Look, I know what you’re thinking. Blogging in 2026? Isn’t that about as relevant as a fax machine at a Tesla dealership? I get it. Every marketing guru with a podcast has been declaring blogging dead since about 2015, right around the time they pivoted to video content and started making thumb-and-arrow YouTube thumbnails.

But here’s the thing: blogging isn’t dead. It’s just that most people are doing it spectacularly wrong.

I’ve been writing for the web for years now, cranking out content across multiple Australian businesses, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that blogging still works. The catch? You need to actually do it properly, which apparently is asking too much from most businesses who treat their blog like that gym membership they signed up for in January and forgot about by February.

What Changed (And What Didn’t)

Back in the early 2000s, blogging was the Wild West. You could slap together 300 words about literally anything, sprinkle in some keywords like you were seasoning a poorly cooked steak, and boom. Page one of Google. Those were simpler times. Dumber times, perhaps, but simpler.

Then Google got smarter. Like, uncomfortably smart. The algorithm updates started rolling out with names that sounded like rejected Pokémon: Panda, Penguin, Hummingbird. Each one was designed to punish the lazy content mills and reward actual quality. And you know what? It mostly worked.

Fast forward to today, and we’ve got AI content generators pumping out generic slop faster than a soft-serve machine at Macca’s. This has convinced a lot of businesses that blogging is pointless because “everyone’s doing it” or “AI can do it better.” Wrong on both counts, but we’ll get to that.

The Uncomfortable Truth About Modern Blogging

Most business blogs are terrible. Like, genuinely awful. They read like they were written by a committee of accountants who were told to sound “relatable” but had never actually spoken to a human being before. You know the type: “In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, leveraging synergistic solutions…” Mate, nobody talks like that. Nobody thinks like that. So why would you write like that?

Want to know what bad blogging looks like? Go check out any local service business blog. I’m looking at a locksmith website right now and the blog titles are absolutely riveting: “DIY Locksmithing In Berwick: Is It Really A Good Idea?” (spoiler alert: they say no, hire them instead), “The Importance Of Regular Lock Maintenance: Insights From Berwick Locksmiths” (wow, thrilling), and my personal favourite, “What To Look For In A Cranbourne Locksmith – A Comprehensive Guide.”

Three guesses who they recommend you should hire as your Cranbourne locksmith. Go on, I’ll wait.

These articles exist purely to stuff location-based keywords into their website. Nobody is actually searching “insights from Berwick locksmiths” at 2am when they’re locked out of their house. They’re searching “locksmith near me open now” or “emergency locksmith Berwick.” But instead of useful content, you get 500 words of corporate waffle that could apply to literally any service business in any location.

The blogs that actually work in 2026 are the ones that sound like a real person wrote them. Someone with opinions. Someone who doesn’t hedge every single statement with “research suggests” or “studies have shown.” Someone who isn’t afraid to call out the emperor for wearing no clothes.

Take my article about racist and homophobic food products in Australia. That thing gets traffic years after I wrote it because it’s actually interesting. It takes a stance. It has personality. It’s not trying to please everyone, which ironically makes it more useful to the people who are actually looking for that information.

What “Properly” Actually Means

Right, so if blogging still works, what does doing it “properly” look like? Let’s break it down.

Write for humans first, search engines second. I cannot stress this enough. Google’s algorithm is sophisticated enough now that it can tell when you’re writing naturally versus when you’re stuffing keywords in like you’re trying to win a sausage-eating contest. Write something you’d actually want to read. Use contractions. Make jokes. Reference pop culture. Be yourself, not a corporate automaton.

That locksmith blog I mentioned? Every single article title includes the suburb name. “Emergency Locksmith Service In Berwick,” “Finding Good Locksmiths in Cranbourne,” “Locked Out In Cranbourne? Here’s Why You Should Call A Professional Locksmith.” They’re not writing for humans, they’re writing for the Google robot they think still existed in 2012.

Pick topics people actually care about. This seems obvious, but apparently it’s not. Your blog shouldn’t just be thinly veiled product advertisements. Nobody’s searching “why our company’s widgets are the best widgets in the widget industry.” They’re searching for solutions to problems. Answer those questions. My article about why Burger King is called Hungry Jack’s in Australia performs well because people genuinely want to know that. It’s interesting. It solves a curiosity gap.

A better locksmith blog would be something like “I called five locksmiths at 3am and here’s what happened” or “How scam locksmiths prey on desperate people (and how to spot them)” or even “The weirdest places I’ve found keys after a lockout.” Give me stories. Give me useful information I can’t get anywhere else. Don’t give me another article about why I should get my locks maintained regularly. We know. Everyone knows.

Commit to consistency. One blog post every six months isn’t a content strategy, it’s a sad reminder that you forgot you had a blog. You don’t need to post daily, that’s overkill for most businesses. But weekly or fortnightly? That’s sustainable and builds momentum.

Looking at that locksmith blog again, they posted maybe nine articles over three years. The most recent is from March 2023. It’s now 2026. That’s not a blog, that’s a graveyard with better SEO.

Make it genuinely useful. Not “useful” in the corporate buzzword sense where you’re technically saying words but communicating nothing. Useful as in, someone reads your blog post and their life is tangibly better for having read it. They learned something. They solved a problem. They were entertained. Something. My deep dive into the Animorphs franchise is absurdly long, but people read the whole thing because it’s comprehensive and entertaining.

The SEO Stuff That Actually Matters

I could spend 3,000 words breaking down technical SEO, but honestly, most of that is noise. Here’s what genuinely moves the needle:

Keywords still matter, but not how you think. Don’t keyword stuff. Just don’t. Instead, write naturally about your topic and the keywords will appear organically. Think about how people actually search. Nobody types “digital marketing solutions Sydney” into Google. They type “how do I get more customers for my cafe.” Write for the second person, not the first.

If you’re a locksmith and your entire blog is “Service Type + Suburb Name,” you’re doing it wrong. Write about the actual problems people have. “What to do when your key breaks off in the lock,” “Why your deadbolt won’t lock properly,” “The real cost of rekeying vs replacing locks.” These are actual questions people ask. Answer them properly and the suburb names will come up naturally in the context.

Long-form content wins. Not because Google has some arbitrary preference for word count, but because comprehensive content that thoroughly answers a question tends to be longer. My Vegemite crossovers timeline works because it’s complete. It’s not a lazy listicle that stops at five items because the writer got bored.

Internal linking is criminally underused. See how I’ve been linking to other articles throughout this piece? That’s not just for your benefit, that’s telling Google these pages are related and valuable. It keeps people on your site longer. It builds topical authority. Do it.

Headers are your friends. Break up your text. Nobody wants to read a wall of text that looks like a Terms and Conditions document. Use headers (like the ones in this article) to create a clear structure. It helps readers scan. It helps Google understand what you’re talking about. Everyone wins.

Images matter more than you think. Use actual relevant images. Write proper alt text. Compress them so your page doesn’t load like it’s 2003. Again, this stuff isn’t rocket science, but most people still can’t be bothered.

Why AI Hasn’t Killed Blogging (And Won’t)

Everyone’s freaking out about AI content. “ChatGPT can write 10 blog posts in the time it takes me to write one!” Sure, and they’ll all read like they were written by the same bland robot who learned English from a corporate handbook.

AI is a tool, not a replacement. I use AI to help research, to brainstorm ideas, to check my work. But the actual writing? That needs a human voice. That needs personality. That needs the ability to call Boost Juice’s Vegemite smoothie “probably the weirdest Vegemite crossover that seriously no one was asking for” and mean it.

Google’s getting better at detecting AI slop too. The helpful content updates are specifically targeting low-value content that exists just to rank, regardless of whether a human or robot wrote it. The quality bar is higher than ever, which actually benefits people who give a damn about what they’re writing.

You can always tell when a business has just plugged “write me a blog post about lock maintenance” into ChatGPT and called it a day. The result is that same corporate tone, the same generic advice, the same “Locks are an essential part of our daily lives, providing us with the security and peace of mind we need” opening paragraph that could be about literally anything.

The Australian Angle

Writing in Australia gives you a built-in advantage that most marketers completely ignore: local specificity. Americans might not care about Allen’s Redskins becoming Red Ripperz, but Australians absolutely do. That local flavour, those cultural references, the casual “mate” dropped into conversation? That’s gold.

Australian English matters too. Spelling realise with an ‘s’ not a ‘z’. Writing about centres not centers. Using local terminology. Google knows what country your audience is in. Speak their language, literally.

And for the love of god, if you’re a local business, be genuinely local. Don’t just spam suburb names into every blog title like you’re trying to hack Google circa 2008. Write about actual local issues, actual local people, actual local stories. If you’re a locksmith in Berwick, write about the weird quirks of doors in Federation-era homes, or the rise in smart lock installations after that break-in spree last year, or literally anything that shows you actually work in that area and know what’s going on.

The Business Case for Blogging

Let’s get mercenary for a second. Why should your business actually invest time and money into blogging when you could be making TikToks or whatever the kids are doing now?

Because blog content compounds. That video you post on Instagram? It’s gone in 24 hours unless you save it to highlights where nobody will ever find it. That TikTok? It’ll get views for maybe a week, then disappear into the algorithm void. But a good blog post? That thing can drive traffic for years.

My article about racist food products was published in 2019. It’s 2026 now. Still getting thousands of views. Still driving traffic. Still building authority. Try that with a Tweet.

Blogs also serve multiple purposes. They’re marketing collateral. They’re training materials. They’re sales tools. They demonstrate expertise. They improve your SEO. They give your audience something to share. One piece of content, multiple uses. That’s efficient.

What Doesn’t Work Anymore

Let’s be honest about what’s dead and buried:

Keyword-stuffed garbage. Stop it. Google knows. Your readers know. Everyone knows. If every blog post title on your site is “[Service] in [Suburb],” you’re not fooling anyone. You’re just making your blog painful to navigate.

Guest posting on dodgy link farms. This won’t get you penalised anymore (Google learned that lesson after competitors started buying bad links to sabotage each other), but it’s a complete waste of time and money. Google just ignores them now. You’re literally paying for links that do nothing. It’s like buying a gym membership and never going, except somehow even more pointless.

Clickbait headlines that don’t deliver. “You Won’t Believe What Happened Next!” Yes, I will. You wasted my time. Now I hate your brand.

Thin content. Those 300-word blog posts that say absolutely nothing? Dead. The minimum to rank for anything competitive is probably 1,500 words of actual substance, not fluff. And no, repeating the same three points about lock maintenance in different words doesn’t count as substance.

Ignoring mobile. If your blog looks terrible on mobile, which is how most people will read it, you’ve already lost.

Getting Started (Or Started Again)

Maybe your blog has been gathering dust since 2019. Maybe you’ve never started one. Here’s how to fix that:

Start by auditing what you’ve got. Delete or redirect the garbage. Update anything that’s still good but outdated. Then create a content calendar. Not an aspirational one where you post daily, but a realistic one you’ll actually stick to.

Research what your audience actually wants to read. Use Google’s autocomplete. Check what your competitors are writing about (and more importantly, what they’re NOT writing about that they should be). Look at forums and social media to see what questions keep coming up. Then answer those questions better than anyone else.

Write in your actual voice. Not some corporate approximation of professionalism. If you’re naturally funny, be funny. If you’re more straightforward and analytical, lean into that. Authenticity is the secret sauce that makes content memorable.

If you’re a locksmith, don’t write another article about “The Importance Of Regular Lock Maintenance.” Write about the time someone called you at 3am because they’d superglued their lock trying to fix it themselves after watching a YouTube video. Write about the most expensive lock you’ve ever installed and whether it was actually worth it. Write about the psychology of why people hide spare keys in the same three places (and why burglars know this). Give me something I can’t get from every other locksmith website.

The Long Game

Blogging isn’t a quick fix. You’re not going to publish three articles and suddenly have 10,000 visitors. It’s a long-term investment that pays compound interest. Your first few posts might get a handful of views. Your twentieth might break through. Your fiftieth might go viral.

The businesses that win with blogging are the ones that commit to it for years, not months. They build topical authority. They create comprehensive resources. They become the go-to source for information in their niche.

Look at any successful blog, this one included. It’s been running for years. It has hundreds of articles. It covers topics thoroughly and comprehensively. That depth and breadth is what builds authority, both with Google and with readers.

Compare that to the typical business blog that publishes nine articles over three years, all with titles like “Why You Need [Service] in [Suburb],” and then wonders why they’re not getting traction. You’re not getting traction because you gave up before you even started. You’re not getting traction because your content is interchangeable with everyone else’s. You’re not getting traction because nobody actually wants to read what you wrote.

Why You Should Care

If you’re running a business in 2026 and you’re not blogging (or you’re blogging badly), you’re leaving money on the table. Your competitors who are doing it properly are capturing search traffic you could have. They’re establishing themselves as experts. They’re building trust with potential customers before those customers even make contact.

Blogging is one of the few marketing channels that gets more valuable over time, not less. Your oldest posts, if they’re good, will keep working for you. They’ll keep ranking. They’ll keep driving traffic. They’ll keep converting readers into customers.

So yeah, blogging still works. It’s just that you actually have to be good at it now. No more phoning it in with 300 words of AI-generated slop. No more keyword stuffing. No more treating your blog like an afterthought. No more “The Importance Of Regular [Service Name]” articles that say nothing.

Write like a human. Be useful. Be consistent. Be interesting. Actually care about what you’re writing and who you’re writing for. That’s it. That’s the whole game.

And if you’re still not convinced, well, you’ve just read 2,500+ words of a blog post, haven’t you? Seems to be working just fine.