone. Most of your competitors are wasting their content budget too, hence the goal is wide open for you. The opportunity is to cut through the noise, build relationships with potential customers, and create content that gives them value. If you want to find out where your blog is falling short…

I’ll happily give you a free assessment to tell you whether it’s up to scratch or not

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1. https://www.internetlivestats.com/blog-posts-written-today/ ↩︎
2. https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/blogger-survey/ ↩︎
3. https://ahrefs.com/blog/search-traffic-study/ ↩︎
4. https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/research/ ↩︎
5. https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/research/ ↩︎
6. https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics ↩︎