Two questions that I tend to see come up quite a bit and that are in the same wheelhouse are:

1. “Is blogging still worth it?”
2. “What is the future of blogging?”

In the constantly evolving space of blogging, digital marketing, social media, technology etc, these are actually very valid questions to ask.

Things are always changing and changing fast!

In this post, I will share my thoughts on if blogging is still worth it and what I think the future of blogging entails.

This may help those who are on the fence of starting a blog to begin with and/or motivate active bloggers to keep pressing forward.

But first, let’s address if blogging is still worth it or not…

Is Blogging Still Worth It?

It’s important to note that everyone’s blogging approach and circumstances will be different.

• In general, as long as you’re producing high-quality content, blogging IS most definitely worth it.
• Now on the other hand, if you’re publishing mediocre, short and low-quality articles, then blogging will NOT be worth the time.

Long gone are the days where you can quickly slap together a low-quality 300-400 word blog post and expect it to perform or rank highly.

Google more than ever before is looking to rank blog articles that are informative, comprehensive and incredibly valuable to its users.

So blogging is indeed worth it, but only if you’re willing to put in the necessary work to create high-quality content for your readers.

And as we look to the future of blogging, it’s important to keep a few things in mind as well.

The Future of Blogging – What Should You Focus On?

Now of course there are still unknowns when it comes to the future of blogging and no one knows for 100% certainty what the blogging landscape will exactly look like…

However, with that being said, there are definitely a few areas that I think people should focus their attention on if their goal is to run a sustainable blogging business for years to come.

1.) Quality of Content Should Be a Top Priority

As stated above, crafting high-quality and interesting articles for your readers should be a top priority. Especially with the overwhelmingly growing competition and tons of blogs being created on a daily basis, your work needs to stand out (both to human visitors and the search engines). You can get rewarded with higher search engine rankings by creating content that encourages users to spend a sufficient amount of time on and share with other people. Quality of content is only going to become more and more important in the future of blogging. Also, try to focus on creating longer-form style blog posts of over 2,000 or so words (this doesn’t have to be every blog post, but mix it in). This type of content that covers a subject in its entirety tends to do well and will continue to do well in the major search engines. Neil Patel states that his blog posts are 2,500 words at a minimum and he even has long-form articles that reach 30,000 words! Quality and comprehensive content is truly king here.

2.) Incorporate YouTube Videos Into Your Blog Content

Video content is hotter than ever right now and especially with the growing popularity of YouTube. In fact, YouTube is the second largest search engine (behind Google) with over 1.5 billion logged-in users per month. As a blogger, if you’re not taking advantage of YouTube and embedding videos into your blog content, you are seriously missing out. Supplementing your blog articles with helpful video content that you create is part of the future of blogging. YouTube can also be an excellent way to generate loads of referral traffic for your website, from people clicking on links within your YouTube video descriptions. Building up a reputable YouTube channel will only strengthen your brand and help drive more targeted traffic to your website.

3.) Ensure Your Blog is Mobile Friendly

More and more people are using mobile devices to browse the internet and search the web. If your website is not mobile friendly, 1.) it will lead to a poor user experience and most likely high bounce rates and 2.) it can potentially be de-prioritized by Google and ranked lower in the search results. You need to make sure your blog is mobile responsive and especially with Google rolling out mobile-first indexing. The amount of people using mobile devices is only going to increase in the years to come, so this needs to be a major focus if you’re a blogger.

4.) Generate Content for Featured Snippet Results & Voice Search

Acquiring featured snippet type search results can really help drive more targeted traffic to your website. Featured snippets are special search results (see screenshot below) that are positioned on top of Google’s organic results in a designated box/area.

You should strive to produce/optimize your content to cater to featured snippet results/keyword phrases. Utilize bulleted lists, numbered lists, question/answer style content (especially in headings), add schema markup to articles, add proper imagery and more. Question/answer style content can also be great for voice search, which is the future of blogging as well.

5.) Utilize Social Media to Share Content

No surprise here but a good refresher. If you’re not doing so, you need to start sharing your content properly on top social media platforms. The amount of traffic “hanging out” on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest for example is staggering. This is also where a lot of people’s attention is, so why not utilize these free platforms to get your content in front of more eyeballs?

6.) Website Speed Matters

I cannot believe the amount of bloggers that do not prioritize their website speed. There is nothing more aggravating in my opinion than trying to navigate a website that is super slow-loading. Think about it for a second, Google would much rather rank a website that loads lightening fast compared to a sluggish website (strictly from a user-experience perspective). This can mean all the difference in the world of ranking in Google’s top results, or not ranking high at all. Each month you should run speed tests and look for ways to improve your website speed if you want any shot at outranking your competition. Two free tools you can utilize for this are GTmetrix and Google’s PageSpeed Insights.

7.) Build Your Email List

Every blogger, no matter the niche should be focusing on building their email list. An email list is something that is always yours and that you can always take with you. Collecting email addresses allows you to sell to your subscribers overtime and build a long-lasting relationship. As a blogger, this is truly your biggest asset and you should have strategies in place to encourage people to opt-into your list. The best email marketing software that I personally use and reccomend is ConvertKit. You can read my ConvertKit review here.

8.) Blogging Will Remain a Long-Term Game

Blogging is and always will be a long-term game. Those who consistently produce high-quality content, build their email list and remain very patient will give themselves the best possible shot at becoming a successful blogger. Blogging is by no means an overnight process and should be approached with a long-term mindset. In order to see organic growth, you need to set realistic expectations. If you do this from the start, the probability that you will stick with blogging is much higher. It’s sad to see so many bloggers quit far too soon in their journey. The ones that are the most successful understand that it takes time to build a blogging business. You really need to be in this for life!

Conclusion

The key takeaway here is to understand that blogging will always be evolving. Trends and technology will always be changing. However, if you are able to adapt and approach this with the right strategy and methodology, blogging is definitely worth it. In fact, the businesses that are not utilizing a blog are putting themselves at a serious disadvantage. There will indeed be a form of blogging in the future, it just may be different than years prior. So my recommendation is to blog on and embrace what lies ahead!

Looking for additional guidance for your blog? Check out my blog coaching services here!

Do you think blogging is worth it?

What do you believe the future of blogging will be?

The goal of this post is to be completely transparent and uncover what I have personally discovered as the good and bad of blogging.

Before we get into the thick of things, let me start off by saying that I encourage anyone to get their feet wet and start a blog for the overall learning experience (and especially because there are so many potential benefits).

However, I also think it’s important to be realistic and highlight a few areas that aren’t so sexy or attractive when it comes to blogging.

We see a lot of blogging success stories online (which are incredibly inspiring), but what we don’t see are the millions of people that are struggling to gain any sort of traction with their website.

Also, the successful bloggers generally had to work pretty hard initially and stay consistent for a long period of time before they gained momentum and saw any noticeable results.

Now again, this article is not trying to scare you away from blogging at all and in fact, in my opinion there are way more pros than cons when it comes to blogging.

But I do want to be honest and list out both the positives and negatives that I’ve experienced.

Creating and running a blog whether it’s part-time or full-time can be an incredible opportunity and hopefully this article will help answer any questions you may have and steer you in the right direction.

Blogging Pros and Cons

Like any type of business, there are pros and cons that should be considered before getting involved. Just because blogging is the right business model for one person, doesn’t mean it’s a good fit for another. Please take the time to read the blogging pros and cons below to see if this is something that you would like to pursue.

Pros of Blogging

1.) Very Inexpensive to Get Up & Running

One of the biggest benefits to starting a blog is that it is incredibly inexpensive to get up and running. Remember, a blog is a business (if you treat it like one) that you can have live on the web for literally $3 per month. Compare this to a brick and mortar store (like a local jewelry shop) and the expenses are way WAY less. This is part of the reason why online businesses in general are so attractive. You don’t have to pay rent, there’s less overall overhead expenses and it’s affordable for almost anyone who wants to get involved.

2.) Flexibility To Work from Anywhere with an Internet Connection

This is an attractive benefit to many aspiring bloggers as you are not confined to one place when you work on your business. You can work from home, the local coffee shop, while on vacation or anywhere where there’s a solid Internet connection. To me, this is insanely liberating and one of the reasons why I started my blog to begin with. I really enjoy working from home and having the option to choose where I spend my working hours. So many people are restricted to an office cubicle for example which I know can feel like being shackled to the ground (I used to work an office job and very much disliked the cubicle lifestyle). With blogging, the flexibility is endless and really provides you with location freedom that so many people strive for.

3.) Asset that Works For You 24/7

For me personally as someone who has always been obsessed with investing, creating various streams of income and entrepreneurship, this is my favorite “pro” when it comes to blogging. Once your blog starts gaining some momentum and especially if you’re beginning to generate a steady flow of organic traffic from the search engines, it turns into an asset that works for you 24/7, 365 days a year. In fact, I wrote a whole post on this here. You can be sleeping, at the park, playing golf, eating lunch etc. and your blog can be working for you, generating traffic, leads and sales on autopilot. Now it will indeed take some work to get to this point and that’s one of my “cons” below, but in my opinion it’s way worth the effort to have an asset like this working for you at all times of the day. Once you publish a blog post, it is up there forever for people to discover.

4.) Can Work Into a Busy Schedule

Many of the successful bloggers we see today worked on their blogs part-time before making the transition to full-time. So the good news here is that people who currently work a full-time job, can absolutely still be building a profitable blog part-time on the side. As long as you’re giving it 1-2 hours per day or alternatively devoting your weekends to your blog, it’s the type of online business that doesn’t require full-time work when first starting out. Blogging is such an amazing opportunity because almost anyone can work it into their chaotic and busy schedules.

5.) No Ceiling on Income You Can Earn

Every blogger’s income will be different, but having the global reach that you do when running a website gives you an earning potential that is really unlimited. With billions of people using the Internet and so many different traffic sources to tap into, it’s not uncommon to hear people making full-time incomes from their blog (and sometimes much more). As bloggers we are always producing more content and working on growing our readership which makes it very possible to earn a very good income and scale up overtime. I will caution that bloggers should not be too focused on income though when just getting started and instead be more focused on providing as much value to the marketplace as possible. If you do this, it will give you a much better shot at earning the type of income that you want from your blog.

6.) Positions Yourself as an Authority in Your Niche

Having your own personal blog is a great way to position yourself as an authority figure in your niche. Building a reputation and credibility is crucially important in the online space and can lead to more people sharing your content and more doors opened. Through blogging you can provide your expertise on a given subject, valuable information, tips, tricks, insights and more to slowly build up the authority for your brand and your website. Having a platform such as a blog to communicate relevant information allows you to really brand yourself as an expert and influencer in your niche overtime.

Cons of Blogging:

1.) Growing Competition

It seems like almost everyone nowadays has a blog and the competition continues to grow each and every year. However, in my eyes, competition is a good thing and it’s important to note that most bloggers will quit only after a couple months of blogging anyways. Keep in mind though that everything is much more saturated in general these days and for example, it’s not as easy to rank on page #1 of Google as it used to be. You will have to be creative in your content generation strategy and really work hard to stand out from the growing competition. This is something to be prepared for when starting your blogging business.

2.) Takes Time to Gain Traction

Each and every blog is unique. Some blogs will grow very slowly and others will grow incredibly fast. In general though it’s important to understand that blogging does indeed take a while to start gaining some traction. Organic growth of a blog does not happen overnight and you will need to be producing high-quality content on a consistent basis. There are also no guarantees that your blog will gain traction in the first place, so some people may think that this is a bit of a gamble. However, if you really stick with it and focus on publishing content that will really help your audience, there’s no reason why you can’t start seeing results for yourself. Just know that you must be in this for the long-term in order to succeed.

3.) Requires Hard Work & Strong Commitment

Let’s face it, you really do have to put in a lot of work if you eventually want to make a career/full-time living from your blog. It takes hard work to style your blog, create quality content, implement proper SEO, build a following and keep readers engaged. It takes hard work to build your email list, create your own products and build up your blogging revenue. Plain and simple, blogging is not easy and requires a strong long-term commitment (as discussed above) in order to have any shot at success. If you’re not willing to roll your sleeves up and put in some serious effort, a blog might not be the best option for you.

4.) Requires Some Technical Knowledge

In order to properly set up, manage and maintain your blog, you will need to be prepared for some technical work. Luckily, if you’re using WordPress they make it really easy to craft your blog the way you want it. Nonetheless, you will still need to install necessary plugins, set up an external email autoresponder, ensure your website speed is fast, equip your blog with necessary tools, widgets and much more. This shouldn’t sway you away from creating a blog to begin with though because all of this can be learned and there is a wealth of information online to help you.

Conclusion

I hope this blogging pros and cons list was helpful and gives you a better idea of what it takes to create, manage and run a blog. Again, this is based off of my personal experience. To re-iterate, the cons of blogging that I provided are definitely not to scare anyone away but to help reveal a few areas where some people may run into obstacles. In my opinion, I think anyone should start a blog if they are really interested and devoted as it will be a learning experience like no other. The pros of blogging to me far outweigh the cons and this can truly be a business model that provides more freedom, flexibility and opportunity for many people!

Have you started your blog yet? If not, you may want to read this here.

If you’re looking for additional assistance and/or coaching, please visit my page here.

Check out my video version of this post here!

I was inspired to write this post based on a common trend I see with some of my coaching students and also beginner bloggers in general.

Too many people get into blogging with the sole purpose of making extra money, without any sort of plan, and without any real direction.

We see all these success stories of bloggers who are making full-time incomes from their websites (which is entirely possible) but I personally think this gives people the wrong motivation and message.

The main problem I see with many beginner and aspiring bloggers is that they’re blogging for income. 

Now if you continue to just blog for income, your readers (if you even receive any) will be able to see right through this.

You don’t want to be a blogger who overloads their website with banner ads, Google adsense, affiliate links in almost every single post etc.

Blogging for income and using “money” as a main motivation in my opinion, will make it almost impossible to build a sustainable and thriving business.

In fact, this mindset needs to be shaken up a bit!

Now you’re probably wondering, “okay Evan, so if I’m not blogging for income what the heck is the point of starting a blog in the first place…What am I blogging for?”

Well instead I want you to switch your mindset from blogging for income to blogging for value (or blogging to create value).

Let’s jump into this in a bit more detail below.

Blogging For Value Instead

Now of course as bloggers we want to make extra money and for some of us, even turn this into our full-time incomes…

But as stated above, it’s going to be painfully hard to get there if your mindset only revolves around money, money, money!

Blogging for value or blogging to create as much value for your readers as possible is the ticket to building a sustainable business in this arena.

A blog is one of the best ways to share high-quality and helpful information in your area of expertise and should be used for that.

People who just blog for income will quickly run out of topics to write about and most likely lose their passion along the way.

Creating value provides a huge sense of purpose and a reason to keep producing quality content.

Here’s the kicker and why this type of mindset is a win-win in my opinion.

If you blog to create value rather than income, overtime the income will actually follow.

If you give, you shall receive…this saying is true with blogging too.

When you are committed to giving and producing helpful content for your readers, making money becomes a lot easier with your blog.

This is such a simple concept, yet so many people have this backwards.

Below are a few specific ways that we can begin blogging for value:

Blogging to Answer Questions

• A blog is the perfect platform to help answer questions that people may be searching for in your niche. People type in questions to Google all the time, and being able to help answer some of these positions yourself as an expert and authority figure. Not to mention, question and answer style blog posts can rank well in Google assuming you are optimizing them properly for search. If you provide a really thorough and thoughtful answer to a particular question that may be nagging at someone, you build immediate trust and credibility with that person. This can snowball upon itself (with other blog articles you write) assuming most of your content is value based, and eventually lead to a tribe of engaged fans, followers and readers.

Blogging to Solve Problems

• Solving problems ties in directly with the point we laid above and should be used in a similar approach. You need to think of yourself as a problem solver. Do your own research and see what types of issues people are running into in your niche. Craft quality and informative content based around solving these problems. Sometimes this can even provide you with a good foundation to build out a product of your own. People are willing to pay for information that addresses a particular obstacle or hurdle they may be faced with. Always be solving problems!

Blogging to Educate

• Informational articles that help educate your readers on a particular subject (without wanting anything in return), is another powerful value based approach. I know when I personally come across an article that really leaves me with a sense of “I really learned something new here“, it makes me that much more inclined to sign up for the newsletter or return to the website in the near future. Become almost like a teacher in your niche and provide practical, actionable and educational type content for your readers to indulge in.

Blogging for Relationships & Community

• Instead of blogging for income, blog to create relationships and a community that will last a life-time. Blogging is a long-term and never-ending journey. You want to build a community that will stick with you for the long-haul. As a blogger, you must always respond to comments and emails if you want to establish an engaged following and eventual customer base. Blog for the people that visit your website by making them feel welcome and supporting them with content that is useful and beneficial to their lives. Fall in love with your readers, show gratitude, invest your time in them and they will eventually invest in you.

Conclusion

Let me make clear that making an income from your blog is definitely important and should still be a goal of yours, but know that you must create value first for income to follow. I still encourage you to monetize your website, build your email list and create quality products but only if you’re providing value in the process as well. I know at first even when I started out as a blogger, I was too focused on just making money, it wasn’t until I completely changed my mindset from blogging for income to blogging for value (or blogging to create value), that things really started to take off.

I hope this post helps some of you maybe re-evaluate your current blogging strategy.

At the very least, it will be a good reminder just how important creating value in the marketplace is!

Do you fall into the trap of focusing too much on income when it comes to blogging?

How has creating value helped your blog grow?

Check out my video version of this post here!

I recently came across an excellent article (The Insanely Slow Road to Building a Blog) which correlates directly to my own experience and thoughts about blogging in general.

Some of the most successful blogs took years and years of consistent effort before any momentum was built.

I didn’t write this post to scare anyone away, but more to be completely transparent that 1.) blogging is a lot of work and 2.) blogging takes a long time to start gaining traction, traffic and a loyal following.

The unfortunate part about this is not the length of time it takes to build a successful blog, but the number of people that give up too early and quit.

My main goal with this post here is to encourage as many people as I can to continue blogging for the long-term, no matter where they are currently at.

To help drive this point home, let’s take a closer look at my long-term blogging metrics.

Long-Term Organic Traffic Chart

We will be looking at three different plot points in the chart below.

1. ) 16 Months of Very Little Traffic
2. ) Breakthrough/Spike #1
3. ) Breakthrough/Spike #2

It’s important to note that this chart is analyzing organic traffic coming in from the search engines (and not total traffic).

1.) 16 Months of Very Little Traffic

My first blog post ever published for this website was in May of 2016.

You can see for around 16 months to follow, I received very little to no traffic on my blog…Yes that’s 16 months of very minimal results!

Luckily I have experience with building up websites organically over time, and know that this is definitely not an overnight process.

However, taking a step back and looking at my own long-term traffic trend, made me completely understand why so many aspiring bloggers quit in the first place.

It can be quite discouraging to continue blogging after 16 months of slow results and most people will quit far before then (sometimes even within 1-2 months).

I wasn’t focused nor worried about the lack of traffic coming into my website during that time period.

Instead I was producing/publishing as much high-quality content as I possibly could to build my foundation.

I would publish anywhere from 4-8 blog posts per month, optimize them properly and share them on social media.

In combination to generating quality content, I also started guest posting on other relevant websites to increase my overall reach and build quality backlinks.

This helped me to finally start getting noticed in Google and led to my first big organic traffic spike.

2.) Breakthrough/Spike #1

After 16 months of generating quality content and building backlinks to my website, I started to get certain blog articles ranked in Google for specific keyword phrases.

This is where you see the first real spike in organic traffic in the chart above (labeled “Breakthrough #1”).

Again, most people would have quit months and months ago without giving their website a fair chance.

You have to realize that I was building my blog completely from scratch and with a domain authority of 0.

It’s not surprising that no one was visiting my website in the beginning, since it was brand new.

I had to let Google know that I actually existed.

I also switched my website to https before the first spike, which added to the traffic increases you see.

What’s powerful about this first breakthrough/spike is that my traffic never again dropped to as low as it was in the 16 months prior.

I was now getting a steady flow of targeted organic traffic to my website on a monthly basis.

3 .) Breakthrough/Spike #2

Fast forward to January 2019 and I hit a new all-time high in organic traffic by a long-shot (see screenshot above).

Now this was another 14 months or so until I saw a noticeable spike in traffic again.

Hence why patience and consistency is everything with blogging.

To see this second spike, my strategy was pretty much the same as before…I kept creating quality content, optimizing my blog posts and building quality backlinks.

There were a few additional tactics that aided in increased traffic like improving my website speed, but the fundamentals did not change.

At this point (almost 3 years in) 99% of people would have already quit.

This is to be expected as it takes time and effort to build a blog that produces a consistent stream of traffic.

But it’s also hard to think that so many people, if they stuck with it and implemented the right techniques could have a successful blog on their hands today.

And potentially a blog that generates a predictable extra income.

Key Takeaways For The Aspiring Blogger

To summarize, almost 3 years in at the time of writing this post and my blog just getting started. Results will vary from person to person and blog to blog of course, but the message here is the same.

I’d like to leave you with a few key takeaways when it comes to blogging:

• Adopt a Long-Term Mindset/Vision
• Expect Stagnant Results At Times
• Keep Work Consistent Even in Times of Discouragement
• Blog About a Passion of Yours
• Celebrate Small Wins
• Stay Patient & See It Through

I hope this post gives you some perspective on what it takes to start a blog and more importantly stick with it.

The stories you see of successful bloggers are generally the result of years and years of hard work.

The rewards of blogging can be priceless, but it does take time to build your brand and following.

Buckle up and enjoy the ride!