Should You Blog if English Isn’t Your First Language?

Amongst a lot of internet users, particularly those residing in the USA, there’s a prevailing impression that the internet is English. Not that it is in any way owned by England. But in some ways, Americans like to have an impression like they created and own the internet, and that everyone else is just using it.

This impression is not helped by the filtering Google puts into place in their search - it makes sense, of course. If I go looking for instructions on how to use a part of software, a result in German or Farsi or Mandarin is not likely to help me out. When an English speaker is looking for results, Google wants to give you only helpful results, and so only shows English content.

The reality is that there are billions of pages on the web written in a number of languages. Many bigger, international sites like to have multilingual options, with the ability to choose a country of origin or language to translate the content. Maybe not all of the content is available in that language. But enough is to make it helpful. That said, English still dominates: as of 2024, roughly 54% of all websites worldwide are in English, far ahead of Spanish at just 5.6%.

All of this is a little beside the point, and serves only to illustrate the situation at hand. If you’re a non-native English speaker, an ESL speaker of any kind, or if you have less than perfect English grammar, should you bother blogging?

Arguments Against

I’m just going to start by stating the arguments you’re likely to see against blogging if you’re less than fluent in English.

First of all, it’s an unfortunate reality, but the internet is rife with racism. America is a big part of it. But there’s racism everywhere in the world. If you’re writing and your writing shows less than full command of English, a segment of the population will use that against you.

Most of these are going to be silent, basically ignoring or blocking your site and your profiles on principle. A few will be more vocal, leaving rude comments or making negative remarks in your community - this largely won’t be a problem; you can basically block them and move on. But it’s still something that might happen, and it’s something you’ll have to be aware of if you’re interested in blogging.

Secondly, you might have some problems depending on your level of English fluency. There are a lot of ESL writers out there, many of whom are quite coherent and basically use some words or phrases in uncommon ways. You don’t have to stick closely to the AP Style Guide in order to get your point across.

The issue comes if you do have trouble getting your point across. If you repeatedly use the wrong words or phrases, you create sentences and blog posts that don’t mean what you intend them to mean - it makes blogging quite tough if you aren’t able to get across a clear meaning.

In some niches, this isn’t necessarily too bad. For example, if you’re writing a tutorial on how to accomplish a task in a given part of software, a series of screenshots of the software can help explain your instructions. Even with a few awkward choices of phrases, you’re still going to get your meaning across. Other niches might not have these easy assists.

A third possible issue is the stigma in English against ESL writing. Years ago, massive amounts of content spammed nearly every corner of the internet. When volume mattered more than quality, webmasters would hire the cheapest possible writers they could to produce anything and everything. Sometimes the cheap writer was just spun content, sometimes it was an ESL writer from Bangladesh or the Philippines, and sometimes it was English-fluent writers who didn’t know their worth.

The glut of low quality content is, in part, what caused Google’s Panda update and the subsequent quality-focused updates since then. Google’s Helpful Content system, which became a core part of its ranking algorithm, doubled down on rewarding content that legitimately serves readers instead of just ticking SEO boxes.

What that means is that any content that doesn’t meet minimum levels of quality will be ranked lower than similar content that meets those quality standards - this includes depth of content. But it also includes things like typos and poor grammar. While Google hasn’t explicitly confirmed grammar as a direct ranking factor, poor readability can hurt user engagement signals, which do affect rankings.

I know of a few high profile blogs written by ESL writers, and yes, they have some grammatical errors and the occasional spelling issue. However, so do posts written by fluent English speakers. As long as your posts are intelligible and aren’t positively riddled with typos, you’re probably fine. There are several ways to check your spelling and grammar before publishing to help catch these issues.

Most importantly, you want to triple-check any high-visibility zones of your site, those with more clout than the rest. H1 and H2 headings, the featured snippet or meta description for your page, your page titles; these should be free of errors.

Arguments For

All of the above are the problems you might face as a non-English fluent writer, trying to write in English, for a blog. As you can see, they’re basically all surmountable problems. Now let’s talk about reasons why you should blog, even given all that.

First of all, you’re an expert in your subject. Right? Think about it, you wouldn’t want to start a blog if you had nothing to say. In some ways, ESL speakers have a helpful position; a different life and different experiences bring different perspectives.

It’s also worth putting the scale of this into perspective. There are approximately 380 million native English speakers in the world, but around 1.12 billion non-native English speakers. You are not alone. The internet’s dominant language is not the exclusive property of those who grew up speaking it, and the blogging world reflects that well.

If you’re an expert, you should write a blog. If you don’t think you’re an expert, maybe you should rethink. That advice has nothing to do with your native language. There are plenty of modern blog writers who would probably be better off not writing. But the latest interplay between business and the internet means that to not blog means leaving tons of money on the table.

If you’re running a business of any sort, running a blog is important, and maybe more so than ever. Again, that’s regardless of your fluency in any language. Having English as a second language basically means needing to work a bit harder at it.

If that alone isn’t enough to convince you, just think about how every problem you see is one that can be overcome with the right tools or assets on your side. Grammatical errors in blog writing can be circumvented in a number of ways.

• Crank up the grammar and spelling checks in your word processor. MS Word and Google Docs both have pretty good spell checks and decent grammar checks. You can fix most of your egregious errors this way. You can also set up autocorrect rules to automatically fix common issues every time you type them.
• Use a third party tool like Grammarly. There are some things the built-in tools can’t handle, and specifically designed tools like Grammarly can. The trick here is learning which errors should be fixed and which can be ignored, since Grammarly will pick up on a lot of “errors” that everyone makes and no one cares about.
• Use AI writing assistants as a support tool. Tools like ChatGPT or Claude can be genuinely useful for ESL bloggers - not to write your content for you, but to help you rephrase awkward sentences, check tone, or clarify meaning. Think of it as a knowledgeable friend you can run a draft past before publishing.
• Hire an editor. There are thousands of editors available at a wide range of price points who will edit the blog posts you write for you. Some will only handle spelling and grammar, while others will handle structure and content, perhaps even with fact checking and verification. Those latter are more expensive, but can be invaluable if you want to write a book.
• Hire a writer. After all, just because your name is on the post doesn’t mean you had to be the one to write it. It’s pretty easy to come up with topics that you then assign to a writer to flesh out for you. You can even write up drafts and tell them it’s a rewrite. Freelance platforms like Freelancer, Fiverr, or Upwork will hook you up with the people you need.

As an extra benefit, you can learn! As you write blog posts and correct them, via editors or tools, you’ll start to see common errors you make. You can make a conscious effort to learn from those errors and fix them before they need to be fixed by an editor. Eventually, you’ll reach an acceptable level of fluency and can cut down on the editing. I don’t recommend cutting out editing entirely - even a second run-through for proofreading yourself can be helpful - but you don’t need to hire an editor for every blog post any more.

You can also take online classes to improve your English writing. There’s no shame in learning another language, after all. According to the British Council, around 375 million people are actively learning English as a second language at any given time - you’d be in very good company, and it puts you leagues above those who never make the effort at all.

Fringe Benefits

If you’re bilingual or multilingual, you have some extra benefits that purely English bloggers don’t.

For one thing, you can always create a fork of your site in your other language - it opens up a niche you might not otherwise be able to access. It can depend on how open that niche is in your native language and how big of a market there is for your blog. But you can position yourself well with mirrors in multiple languages, and each time you write a blog post, write a translation in the other language and post it on your website. There are pros and cons to this. But if you do it right, you can use each post to earn basically double the value.

Even if you’re not writing your blog posts in your second language, being able to serve that language when communicating with clients can open up entire niches you aren’t otherwise able to access. Many other businesses you’re competing with won’t be able to take on those customers because of the language barrier. But you’ll be able to snap them up. You can’t tell me that’s not a benefit.

The financial upside of English fluency is also worth mentioning. Research from Kaplan International suggests that employees who speak multiple languages, including English, can expect as high as a 20% pay increase compared to monolingual peers. For U.S.-based immigrants specifically, English proficiency has been linked to earnings that are 15-19% higher than those who speak only their native language. Building a blog in English is, in that sense, an investment in your own earning potential.

If your choice is picking one or the other, I’d usually recommend that you choose English. Choosing to write in a different language might let you dominate a niche more easily, but it’s also going to be less lucrative in most cases. Most monetization platforms - ad networks, affiliate programs, sponsored content - pay a premium for English-language content. You can’t do much about this; it’s just the nature of a widespread economy primarily conducted in English.

As far as I’m concerned, a few typos or grammatical problems aren’t all that important in the context of writing online. While it’s true that search engines reward quality and readability, a few problems aren’t going to break the bank - maybe it’s slightly harder to rank compared to the same content without the errors. But guess what? You can go back and fix the errors later! Nothing says you can’t, and you’ll get that ranking bump if they were hurting you.

If you have something to say, say it; it’s what the internet is for. Building a blog and putting forth your expert opinions builds resources for others, and serving an audience that your skills can suit is what it’s all about.