Blogging isn’t something that just came about within the last year, it’s actually something that has been around since 1994. While blogs became mainstream in 2010 with over 152 million blogs online, it is still a medium that hasn’t really taken off in the Caribbean and for good reason. It begs the question to be asked, is blogging relevant in the Caribbean? I decided to break this down into a list of 5 reasons why it is relevant in the Caribbean.
I am sure you have all heard of the phrase, “timing is everything”, haven’t you?
Well, to put this into perspective, here in Trinidad, we only got fibre internet back in 2016. I remember when I just moved here in Oct 2013 and we didn’t even have 1mbps of speed. Netflix was buffering for heaven’s sake…NETFLIX!
If there was a point I was going to regret my decision to move to Trinidad, it was right then and there.
Moving on…Over the last 4 years, as the technology got better locally, it was now feasible for everyday citizens to start thinking about building an online business. With the infrastructure in place, now what we need is the knowledge of how to go about building it.
While there are millions of experts across the globe teaching you how to go about building your website, your blog, your online store, there’s only so much of that information we can use because not all of it is transferrable.
Which brings me to the top 5 reasons why blogging is relevant in the Caribbean in 2020.
Reason 1: Lack of Online Competition
The first reason to build a blog in 2020 is the LACK of competition in the Caribbean.
While data is a bit scarce on the total amount of websites that stem from Trinidad, builtwith.com estimates that there are only about 259 e-commerce websites in Trinidad & Tobago. That’s a very low number.
It makes sense because the typical rhetoric amongst the people is, why should I have a website when I can build a Facebook page and for free.
Because of the lack of websites and the lack of knowledge of SEO or best practices, this has left the door WIDE open for anybody in any niche to come in and compete, simply because they can begin ranking for specific keywords in almost any niche without any real competition.
Now is the best time to start a blog in your niche, learn the basics of SEO and start competing against the bigger entities in your space.
Which brings me to the next reason, you need to start a blog in 2020.
Reason #2: Compete Against the Big Names in Your Space
Let’s face it, not all of us have the resources and finances to compete against some of the other entities within our niche. The internet is your saviour and has levelled the playing field. Now it’s not only about having the finances or resources, its about creativity, consistency and outright caring more for your niche than the other players.
If you are able to build a blog or add a blog to your current business, that focusses on educating your space, people will flock to your content before going anywhere else. Piggybacking off of the first reason, the bigger brands here in the Caribbean are not creating content that educates the users, their only concern is selling.
Whatever content they do create is usually some ad, with some popular person and desperately trying to hack culture. So you don’t even have to worry about the bigger companies in your space competing with you online.
Once you are seen as a subject matter expert in your space, you can begin selling your products or services with ease and this will double as your competitive advantage over your competitors.
Reason #3: Search Engines Love Blogs
This is important from the technical standpoint of how search engines work, especially the most popular of them all, Google.
The search engines want websites that are constantly creating new content, that’s a key metric for how your website gets ranked up or down. They DO NOT like static websites.
The worst type of website you can build is a static brochure website. Here in the Caribbean, the famous question people ask is “how much for a 1-page website?”
Listen, it’s better you don’t even have a website if all you are going to have is a static 1-page website, with just your basic details. The Search Engines hate it and will bury your website and it will never be found unless by chance somebody specifically typed in your address.
Even if you don’t necessarily write blogs but you have a Youtube channel or a podcast, it is best practice to create a new show page and embed your video or podcast onto that page. If you do this, your website will constantly have new content in the eyes of Google and other platforms and you will get ranked better.
Your website must have constant new content, whether it is a blog, embedded video or podcast, make sure you are posting all of your content to your website.
Not only will you be driving views to your videos and podcasts, but people will also be landing on your website page and driving up the traffic to your website.
Reason #4: Keywords
Keywords are the key to online success. Your website is indexable and can be searched based on the keywords or keyphrases you plug into your content.
Social media tries to mimic this with the use of hashtags but it is nowhere close to the power of Search Engines and their web crawling bots.
You will realize that there are Keyword research tools that cost hundreds of dollars a month because of how powerful knowing the right keywords are.
Whenever anybody needs an answer to a question, they type in a keyword or key phrase, the search engines begin searching for the relevant web pages that match the search query. The top-ranked content or pages gets put forward first.
The bonus for us being in the Caribbean is that the search engines all work on geolocation. If the enquirer is in Trinidad, they will try to find the relevant content in Trinidad first before they show content from the next relevant country.
IT IS BLUE OCEAN FOR US HERE IN THE CARIBBEAN!!!
Start putting out content and ranking for all keywords in your niches, that way when people are searching for information in your niche, you have a greater chance of a sale, simply because you were the one that showed up.
Learn how to do proper keyword research and you will put yourself ahead by years and minimize what you spend on ads because people are naturally searching for the content you are putting out and you are making content surrounding things people are searching for.
Reason #5: Shareability
To round off my top 5 reasons to start your blog in 2020 is Shareability. Sharing blogs are so much easier to share than videos and podcasts.
We aren’t always in the position to watch a video or listen to a podcast. People can easily grab your URL and share it to any platform. Remember, even if you are embedding videos or your podcasts to a new page on your website, it’s still easy to share.
Remember, it is much easier to share a link than it is a video or audio file.
Your website/blog should be the host of all of your content, which you then share on social media platforms. The goal is always to get social media traffic to come back to platforms that you control.
When you listen to a lot of blog experts in other markets, they speak about how fierce competition is to rank. If you didn’t have any context, you would think it was pointless because there are millions of blogs on the market and yours probably won’t be heard.
That is true for other markets around the world and NOT TRUE for our markets here in the Caribbean.
The best time to start a blog in the Caribbean was yesterday, the next best time is today!
If you are interested but have no idea where to begin when it comes to blogging, no worries I got you covered.
I have partnered with Eastern Credit Union to bring a series of workshops called “Today at Eastern”.
Our first workshop of 2020 is coming up on Jan 21 and it’s all about “Starting a Blog”. Hit this link if you want all the details about the workshop and we would love to have you there with us and learning with the rest of the community.
More info here —> Today At Eastern: Starting a Blog Workshop
I hope this article gave you 5 solid reasons why blogging in the Caribbean is relevant now more than ever before.
If you also want an excellent resource for blogging advice, check out one of my go-to sources, The Blogging Wizard.