It’s easy to feel like you missed the blogging train. I clearly remember reading blogs from my blogging heroes: devouring posts on the latest scuba adventure in Thailand, pouring over their income reports, trying to figure out what I could and couldn’t do from that information, dreaming of living the lifestyle.
The peak of those blogs was more than a decade ago. The scene slowly faded away. Emails became less frequent. Less blog posts. Now, radio silence. What’s that mean?
Is Blogging Dead? Is It Too Late?
The obvious conclusion to make is that blogging has run its course. It was a product of its time, like many internet opportunities, the door was open and now it is shut. Blogging isn’t “dead,” we all know that, anybody can still launch a blog, but it’s time as a viable option to make online money has passed, right?
Haha, yeah right.
There has never been a better time to launch a blog for financial gain and there is nothing wrong with saying that is what you want to do. Some people may say to you “That’s selfish!” Ignore them. They only say that because they hate seeing you trying to improve your lot in life. Crab bucket mentality. Besides, it’s hardly selfish to want to help people through your writings and then make a little cash as a natural side-effect.
Blogs are being launched left and right and they are making money. But they don’t look like the ones from the 2010s. The “follow the adventures of a location independent entrepreneur in Thailand!” days are long over. I miss them, but they ain’t coming back.
The blogs that are winning today are–you guessed it–very narrow niche blogs that are kinda boring, mainly review blogs or blogs about your day job. There are dream blog outliers, of course; the travel the world, blog about it and make money blogs. But that’s a pretty dang hard thing to do nowadays…yet, I still see wide open gaps in the blogosphere for a few of my own dream blogs. I’m not tackling those yet, though. I’m busy building my base before I shoot for the stars.
But to answer the question of “Is it too late to launch a blog?”
My answer is this: You are not late, in fact, you are still early, so you better get to work building because the opportunities on the horizon for solo-bloggers are insane, more money will be made in the blog business in the next 10 years than has ever been made in the entire history of blogging. Generational wealth will be made in the blog business in the next 10 year period.
More and more people are coming online across the whole world and you have an enormous edge: the language of the internet is English.
Also, people are tiring of social media. Much of it is unusable since they started creator payouts, pair that with AI slop and I, along with many others, don’t see the point of spending time on social media (other than promoting your blog). Blogs are on the rise and will surpass the previous popularity.
Not Everybody Should Be A Blogger Though
Since I write a lot of articles about blogging and since I have a bluehost affiliate account it may be easy to think I would recommend that everybody should have a blog, but I don’t.
In fact: Most people should not have a blog. Most people should not be bloggers.
Although I get paid (on this blog) by helping people in the blogging business, I would rather miss out on money than lead somebody astray who is trying to find a way to better their financial position in life via making money on the internet.
The only people who should launch a blog are:
- People who love to write.
- People who are obsessed with a particular subject and like to write.
If you don’t have any financial ambitions I guess you could launch a blog, but what would be the point if you don’t love writing?
There are hundreds of way for a person working solo on a laptop to make full-time money online. Blogging is just one of those options and it is the best option for those who love to write, even in the modern day climate of social media, YouTube, and AI competition. (FYI–the truth is you have no competition because nobody will be able to do what you do if you focus on your strengths, rather than your interests).
Launch 1 Blog, Earn $1k Per Month, With 1 Year Of Hard Work
If you can blog consistently and make it through the valley of despair you can be confident of making $1,000 per month after one year of blogging. The reason 80% of blogs fail within the first 18 months is because the blogmasters do not blog consistently and blog without strategy. Blogging consistently is up to you. Blogging with strategy is solved by reading all of the articles on this blog.
If I could boil down a plan for you to make $1k per month after one year of blogging to four bullet points it would be this:
- Choose Your Niche Wisely: Your niche needs to either be 1.) a review blog in a narrow niche 2.) something that uses your knowledge from your day job 3.) a subject or hobby you are obsessed with. (Number 2 is probably the best option for most people for money-making, although it is often the most boring.)
- Blog Consistently: You need to publish at least 3x per week, more is better, but don’t sacrifice quality in order to pump out 4 posts instead of 3. You will need to blog straight through the blogging valley of despair, a place we all must go on our journey.
- Choose A Monetization Strategy That Makes Sense For Your Niche: Review blog needs affiliate links, duh. But other blogs are trickier and will require strategic thought: ebook, courses, ad network, affiliate links? Remember: you won’t ever make money if you don’t monetize your blog. This is often a stumbling block for people!
- Master The Invisible Work Of Blogging The invisible work of blogging is all the mundane and somewhat frustrating things behind the scenes. I know, we all just want to write. But if you don’t master the invisible work of blogging nobody will ever read your writings because they won’t be able to find you. You must learn: Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, Indexing, On-Page and Off-Page SEO, Image Optimization, Sitemaps, Schema, GEO, Plugins, Email Service, Webpage Speed, a host of other items, and, of course, WordPress.
Blogging is a far cry from “build it and they will come.” It is a real skill set that must be learned in order to be successful.
So, no–you did not miss the blogging train. In fact, it hasn’t even left the station yet. But the only way you are going to achieve financial success in the blogging game is to get started, and I recommend to get started immediately if you are thinking about it. Every second that ticks by is one more second that you won’t get back in building your dream. Maybe we’ll see each other on a scuba trip in Thailand, wouldn’t that be nice?
To start a blog, use my bluehost affiliate link to get the cheapest available hosting (choose the cheapest tier, it’s all you need). With my link you also get a free domain and SSL certificate.