There are millions of individuals, businesses, and organizations that provide regular content to their audiences. For some, content — be it workshops, courses, or paid subscriptions — is the core of their business. For others, it’s a means to strengthen their brand presence and win potential customers by providing real upfront value that welcomes them into the sales funnel.
If you’re not already thinking about how to attract and support content creators and bloggers, we think you should be. Here’s why.
Why you should strategically target content creators
It’s a huge pool of potential customers
Content marketing is a point of focus for almost all organizations nowadays. In fact, 82% of marketers actively use content marketing. As consumers, we increasingly care more about a company’s values, and our buying decisions are swayed by how we feel about the brand. Content delivered through a combination of a blog, social media, and newsletters, is how companies build their brand voice, communicate their values to customers, and drive organic traffic to their websites.
There is also a huge population of independent content creators. According to this Forbes article, around 50 million content creators currently exist today. The number of content creators is only expected to rise as more find ways to make a little extra money on the side or expand their side-hustle into a full time gig. While often utilizing social media as an important acquisition tool, many of these creators are ultimately trying to guide their audience toward a blog or website, where they can share their unique stories in greater detail, offer further insight, and convert readers into customers.
Content creators tend to be high-quality customers
Creating content is time-consuming and requires investment in the form of both time and money. Currently there are over 550 million blogs worldwide, and that number is only growing. Blogs cover a truly unlimited range of topics. You’ll find successful bloggers in just about every niche, be it food, business, tech, design, politics, science, or fashion. Content creators are experts in their field and want to own their content. For many of them, this means not being restricted to propriety platforms like the main social media channels.
They are also constantly producing new content to keep their audience engaged. They tend to consistently invest in their websites and keep them up-to-date, which translates into high renewal rates for domains, hosting, website builder platforms, and related services. They are also solid candidates for additional services, which can translate into a greater customer lifetime value and greater customer stickiness. For example, you can offer them the affordable, custom email address from which they send their monthly newsletter. And maybe you can provide them an easy and useful way to connect their account with you to whatever platform that they’re using to send that newsletter.
Again, what all this translates into is high renewal rates and high usage rates for their paid hosting service.
How offering relevant TLDs like .blog can help
As with most target customer segments, it’s easier to convert content creators when they’re just starting out than it is to win them over from a competitor later on. Presenting them with relevant extensions like .blog during the initial stage of their journey can help attract and convert them. In fact, .blog sees its best conversion rates with content creators who are just launching their initiative.
This makes sense if we think from the content creator’s perspective. They want to establish a fresh online identity and are often eager to try a quality TLD that is globally recognized and on-brand. Choosing a domain name is one of the first factors considered when beginning a blog. While classic generic TLDs, like .com, .net, and .org, are still options, many creators want something that feels more unique and clearly communicates their purpose. Plus, if the .com they had in mind is taken, it’s important to be able to offer them an alternative: one that they love and that empowers them to keep the short, sweet, and memorable brand name they’re already attached to.
The .blog domain extension is seeing consistent growth because of its unique status as a diagonal TLD, meaning it combines the benefits of both vertical and generic options. It clearly communicates the purpose of the website — to share content — but beyond that, it isn’t nich- or industry-specific. So if you’re trying to present TLD options that are likely to be meaningful to a large number of your website visitors, .blog is a very smart fit.
The .blog TLD, paired with a niche- or brand-specific domain name, makes for a great URL. And a great URL matters because it often creates the first impression of a brand and shapes the audience’s perception of the business. Bloggers are drawn to the .blog TLD because it is universal and meaningful to them—it speaks to them. A .blog domain appeals to these customers because it makes their brand more memorable, naturally helps them market their content, and immediately tells their audience what to expect from their site.
Who uses .blog?
Well, a wide range of brands, individual creators, and organizations of all kinds. Here are a few of our favourite examples.
For personal brands
There is a whole segment of entrepreneurs that have built incredibly successful businesses by providing high-quality content under their own name. These online influencers adopted the .blog extension to create a short, memorable domain for their blog:
Tim.blog
Tim Ferriss is arguably a household name. In his own words, his job is to “deconstruct world-class performers to tease out the routines, habits, et cetera that you can apply to your own life.”
Seths.blog
For more than a decade, Seth Godin has posted daily on his incredibly popular blog, where he tries to “turn on lights, inspire people and teach them how to level up.”
For big-name brands
For many organizations, blogs are a central part of their digital marketing strategy.
Iheart.blog
Fans of the iHeart Media Group can listen to music on iheart.com, but iheart.blog is where the company posts announcements, behind-the-scenes news, and upcoming events.
Amazonfiretv.blog.
Amazon Fire TV leaverages .blog to market their products and announce new features by describing them in detail in longer form posts.
Niche-specific content
For creatives for whom blogging is the sole purpose of their business, the .blog TLD, combined with their domain name, immediately communicates what they’re all about in an incredibly keyword-friendly way: “this a blog dedicated to [insert niche here].”
Bucketlistly.blog
Travel guides, backpacking itineraries, and photography resources.
Foodandmood.blog
A beautiful and inspiring food blog for anyone that loves spending time in the kitchen.
The future of .blog
Over 60% of all .blog domains are unique sites with real people and businesses behind them. These domain owners are actively producing content, building communities, and sharing information all over the world. And, these bloggers have over a 72% renewal rate with their .blog domain, which is above the industry standard across all TLDs. The .blog community is only expected to grow. You can attract and support these customers by offering .blog, and inspire them with the impressive range of blogs in the .blog showcase and featured sites list.
How to market .blog
The team at .blog has put together various marketing tools and resources to help you promote the TLD and attract a creator audience. A brand guidance page is provided for an easy overview of coloring, fonts, messaging, and the .blog logo is easily downloadable.
Their messaging kits provide assistance with copy, and an image library full of website marquees, infographics, and royalty-free images.
Contact us to learn more about selling .blog and sign up to take advantage of promotional pricing on this awesome extension.