12 Reasons to Start a Blog (8 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t)
To blog or not to blog…that is the question right? Read this article until the end and find out 12 reasons to start a blog and 8 why you should never do it.
Blogging can be fun, but also challenging.
It can be rewarding but also exhausting.
A blog can make you rich, but you might need to eat SPAM for dinner for a couple of years before that happens (if you rely on blog income alone).
So what should you do? Is blogging worth it?
Well, I’m going to do my best and give you a couple of reasons why you should start a blog, but also some why you shouldn’t.
12 Reasons to Start a Blog
First of all, blogging can be an awesome experience, and I encourage everyone to at least try it out once, but just in case you’re not sure, here are some awesome motives to start doing it.
1. Improve Your Writing Skills
If you’re an aspiring writer, then one of the best reasons to start blogging is to improve your writing skills.
Even if you don’t plan on writing the next Harry Potter, knowing how to properly express yourself and put “ink on paper” can be a great skill to have.
This is especially important if you’re writing a blog in English for example while it’s not your native language. Writing blog posts daily can help you improve faster.
You might also learn a little bit of copywriting, which is also a pretty powerful skill to have if you plan on selling and promoting products.
Knowing your way around persuasive words and phrases will make it easier to turn your visitors from readers to buyers.
Even if you don’t have anything to sell, you can still promote the living heck out of that email list that you should definitely be building.
2. Establish Authority
One of the quickest ways of becoming an authority in your field is by creating an awesome blog that people can visit and link to, whenever they need extra info.
If you put out consistent work (meaning blog posts), that is of high quality, sooner than later your blog will start to gain some traction and you will become a well-known voice in the blogosphere in your particular niche or industry.
There are a ton of people who became authority figures and well known and respected people in their industry after they have started a blog, some particular ones:
- Arianna Huffington (HuffingtonPost)
- Perez Hilton (PerezHilton)
- Brian Clark (Copyblogger)
- Jeff Rose (GoodFinancialCents)
- Pat Flynn (SmartPassiveIncome)
3. Build an Audience
One of the best reasons to start a blog is the ability to build your own audience.
Think about it, how fricking awesome is it that you can hit Publish on a new blog post, and immediately thousands of people can get notified about that and start reading it.
Not that long ago, you had to actually publish your own magazines and newspapers to be able to reach tons of people with fresh content. Do you remember those times? It seems like ages ago.
Blogging is one of the best ways to reach people these days, sure social media has its use, but nothing can beat content marketing through a quality blog.
If you are particularly interested in something as a hobby, business move, career, research, and anything else, you can share your thoughts with others via a blog, and engage in meaningful discussion while also making money (if you’re into that sort of thing).
Your audience will always be delighted to hear that you have published a new blog post, especially if you’re content is top tier.
4. Share Your Story
Do you have a story to share with the world? While you can go the self-published way and start writing a book, you could start first with a blog.
After all, one of the best reasons to start a blog is to improve your writing skills (see reason #1).
You can use your blog as a diary or as a a learning process. If you’re going through a challenge right now, it might be good to post about it on your blog and that way you can motivate others that are going through the same thing.
Here are some stories that you can share on your blog:
- A weight-loss journey
- Experience with a service or a product
- Tips and challenges about your job
- Interesting things that have happened to you
- Share your experience about particular things (ex: if you’re a boss at gardening)
5. Learn New Skills
One of the best reasons to start blogging is the multitude of new skills that you’re going to have to learn that might prove to be quite useful in the future or for a new career move.
Think about it, while blogging is not a very complicated process, you will still get to learn a lot of digital marketing skills such as:
- Creating a blog on WordPress
- Managing WordPress themes and plugins
- Customizing WordPress and other design elements
- Search engine optimization
- Create evergreen content that’s always in demand
- Write blog posts faster
- Become a beast at social media management
- How to get traffic to your blog
- Affiliate marketing
- Learn about various monetization techniques
- Build an Email List and do Email Marketing
Plus a ton more that I’ve more than likely forgot. These skills will help you a lot either as a blogger or as a digital marketer.
And who knows you might even get a boost in pay at your current job or move to a higher paying position if you become a master at some of these things. Or you could take it a step further and go solo, and open up your own digital media business and use your skills to help other businesses.
6. To Make Money
DUH… we’re in this to make money.
I’m sure that this is probably the biggest reason to start a blog for many of us, and it’s a great one, I’m not going to lie haha.
Yes, even though many bloggers won’t see any money from their blog (usually because their online business fails before that happens), having a site is a great way of making money while you sleep.
Especially if it doesn’t require too much work to maintain and write articles (depends on the niche).
One of the easiest ways to make money with a blog is through ads. But these might not work for every site and every niche.
Learn the pros and cons of blog ads by reading my other article on this subject: Should you put ads on your blog?
7. Meet New People
Blogging is an awesome way to meet new people if you’re into that sort of thing. Most of us are lurking in our basements mad typing millions of words per minute, afraid of the sunlight.
But for some, meeting new people either from the blogosphere or from the same industry can be an amazing reason to start blogging.
You can form relationships virtually through blog comments, guest posts and emails, and when you’re ready for the next step you can even go to conventions and seminars and meet with some of your peers face to face (maybe not anymore…coz you know… Corona, but at least that’s what it used to happen when the times were more… normal)
8. To Become Your Own Boss
Here’s the thing, if your blog becomes successful and you make a ton of money, you can say F you to your boss (I don’t really recommend you do that), and become the master of your own domain (literally).
Nobody tells you what to do, you can get up and start working on your blog and write new content about “the magnificent benefits of rubbing your skin with banana peels” (no idea, just made that up, but let me know tho), and nobody is there to tell you: NO, you can’t do that.
You can write blog posts on any topic in whatever way you want, you can say fuck and shit and nobody would give you a strike for that. (Don’t overdo it with the cuss words if you’re into a more sensible niche like health for example).
The freedom that you get as a blogger is one of the best reasons to start a blog.
9. Increase Your Confidence
Sure, maybe you won’t become an alpha male or woman or rabbit, overnight just by simply starting a blog, but you will for sure feel more confident especially around others from your industry.
But not only that, other areas in your life will also see some improvement as well.
Because if you went from being scared to write a single blog post to now publishing daily or a few times a week and not giving a fuck what others might think about your content, you could also apply the same energy for other things.
Related: What to Do After Publishing a Blog Post
10. Make a Difference
I’m not going to pretend that I publish these blog posts here on NetHustler solely for the benefit of others, I started it out more as a place to rant about the silly stuff from the digital marketing industry.
With time though I’ve realized that some of the things that I’m sharing are actually helpful to others, and so I’ve doubled down on creating more useful content for the benefit of my audience.
If I can teach as many people to make money online, either through starting their own blog, doing affiliate marketing, AdSense Arbitrage, CPA marketing, and more, then I am truly happy.
At the moment all of my guides are free, even the ones that are 10k+ words and super in-depth that other people are charging money for (like the Arbitrage one).
The more people learn about this shit, the better the world would be for everyone else, since more will become financial independent and live a happier life.
11. Your Own Creative Outlet
As I’ve said above, one of the best reasons to start a blog is to have your own creative outlet, or as I like to call it: my own little place where I go to scream, and rant and talk bullshit about some of the shit from this industry like:
Sure, it can also be used for good, and you can create awesome posts and guides and help people too, but in the end, your blog is your own space.
You get to do whatever the hell you want to do and create the content that you want.
Use your blog as a journal, as a magazine, as a place to share your goat pics with others, whatever it might be, it’s your own creative outlet, and you don’t need to have a big company with lots of staff peeps and editors and bullshit like that.
12. It Create Opportunities
Blogging creates opportunities, it’s as simple as that. Many have gone on to publish best-selling books, courses, podcasts, and meet with awesome people.
It’s your way of getting recognized, by other well-known people, as an authority in your field.
You can use your authority to get exposure and access to events, products, services, placements, and other cool stuff that otherwise you wouldn’t get.
8 Reasons to Not Start a Blog
While there are many great reasons to start a blog, there are also a few of them for why you shouldn’t do it at all.
Here are 8 examples why blogging might not be the best thing for you:
1. Blogging is challenging
Sure, it might seem easy work to just write a couple of articles and boom you’ve made it, you’re famous and you make a ton of money, but that’s rarely the case.
Nah, this is an uphill battle where you constantly have to push yourself harder than last time and create more content, that’s better, lengthier more in-depth and useful to appease your audience and the search engines like Google.
You also won’t get to see any significant results in your first few months, since you will barely get any traffic, and for a long period of time, you won’t earn any money from your blog also.
Think somewhere between four months up to a year in some niches for SEO to take effect and have your articles ranking in Google.
Because it takes dedication and perseverance and showing up every day, either with writing new content or managing social media and coming up with new traffic methods, blogging is not something that can be done lightly, at least not if you try to do it for money.
If you do it just for fun, then sure, it might be an easier process but even then, you will need to go out there and hustle to get some eyeballs (visitors) to read your stuff.
2. You won’t get rich over night
How long does it take to make money blogging? Well, it depends, on a couple of things, but the most important part is the traffic, how fast and how much of it you’re able to get.
Even when you start getting some traffic to your blog, you won’t get to earn a lot of money right away, because you will have to first test which is the best way to monetize your blog.
There are plenty of other things that you can do if you want to make money fast.
3. Don’t have a stable income
Yep, even if you do get to make money from your blog, you won’t make a fixed and stable income.
For example, this month you could make $5k the next one if a Google update happens and you lose half of your traffic you might make only $3k.
So it’s best to take this into consideration when creating a blog.
4. The industry always changes
Speaking of updates, you never know when the next Google update will hit that could either decimate or help your business.
You should always be prepared for these things, and have a few traffic safety nets ready, such as buying cheap website traffic.
Not only that, but what worked today might not work tomorrow, in terms of content or affiliate offers or products.
You might find yourself promoting product X as an affiliate and tomorrow if that offer shuts its doors you will be struggling to find another good performing product to replace.
5. You will spend more time online
It’s inevitable that you will get to spend more time on the internet since you will have to sit down for a couple of hours each day researching and creating content.
This has many side effects ranging from health issues to loneliness and losing precious time that you could have used doing other more fun activities.
If you’re also spending a lot of time online at your regular job, you probably don’t want to do it again at home, so this is one of the main reasons to not start a blog.
6. If you don’t like writing
Let’s face it, some of us hate writing (me included), especially if we don’t write on things that we like. Luckily for me, I can write and publish my own thoughts and guides on this blog (because I sorta enjoy it), but for my niche sites, I outsource all the content.
So if you hate writing with a passion, then blogging might not be for you and it’s yet another reason to not start a blog.
Look into podcasting or starting a YouTube channel as an alternative.
7. Blogging takes time
As I’ve mentioned a few times above, one of the biggest reasons not to start a blog is because of time constraints.
With content becoming longer with every new Google update, you will find yourself sitting down for an even longer amount of time to write your blog posts.
Usually, I do about 1,000 words an hour, but I can easily spend 6-8 hours on just one 2-3k word article.
Some of my biggest articles took a couple of days to complete.
It also depends on your writing and posting frequency, so if you want to blog daily then you should really try to give yourself at least a 2 hour per day window.
8. Blogging can affect your health
Yeah, I’ve said it, blogging is not all milk and honey, especially if you’re not even making money from it.
There are serious health issues that can arise from prolonged physical inactivity that arise from you sitting down at your desk and working on your blog, such as heart diseases, diabetes, cancer, and more.
Not only that but the blue light from your monitor can also affect your sleep and messes up your circadian rhythm.
If you find it difficult to fall asleep at night, this might be one of the reasons, especially if you’re blogging late at night.
How to Start a Blog: Rundown
You can check out my full in-depth article on how to start a blog, and see step by step instructions on how to do it in under 15 minutes, but here’s a short version:
- Figure out a niche/category/topic for your blog
- Go to Bluehost and get a hosting plan and a free domain name
- Install WordPress with just a couple of clicks (it’s very easy on Bluehost)
- Add and install a theme that you like and some plugins
- Customize the design of your blog to suit your needs
- Add details such as blog name, email, and important pages (about, contact…)
- Start writing your first blog post
- Promote your blog
It shouldn’t take you more than 15-20 minutes tops, to create a blog from start to finish, and Bluehost makes it an easy process that everyone could do it.
Reasons to Start a Blog: Conclusion
As you can see there are many great reasons to start a blog and a few of them that suggest otherwise.
Ultimately I think it’s worth it and blogging is something that everyone should try at least once, but do it consciously and take some damn breaks and don’t sit for 10 hours on your chair writing like a bat-shit crazy person. That’s not healthy.
Let me know down in the comments what were your reasons to start your blog?
Until next time, stay hustlin’
Stephen
