As the years progress, blogging becomes an ever-more popular activity.
There are more than 500 million blogs and that number grows on a weekly basis.
That’s not to say all of them – all blogs – are particularly active.
Very many blogs fail, for various reasons, though normally it’s because of a lack of audience – little to no traffic.
And from this, we can now start to understand that the activity of blogging is not as easy as many people make out.
In fact, the most difficult part of blogging is maintaining a momentum. Particularly so when there’s little to no audience.
After all, why would you invest many hours every week on a blog when no one reads it?
Nevertheless, there are definite advantages to blogging. Not least of which, it can, when done right, make you a lot of money and bring you a certain level of fame, too.
But when blogging activities are not pre-planned, it can, and very often does, lead to failure.
Let’s consider the advantages and the disadvantages of blogging now.
Advantages of Blogging
1 Easy to start a blog?
For the most part, folks say that starting a blog is easy.
It’s not easy at all.
There’s a whole lot to learn.
However, once you have the fundamentals in place, yes, blogging is easy.
Basically, you write your blog post, you add a few images (which are free from websites such as Pexels.com, Unsplash.com, and Pixabay.com), you share your blog post on your preferred social media network, and that’s a job done.
So, yes, blogging is easy once you know what you are doing. The initial learning curve, however, is steep.
2 Blogging is very flexible
You can blog about anything you want.
Blog about your hobby. Blog about your life. Blog about your travel adventures. Blog about what you watch on TV. Blog about your kids and family life. Blog about your passion for horses or electronic cigarettes.
There’s always a potential audience for whichever topic you blog about.
3 You can blog from almost wherever you are around the world
You don’t even have to have an internet connection to blog.
You can write your content using something like MS Word. Then post it to your blog when you have an internet connection.
You can write your content in advance, add it to your blog, and then post on a pre-scheduled basis so that your blog posts only appear “live” on the dates and at the times that you wish them to appear “live.”
You can blog during your lunch break at work.
You can blog at 3am in the morning or at 3pm in the afternoon.
It’s entirely up to you where you blog and when you blog.
4 You can blog from your bed wearing your pajamas
Yes, I know that may seem a bit far-fetched, but it’s not far-fetched at all.
I wanted to start blogging after I read an ad that I received in the snail-mail post way back in 1997.
The ad went like this: “Work from home; make money wearing your pajamas.“
Since then, for the most part, I’ve managed to do just that. I work from home, and have been doing so for the previous ten years – since 2009.
I also wear my pajamas for much of the time. Or, when I’m in the Philippines, I just wear shorts since it’s so hot there.
Again, if I wasn’t blogging and wasn’t working online, there’s no way I could have spent three years in Malaysia, 1.5 years in China, and five years in the Philippines over the past decade or so.
None of that would have been possible if it were not for blogging and working online in general.
4 You can build a massive audience around the globe
If your blog content is engaging, your blog can become extremely popular.
What’s more, you don’t have to post up new content every single day to build a huge audience.
Some of the most popular bloggers only post a couple of times each month.
Mind you, very popular bloggers that post fresh content to their blogs only a couple of times each month are generally working on outreach (building an audience) in other ways such as via social media, search engine optimization, and even giving talks to live audiences around the world.
5 You can make a lot of money
While most bloggers fail to make any money from their blogging activities, there are some that make a fortune.
Who makes a fortune through blogging?
Here’s an updated list of the top ten blogging earners.
Disadvantages of Blogging
1 Commitment in terms of time and effort
If you want to have a popular blog or you wish to make some money from your blogging activities, you’ll need to invest a lot of time, you’ll need to invest a lot of effort, and you’ll also need to invest at least some money.
When starting out with a blog, it’s relatively easy to invest some money (though it’s not actually necessary to do so.) When starting out a blog, motivation is high so finding time and making the effort are usually fairly straightforward, too.
However, if you’re struggling to generate much of an audience after, say, eight weeks or so of blogging, it can become disheartening.
The only way to push through with blogging over the long term is to maintain a deep-down belief that your efforts are going to pay off.
It’s all too easy to fail at blogging, which is why there are so many blogs that fail and so many bloggers that give up well before the going begins to get good.
2 Blogging can prove to be a lonely activity
If you invest a lot of time on your blog, particularly during the early times prior to your blog attracting an audience, it can be a solo journey.
This solo journey, too, can be enough for people to quit blogging.
On the other hand, a little bit of time in the evening alone – time spent on your blog – can be a good thing. So it really can work both ways.
3 Get rich quick?
Not a chance of it!
Blogging can, as we’ve mentioned, make you very rich indeed.
However, even for those that have been very financially wealthy via their blogging activities, it takes years to get there. Years of a lot of hard work and a massive time investment to boot.
Blogging is certainly not going to make you rich quick, if you ever were to become rich through blogging.
4 Blogging can be a nightmare
For those that do start to see some success with their blog, blogging can become something of a nightmare.
You may be wondering how can blogging be a nightmare when you start to enjoy some success?
Many bloggers who start to enjoy some blogging success don’t know how to take their blogs to the next level.
They try this, they try that, nothing seems to work.
That scenario soon becomes a frustrating mess.
It’s a good problem to have, but at the time, it can feel like… well… a frustrating mess.
So, Should You Blog or Should You Not Blog?
You can turn your attentions to something else and avoid blogging altogether.
Only you will truly know if you should start a blog or not.
You read advice from other bloggers, many of whom are already very successful.
That advice may fit in with your lifestyle. It may not.
I mean, if you work a full-time job, and you have a wife/ husband and you have kids, and your life is relatively full as it is, then finding time to blog is going to be a tall order.
Imagine it: You get home from work in the evening. You have your dinner. You then spend time with the kids. After all of that, you’re so tired that even the mere thought of sitting blogging for a couple of hours is inconceivable.
You could, instead, become a weekend blogger. Again, though, there are so many demands on your time already, that there’s barely any time to write blog posts et cetera.
Then, when you do make time for your blog, the kids are nagging you – your partner is nagging you “You don’t have enough time for us anymore!“
Blogging can be a very tough nut to crack – a very tough nut indeed!
Nevertheless, as you’ll very likely know from those that already enjoy a lot of success from blogging, it can bring with it a mass of riches.
Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels