6 Reasons Why You Should NOT Start a Blog

Plus a better alternative

We’re talking traditional blogs here. The kind you proudly create on WordPress and show the world… and then nobody cares.

Sounds familiar? It happened to me numerous times. I’ve been blogging for 13+ years. The realization came slowly. Yeah, really sloooowly.

However — to lift your spirits up — blogging can still work, of course, it can. It won’t get easier though. That’s for sure. So, instead of starting a new WordPress blog, or Blogger, or Wix, or Squarespace, take a look at 6 reasons why traditional blogging might not be the best way to go.

1. It’s a hassle

Choosing a platform, hunting for the right theme, look and feel, getting a domain, setting everything up, keeping it up-to-date. This is only a shortlist of things you need to do immediately and regularly. Not to mention that some of these things cost. Like a lot.

Luckily, there’s a much better and easier way to get started. We’ll come to that later.

Key takeaway: It’s not the writing that counts. It doesn’t even take up the majority of your time in the beginning. It’s the other things like setup, maintenance, SEO, and marketing that do. I wish I could just write.

2. Nobody cares

After all the initial work (and money) you’ve put into your blog, you’re greeted with a whopping ZERO views. Every day. For weeks or even months on end. That’s the blogging life, eh?!

Well, nope, it doesn’t have to be that way. Again, wait for it.

Key takeaway: You have no audience. Nobody on a new blog does. You have to work hard to get one. Extremely hard. In every online place you can. That sucks. Literally. It sucks the time (and sometimes life) out of you.

3. It’s a full-time job

You might not realize it at first, but even without making a dime, blogging is a full-time job. If you plan on making a dime eventually, that is.

In the beginning, you give everything and get nothing in return. Yes, I’m overly dramatic here, but it's close enough to the truth, isn’t it?

I got squat with my first two blogs over a decade ago. And times were actually easier back then.

Key takeaway: Prepare to do this blogging thing full-time, even if you don’t have the time. Otherwise, it won’t work out. That’s pretty much guaranteed.

4. It never looks good

Boy, did that blog look awesome when I picked the theme a couple of months ago.

Holy crap, it looks dated now. Yup, my exact thoughts every time I started a blog. Whether I picked a theme from a developer or developed my own. It got old pretty quickly.

Key takeaway: You will always have to tweak around with the blog design, backend, plugins, security, features, and more. Again, it’s a full-time job. Sometimes for more than one person.

5. The competition

Rest assured, competition will be miles ahead. All. The. Time.

That’s the way it is. Unless this pushes you further, you should probably stop right now. Or check out the solution I’ll give you at the end of this post.

For real though, competing is part of this business. You compete with other bloggers in your niche, with other content formats like video or podcasts, with computers in form of search engines and algorithms.

Key takeaway: Blogging won’t make you rich quickly. You’ll have to be consistent and persistent. Also, a niche might be helpful. It’s easier to compete in one niche than in multiple.

6. SEO

You know it by now. Great writing is not enough for a blogger in 2021. You need to master SEO. With every post. The traditional route depends on SEO. Getting views via Google and other search engines, ranking high, growing a reader base, hitting viral articles, this is all a matter of SEO. Not entirely, but mostly.

I hate SEO. I get the importance, I still don’t like to do it.

Key takeaway: Blogging is about algorithms nowadays. Feeding them the right way is the only way to succeed.

The better solution

By now, I guess you know what the better solution is? At least the better one in my opinion.

If you want to sidestep these 6 aforementioned points about blogging and still grow your online writing resume, there is one great alternative solution.

Medium.

Duh… right?

But let’s take this apart for a minute:

1. Medium is no hassle. It’s as easy as signing in and starting to write. Really, there’s nothing more to it. You can design your profile later.
2. Even if nobody cared, there’s a huge audience in place that will eventually read your posts. Way easier than getting views through Google.
3. It’s still a full-time job if you want to make it, but it mainly revolves around writing, not around designing, maintenance, security, etc. Medium handles all that.
4. You can customize your Medium profile with ease. Less is more in some cases. Keep it simple and accessible.
5. Competition is high on Medium, of course. But in comparison to billions of traditional blogs, Medium is small. Tiny even. Chances are much better to start earning here than with ads or affiliate marketing on a traditional blog.
6. You can do SEO on Medium. It helps to get external traffic. But since external views don’t matter that much on Medium, you can just as well neglect SEO. Instead, focus on building your own Medium community and readership. They don’t care about SEO, they’re not algorithms.

The bottom line

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a traditional blogger in a sense. I grew up with that. When I started blogging, Medium wasn’t even on Ev Williams’ mind. I still love the feeling of owning a blog.

That’s one argument, proponents of traditional blogging use against Medium. It’s not your own. You have to follow Medium’s rules.

Well, yes, that’s true. If you violate the rules, Medium might close your account. If Medium goes away, so does your blogging platform. But this is not a Medium-specific issue, is it?

If you use WordPress and WordPress went away, you have the same problem. WordPress also has guidelines to follow. In both cases, you can export your content and choose another platform.

Argument number 2 is the freedom of using ads, pop-ups, and more on your own blog. That’s true. It’s an advantage. But, again, unless you reach a certain viewership, ads will make you cents. It’s easier to gain a respectable audience on Medium and earn here. I just broke down how many views you need to make a full-time living on Medium. It might surprise you.

For me, there’s no strong argument against Medium. Additionally, you can always combine your own blog with Medium and republish. Medium has a feature to do that without duplicate content issues. But if you’re starting out, I wouldn’t put time into that. Instead, I’d focus on Medium.

I have a blog, yet I’m seriously considering ditching it in favor of Medium. I found success on Medium. I merely made cents with my WordPress blog. In fact, I’ve made more on Medium in 7 months than in 13+ years of WordPress blogging.

The average earnings for 1000 views on Medium have been around $34 dollars for me. You know what the average for Google Adsense is: About $1 — $3 for 1000 views.

If I want to make money, why would I choose $3 and steeper competition instead of $34? I wouldn’t. And I didn’t.

How about you?

P.S.: First of all, you should get my posts in your inbox. Do that here! Secondly, if you like to experience Medium yourself, consider supporting me and thousands of other writers by signing up for a membership. It only costs $5 per month, it supports us, writers, greatly, and you have the chance to make money with your writing as well. When I started, I made $3000 in 6 months. By signing up with this link, you’ll support me directly with a portion of your fee, it won’t cost you more. If you do so, thank you a million times!