How to Grow Your Blog in 2026
The State of Blogging in 2026
Welcome back to Articles by Victoria! Every year around this time, I get similar messages from readers asking how to grow a blog or whether blogging is still worth it in 2026. Search engines feel unpredictable while social media feels exhausting, and everyone wonders if they’ve already missed the window.
What’s interesting is that most of these questions aren’t really about growth. They’re about relevance. About whether writing still matters when AI can produce infinite content on demand. About how to stand out without shouting louder than everyone else.
I’ve touched on different parts of this across previous articles in my Blogging Tips series. In How to be a Writer Without AI, but With Your Own Voice, I wrote about how easy it is to lose your voice to AI if you are aware of it. In 5 Ways to Beat AI-driven Search Engines, I explored why optimization for search engines in the landscape of AI Overviews is not an option, but a must. And in Your Name Is Already a Search Term, I wrote about why your personal brand matters.
This article is just me putting all of that together (because I’m just an over-explainer like that).
All in all, growing a blog in 2026 looks very different from how it used to. And in some ways, it looks a lot simpler.
1. Don’t start without email newsletters
There’s a famous saying: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Email newsletters have been around for a long time and are still one of the few places on the internet where someone explicitly gives you permission to send them emails. That opt in matters more than people realize.
When someone subscribes to a newsletter, there’s an unspoken agreement happening. You commit to showing up with something useful or thoughtful. They commit to opening, reading, maybe even replying. That kind of permission-based relationship is rare in a landscape where most content is pushed at people whether they want it or not.
While every social platform is busy wrestling with algorithm changes, shifting content policies, and increasingly AI curated feeds, email is still doing the same boring, reliable thing it has always done. It reaches people who explicitly asked to hear from you.
Your blog becomes the home base. The place where your ideas live over time. The newsletter is how you show up consistently without fighting an algorithm every week.
The data backs this up too. According to the State of Newsletter report by beehiiv, publishers sent over 28 billion emails last year and reached more than 255 million unique readers. Open rates are still hovering above 41 percent, which is honestly wild given how crowded inboxes have become. Paid subscriptions alone jumped from 8 million dollars in 2024 to 19 million in 2025, largely driven by niche creators who know exactly who they’re writing for.
This is not sponsored by the way, but I’m currently using beehiiv for newsletters and its free tier alone suits my needs very well. The analytics are also comprehensive yet simple. That’s why in 2026, I believe having a direct channel to your readers isn’t a “nice to have” feature, it’s a must-have and a long-term way to grow your blog.
2. Let Your Readers Know You
One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that the replies I receive are rarely about how technically correct an article is. They’re about recognition and relatability.
“This is a really interesting article and something I've often thought about.”
“This felt familiar.”
“I could hear your voice while reading this.”
That doesn’t happen by accident, it’s intentional.
I simply write the way I think. Quite direct, occasionally sarcastic. Sometimes I admit I’m unsure or I do not have a lot of experience about the topic. I share about things I second-guessed, decisions I changed my mind about, and moments where I didn’t have a clean answer yet.
Over time, the blog stops feeling like a publication and starts feeling like a diary that happens to be readable and reply-able. I like to hear your, my readers’, thoughts and perspectives as well. And more often than not, they are willing to share their experiences with me. It’s almost like we’re just friends sharing our learnings with each other.
And that’s what people come back for.
You don’t need to manufacture relatability. You just need to write as authentically as you can. If someone reads a few posts and feels like they know you a little better, you’re doing something right.
3. Get a Domain
This sounds basic, but it’s surprisingly important. Many readers told me they want to try out blogging through Medium or Dev.to first. That’s totally fine but I always recommend that they should gradually move to their own domain.
A domain gives your writing a home that isn’t dependent on any single platform. Because honestly, feeds change, platforms or tools disappear and algorithms reset. Only your domain stays and you have full control on how it lives, how it’s presented, and where it goes next.
This is something I also realized lately, but it also subtly shifts how your work is perceived. Picture visiting an article that’s from “medium.com/johndoe” vs “johndoe.com”. There’s a difference in how your audience will remember your content when it’s something you intentionally build. A domain can signal that intention and build your credibility fast.
Your name, or something close to it, becomes searchable. I wrote more about this in Your Name Is Already a Search Term, but the short version is this:
Make it easy for people to find you again once they’ve decided they want to.
4. Don’t separate “technical” from “personal”
One of the biggest misconceptions I still see is the idea that personal context somehow weakens technical writing. In reality, it’s the opposite.
AI can explain how something works. It can summarize documentation. It can list best practices faster than any human ever could. What it can’t do convincingly is explain why something felt confusing, or what tradeoff only became obvious after shipping, or how a decision played out over time.
That’s where personal context becomes essential.
When I write about leadership, systems, or data governance, the technical insight only lands because it’s wrapped in experience. In things I’ve actually tried. In mistakes I’ve made. In assumptions that didn’t hold.
People aren’t reading blogs in 2026 to collect facts because they can just ask LLMs for those. They’re reading to borrow wisdom and perspectives.
And wisdom doesn’t exist without a human behind it.
5. Follow your curiosity and let the rest catch up
For the longest time, I see my blog as an extension of my curiosity. I write about technical tools and documentation, hackathons, productivity, focus, and sometimes book reviews when I feel like it. That’s why you can check out the amount of series I have on this blog. It’s unnecessarily overcrowded, haha.
Sometimes I look at my blog and wonder who would read it when it looks like there was no plan behind it. No niche optimization or anything. I was just writing what I enjoyed writing about.
And yes, there were moments where I wondered if this was a waste of time. Should I have written posts more strategically? For example, my book review articles don’t rank that well (and were not designed to). They’re just posts for me to pen down my key takeaways and reflections from reading the book. SEO-wise, they don’t even exist. And yet, a few people still discovered them, including the author himself.
My review of Matthew’s book “The Introvert’s Edge to Networking”, which I still re-read occasionally.
I still write book reviews till today, and you can check them out in my Books & Reflections series.
Then one day, an email came in. A publishing company asked if I’d be open to writing a sponsored book review. They had already read my previous reviews and knew exactly what they were getting. What surprised me wasn’t the opportunity itself. It was how little convincing was required, because my writing had already done the work.
That was the moment it clicked for me. When you write what you genuinely enjoy, you’re not just publishing content. You’re leaving behind a trail of how you think, what you value, what you notice when no one is telling you what to write.
In 2026, that trail matters more than any optimization strategies.
Final Verdict
Growing a blog in 2026 isn’t about being louder or faster or more optimized.
It’s about being clearer with who you are and how you want to convey that through writing. Here are some questions I encourage you to ponder about when starting out your journey:
What am I truly excited to share with people?
If I can give a TED talk right now, what would the topic(s) be? What would be the best way to convey that to people?
What do I want to be known for? What do I want people to say about me when I’m not in the room?
What is stopping me from starting a blog, and how do I overcome it?
Be clear about what you care about. Be clear about the kind of thinking you want to put into the world even when no one is reading yet.
If your writing sounds like you, reaches people directly, and gives them something they can’t get from a generated summary, growth becomes a side and long-lasting effect. And honestly for me, that’s the only kind of growth that still feels worth investing.
Thanks for reading! I’m curious to know your own personal thoughts and experiences on this topic! Feel free to connect, send me an email (my inbox is always open) or let me know in the comments! Cheers!
