First, we need to make something clear. So clear that you don’t miss it.
Old-school blogging is dead.
If you’re thinking about blogging then I should tell you that the blogging you are probably thinking about is dead.
You might be asking yourself how do I know what type of blogging you’re even thinking about?
It’s because if you’re actually thinking about blogging to make money then you’re probably thinking about a specific type of blogging and I’m telling you it’s dead.
Don’t worry. I’m going to explain it all in this post and why you should still be blogging.
So is blogging dead?
Yes, blogging is dead, but you should still be blogging because the OTHER type of blogging is far from dead.
Strange, right? Let’s figure it out.
The History of Blogging
I started my online money-making career in 2003 with my first blog. It was on web design and it was awesome.
Back then nobody had a strategy for blogging. You just wrote.
In my case, I loved to write about web design because it helped me learn web design. Blogging was my teacher.
After a couple of years and about 10 blogs, I sold them and stopped blogging.
I wanted to build other things.
Fast forward to 2016, I decided I wanted to start another blog. In fact, I was going to start two blogs.
One was going to be about blogging as I wanted to share my experiences learning to blog all over again.
The second one was a health and wellness blog.
I wasn’t worried about getting traffic to the blog about blogging because that was me writing to teach myself again.
The blog about health was the one that was supposed to be my showcase to the world about blogging. That meant I had to get traffic.
You see, I think that’s why you’re wondering is blogging dead, because your business model is the same one that I was going for.
Get a lot of traffic. Throw some ads up on the site and make some money.
After 90 days I got about 1,195 page views TOTAL on that site. And then something happened.
Things started to pick up on Pinterest.
5 months later the site was doing over 100,000 pageviews a month.
At its peak, it reached over 800,000 pageviews a month.
It was fun.
I started more and more blogs that would do well on Pinterest, get a good amount of traffic, put ads on them, and make money.
But then something happened.
Pinterest changed how it worked. Now it was MUCH harder to get content to newer content.
Then Google changed its algorithm and a lot of posts dropped in rankings while some went up.
I went from 800,000 pageviews to 200,000 pageviews to 60,000 pageviews.
I was able to stop the bleeding but not without some damage to my psyche.
The Google change was expected. Google changes all of the time and it’s why if you want to stay consistently at the top of the rankings you need to be on top of your SEO.
Yes, it’s exhausting and yes there is a good chance that the people you are competing with will hire a SEO person to manage this stuff over time.
It was the Pinterest changes that really got to me.
You see, Pinterest was basically a cheat mode for blogs if you knew what you were doing.
I had built a whole business around teaching people how to get the most out of Pinterest so they could get into the big ad networks and change their lives.
I helped to change many lives, but with the Pinterest change, I knew things would have to be different.
And this is where it can get confusing for newer bloggers.
Blog Teachers Don’t Really Know the New Blog Normal
I have to put a disclaimer here. This section is not me putting anyone down. It’s just how I see things.
But the fact is if you’re reading blog posts from people on Pinterest or sticking to the blogging Facebook Groups then you’ll see there is a trend.
The people who started blogs during the good years of Pinterest where traffic was a lot easier have a certain mentality with blogging.
To them it came down to writing lots of content, getting it up on Pinterest, and then reaping the rewards. But after Pinterest changed in late 2019 that method of blogging became almost impossible for NEW bloggers.
And that’s the key.
The old bloggers were still getting traffic from Pinterest because they had pins ranking in Pinterest search and Pinterest was now set up to show more of their older pins.
If you’re a new blogger though you don’t have that luxury so what happens is you’ll post something, see it’s getting very little traction and then you’ll try some more.
After a couple of months of ups and downs, you might grow frustrated because what’s happening to you doesn’t seem like the same thing that has been happening to the people that you read.
But the thing is the people that you’re learning from don’t know that blogging is like this now because they haven’t started a new blog recently.
We did and it took us a year to get it up to 77,000 pageviews a month which is great, but that’s a lot of work to get a blog up to $800 a month from ads.
It’s a lot of work and there is nothing wrong with that approach if that’s what you don’t mind doing. Traffic is always going to be a slow build-up when it comes to your blog and that’s why we don’t recommend making ads be the first or sole revenue stream that you pursue.
I know it might be frustrating reading this. Blogging sounds so easy when you get to tell people that it’s just:
- Picking a domain
- Installing WordPress
- Writing blog posts
- Pinning to Pinterest
- Making money with ads
And there was a time when it was like that as long as you picked the right blog niche.
But it’s not like that anymore because Pinterest changed for new bloggers.
So does that mean the answer to “is blogging dead?”, “YES!”.
Not at all.
Blogging has been around since the early 2000s and it will be around for the next couple of decades and here’s why.
Blogging is content marketing for your business.
The New State of Blogging
For the longest time, there were 3 types of bloggers:
- Those who just blogged for fun. Blogging was their therapy. Their journal.
- Those who blogged about certain topics so they could make money with ads.
- Those who blogged to draw attention to their business.
#1 probably still exists in some forms, but you see it more on social media sites now that people like video.
#2 is what is dead.
#3 is what will always stay and that’s our focus when we help people with blogging.
Your blog is part of the marketing department for your business. It’s used to draw people to your business and help them along a path.
Within our teachings, we encourage our students to create an offer and then use blogging to attract people to them so they can present the offer at some point
How exactly does this work?
Well, first, we need to look at the Pocket Business Framework.
The Pocket Business Framework
The concept of business isn’t hard. All businesses follow a simple formula:
Audience x Offer = MoneyWith the ad model for blogging, where you try to get a ton of pageviews for your ads, the Audience is the advertisers and the offer is the traffic you bring to your blog.
This is why it’s so volatile. You don’t control the offer (how many people come to your site or how much people are willing to pay for them) and you don’t know the audience (the advertisers).
But let’s say you write a simple ebook. Then you control the offer as well as the price.
Now you just need an audience. However, this audience just can’t be everybody because not everybody is going to buy the book.
So in that case you really just care about the people that are willing to buy the book.
That’s your true audience.
How many people do you need to get to your site to sell one copy of your ebook?
In theory, just one, right?
Let’s say your ebook is $20.
Do you know how many pageviews you would need to get $20 from ads? At least 1,000 and that’s more dependent on your niche.
For most people, it’s closer to 2,000 pageviews.
After a year of blogging that shouldn’t be so hard to achieve, but do you want to wait a year to make $20 a day?
I know I wouldn’t.
And that’s why we believe it’s best you see blogging as a way to get people to your site so you can present them with an offer (oh, this can be an affiliate offer as well).
However, you can’t just throw an offer in someone’s face and expect them to buy it.
Instead, you have to close the Value Gap.
You have to get them to see that the gap between where they are now and where they want to be can be closed with your offer.
How do you do that?
You follow the Pocket Business Framework which is:
- Get them to notice you
- Get them to pay attention to you
- Get them to trust you
- Convert that trust into money
This is how you close the Value Gap and maybe you can see how blogging can do that effectively.
Let’s look at each step and how it pertains to blogging.
1. Get them to notice you
This can’t happen on your blog because your blog is an island. You have to draw people to the island.
So what do you do?
You promote your blog posts in the places where your Audience (the buyers) like to hang out.
It could be Pinterest (yes, you can still get some traffic from Pinterest, just not the floods people want you to believe until you start ranking in Pinterest search), Facebook, Google with SEO, YouTube, or other places.
You get people to notice you with awesome blog post titles.
2. Get them to pay attention to you
Once they’ve noticed you and clicked the link to visit your blog post you need to keep their attention.
This happens with great content. It means that every single paragraph that you write has to get the person to want to read the next one.
It means your site is clean.
It means that you don’t give people a reason to stop paying attention.
3. Get them to trust you
This can happen in the blog post as you help them with a problem. You can build a small amount of trust.
You continue that trust-building with your other blog posts and then get people onto your mailing list and send them emails that they love.
4. Convert that trust into money
This is when you can present them with your offer.
This could happen directly in the blog post or maybe you have a sales funnel setup with your emails.
There are many different things you can do, but you can’t get someone to buy from you until they trust you.
Your Blog Is Part of the Sales Funnel
You might’ve heard of the term sales funnel before. Most people associate it with just emails, but the reality is that your sales funnel is everything that you do.
It’s your social media posts, your blog posts, your emails, and your sales pages.
Blogging is just one component of the funnel, but it’s a very important part of the funnel (if you decide that blogging is what you want to do).
That means that every blog post you write should have a purpose. It should guide people towards something greater.
That might seem like more than you signed up for when you thought about blogging, but I’m just bringing you the truth.
When we help people with their blogs we think of building businesses that make over 6-figures a year.
Our goal isn’t to help people build $500-a-month businesses. There are probably much better ways to do that than blogging.
And yet that’s what so many people are still striving for when they enter the world of blogging.
It just doesn’t feel right.
If you’re going to put your blood, sweat, and tears into this, then shouldn’t it be worthwhile?
We think so.
Is Blogging dead, then?
So as you can see the answer is no, especially if you’re trying to blog to make money. With Odd Noodle, we have tons of success stories from people who have started blogging and have grown their own businesses because of it.
In fact, blogging is what we recommend for anyone who wants to get started with an online business. If you’re considering starting a home business then blogging is a great place to start.
It doesn’t matter if you’re working full-time or looking to start a business for cheap, blogging is a great step to building an audience and making money.
