In the context of content marketing, the terms “blogging” and “content writing” can seem synonymous and interchangeable. While both are types of content developed specifically for websites, each one serves a different purpose. Understanding the difference between each will allow you to maximize its potential for content marketing.

Blogging

A blog’s goal is to create interesting and unique content for a specific website. This can refer to written content, photography, and other forms of multimedia that you essentially self-publish online. Blog content can vary significantly, depending on the site’s focus. However, by and large, blogging means you’re focused on one specific niche. For instance, travel blogs are best known for being photo heavy complemented by some written content; while political blogs that tend to hash out complex subject matter tend to be more copy heavy. The tone of the writing also tends to be more personal, with the writing peppered with a lot of personal opinions and perspectives.

Like many innovations that started on the Internet, a lot of businesses saw the marketing potential of maintaining a blog for their brands. The adoption of blogging as a marketing tool helped boost its popularity as a medium. By ensuring the platform is updated frequently and encouraging reader engagement, brands can effectively maximize blogs for marketing purposes.

Content Writing

Content writing is a generic term that specializes in developing content for websites. Unlike blogging, which focuses on a specific subject matter or niche, content writing is more diverse and flexible. Content writers focus on developing high-quality content across different subjects to inform the audience or readers about a specific product or service.

Content writing requires more diversity in terms of writing style from writers. They’re not necessarily as free to impart their thoughts and opinions as bloggers are because they usually write to represent a company or brand. This makes content writing a mix of copywriting, SEO, and corporate content development that’s focused on writing concise, readable material for a brand or service’s website.

While there are many aspects about blogging and content writing that intersect and make it seem like they are interchangeable, the major difference between each is in the purpose behind the writing. Bear in mind that blogging’s goal is to produce something compelling that readers can enjoy, often by voicing the blogger’s thoughts and insights on a given niche. Content writing on the other hand is a broader term that refers mostly to writing done in the service of businesses. It often has the intent of informing and educating readers and could even have some advertising slant to help convince their audience to take action.

Hope my answer helps clarify this question. If you have any more questions about this, feel free to join the conversation about this topic on our Twitter or LinkedIn. Or you can simply leave your question in the comment section below and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.