Have you thought about starting a blog? You’re not alone – every month, WordPress bloggers publish 70 million new posts and attract 77 million new comments from readers around the world. Blogging is and has always been an excellent way of publishing and consuming information. Without it, I probably wouldn’t have the business I have today, I wouldn’t have some of my closest friends, and I wouldn’t have a lot of the internet skills I use on a daily basis. Needless to say, blogging has always been beneficial to my life, and I truly believe that anyone can start one, whether it’s as a creative outlet or part of a business venture.

The only reason you need to start a blog is “because I fuckin’ want to,” but it doesn’t hurt to start one with more purpose and direction. If you’re thinking about starting a blog but you’re not sure if it’s right for you, here are 5 instances when blogging is a great idea:

You Want to Teach People How to Do Something

The most successful blogs and businesses exist because they help people. Like I’ve said before, all you need in order to start a successful business is to know how to do something better than someone else. Whether you’re planning on selling products or services or just want to create content, a blog is a perfect place to start solving people’s problems without investing a bunch of capital into a business. Informational, highly valuable blog posts that teach people how to do something will always drive traffic (as long as your SEO is on point), and it’s a great way to see what your potential customers are responding to and looking for. 

Writing blog posts that are freely accessible and highly informational will also put you in a position where people see you as a trustworthy authority on your topic, which makes it easier to sell them something later (that is, once you use your blog analytics, data, and user responses to come up with a million-dollar product or service they can’t help but purchase from you).

 You Want to Drive Traffic to Your Existing Business

If you’ve spent any time browsing the internet for someone to hire for a project, you’ve probably noticed that nearly all businesses, from local realtors to flooring installation specialists, have blogs on their websites. It might seem silly for Fred’s Flooring to have a blog because reading about flooring is probably boring AF to anyone who’s not Fred (hence why Fred is in the flooring business), but if Fred does his blog right, it’s an excellent way to drive traffic and possibly even make some extra money.

Fred’s Flooring could attract local customers with a blog by sharing photos of completed projects and happy customer reviews. He could also drive organic traffic with posts on flooring care and cleaning, interior design trends, and advice on how to choose flooring for your home. Within these posts, he can link to recommended products (such as his favorite cleaning products), so even if someone who will never hire him is reading the blog, he still has the potential to make affiliate money if they buy his recommended products.

From an SEO standpoint, blog content gives you more chances to use your target keywords and rank higher for them in search engines. If you have no idea what SEO means, be sure to check out my posts on SEO basics and SEO writing tips, which are essential to any successful online business.

You Need a Portfolio of Work

If you’ve ever hit up the job boards only to find that every job you qualify for requires “3-5 years of experience” or “15,000 relevant samples” or “the left arm of your firstborn,” none of which you have yet, you know the struggle of creative work. Everyone wants experience, but nobody wants to give you a chance to gain the experience. So what do you do? Create the samples and experience yourself.

Maybe it sounds ridiculous, but the internet makes it possible to do exactly that. It’s one of the reasons why I started my cannabis blog Jane Dope; I wanted to write content for cannabis companies, so I started a website that would act as a personal portfolio and show that not only was I knowledgeable, but I was committed to the cause. You’d be surprised how much people respect the hustle of creating something yourself. They love it! 

If you find yourself in this position, spend some time creating your own samples of work and put them on your own website. It doesn’t even have to be writing – you can publish whatever you want! Videos, graphic designs, illustrations, podcast episodes, erotic short stories… when you have your own website, the world is your oyster. Many clients don’t care so much if you’ve worked with the most popular company in your niche or not, they just want to know that you can do the work and have the drive to do it. 

You Want to Fill an ‘Information Gap’ in Your Niche

Information is everywhere on the internet, and so are information gaps. Maybe you’re passionate about a topic, but it’s all men talking about it online and you’re interested in a woman’s perspective. Or perhaps you have a method of explaining how to do something that differs from anything you’ve seen, or you read someone else’s and thought “I can do this better than them.” The only way to know is to give it a shot for yourself. You don’t have to be an expert or have all the answers, just the desire to bring your perspective to the table.

One of my favorite examples of someone filling an information gap is Jenny Bruso, whose website Unlikely Hikers started a movement to promote diversity, inclusion, and representation in the hiking community. When she first started hiking in 2012, she found that so much of the online content about hiking was hard to relate to as a “femme, queer, fat, mid-thirties writer.” So she sought to change that. Her blog features stories from hikers and nature lovers of all ages, sizes, genders, sexual orientations, and backgrounds, often those from marginalized groups who don’t “look” like a typical hiker but have just as much passion for it as the thin white guy in the Patagonia ad.

If you feel like there’s no point in doing what you want to do because “everyone else is already doing it,” take some time to look into what about your experience and perspective makes you different. What does it bring to the table? Who would benefit from hearing from you more than everyone else out there? 

You Want a Creative Outlet

There’s nothing wrong with a good old-fashioned creative outlet, and a blog is a great example because you can publish anything you want. If you want others to see your work, it’ll help you find a community of interested, like-minded people you never knew existed. It’ll also force you to learn new skills, both technical and creative, which can help improve your marketability. In today’s digital culture, there is always value in knowing how to make your own website and work your way around the internet, and a blog will force you to exactly that. 

Ready to get started on your blog? Here’s a quick tutorial on how to set up a WordPress blog using Bluehost in about 15 minutes. If this post inspired you to start one, I’d love for you to share your blog in the comments!