Do you feel that you missed a great opportunity by not launching a blog a few years ago? Are you still interested in starting a blog but feel overwhelmed by the many top-class existing blogs that captivate their readers? In this complex landscape, do you believe you have a calling for blogging?
Every year, either at the end or the beginning, numerous bloggers share their thoughts about the future of blogging. Nowadays, more than ever, the future of blogging is uncertain.
In spite of all the provocations, blogging isn’t dead and it has an interesting future. Explore the following paragraphs to find out more about our thoughts regarding the blogging future.
The Current Landscape
The primary challenge facing current bloggers is the ongoing decline in profitability. While it remains a lucrative venture, reaching the profit levels of a few years ago has become increasingly difficult. Take, for instance, bloggers who once reaped significant profits by selling WordPress themes and plugins through affiliate marketing a decade ago. The market is now oversaturated, as users have already purchased themes and plugins for their websites, resulting in diminished demand compared to the past.
Having a blog was both cool and demanding a decade ago. Today, anyone can launch an attractive blog within a few hours. Consequently, the competition is intense, with millions of people running their own blogs. Distinguishing yourself from competitors requires hard work and creativity.
Sadly, a few other challenges affect the blogging profitability and indirectly, its future. You should be aware of them, but rest assured that you may launch a new blog even in 2024!
Blogging Challenges
Even from its early days, blogging has encountered numerous challenges, pushing bloggers to continually improve. In 2024, they will confront even more numerous and complex issues. Some of the more notable challenges include:
Vlogging
Written content will never be entirely replaced by video, but its role is undeniably growing more prominent each day. The meteoric rise of TikTok stands as solid evidence in this regard. People tend to retain information more effectively when watching and listening to a video than when reading text. Moreover, watching a video is often more engaging than reading a paragraph. Yet, many people prefer written content in various contexts:
- A coding tutorial because you need extra attention and time to read the code;
- Scientific research because the notions and the ideas presented are typically complex and you need multiple readings;
- Literature and poetry because reading is more romantic than watching.
Vlogging doesn’t necessarily compete with blogging; instead, it serves as a complementary solution. Many professional bloggers, in fact, maintain a YouTube channel for video content.
Market Saturation
Suppose you have a strong passion for hiking and aspire to create a blog about this activity. However, there are already hundreds of blogs with thousands of quality articles catering to hikers. Can you compete with them and secure top search positions? While not impossible, it requires significant resources. The same is happening in all areas, so the chances of getting profitable with a new blog in 2024 are pretty low.
AI Generated Content
The rise of video consumption and market saturation has posed challenges for the past few years. AI-generated content is a new provocation and it looks like a huge threat to the blogging landscape. That’s because a well-trained AI tool may generate hundreds of articles daily, consistently, and at a pretty affordable price. Practically, you may use such a tool to create a blog and publish 10-20 medium-size articles a day. As a human writer, you write the same volume of words in 3 to 4 weeks.
The quality of AI-generated content is a significant dilemma, and there is no definitive answer as of now. While the prevailing opinion is that AI cannot surpass human capabilities at the moment, there is a general expectation that it might achieve this in the foreseeable future.
How to Thrive in 2024 and Beyond
The above provocations may dampen your enthusiasm for starting a blog, but adopting a defeatist attitude is not the solution. It’s essential to see the bigger picture and discover a path to thrive amidst these challenges. With the right mindset and tools, success is certainly possible. Here are some crucial tips to keep in mind when launching your blog:
Business not Hobby
It’s not a problem if you plan to launch a blog as a hobby. Yet, it’s a whole different story if you want to make money from it. In this case, the blog is the foundation of your business and you have to treat it accordingly. Considering your blog as a business is the correct approach to thriving in blogging.
Community First Approach
While in their early ages blogs were a source of information, currently they are the roots of communities of like-minded people. The bloggers should resonate with their audiences and permanently nurture the relationship. Paradoxically, you won’t have great results if you constantly publish quality content without connecting to the audience.
A natural approach and a genuine interest in the pain points of the readers are mandatory for a successful blog in 2024 and beyond. In other words, it’s a subtle shift from merely informing people, as it was years ago, to actively serving them.
Storytelling Rocks
One method to distinguish yourself from the myriads of bloggers is to be natural and original. People are already fatigued by so much information, so you can stand apart by simply being …you! Storytelling supposes sharing personal and genuine impressions and experiences. Your thoughts and style can’t be replicated, so you shouldn’t be concerned about competitors. Instead, focus on delivering cool and interesting stories. The following two examples give you a hint about storytelling and creating a genuine connection.
A blogger writing about coding can generate more traffic and engagement by sharing their experiences, problems, and thoughts than by simply providing coding tutorials. People are bored with plain presentations of coding strategies. Instead, they prefer to learn how to master a specific language from scratch, understand the reasons for learning it, and identify the real challenges. Sharing how you approach these aspects is captivating and strongly engages the readers.
Similarly, a fitness model can earn more appreciation from the readers by sharing personal stories. Overcoming tough periods, beating procrastination, and dealing with frustrations are unique perspectives that attract people.
In conclusion, rather than producing robotic, never-ending articles, you can attract an audience by adding a human touch to your writing.
Not Niches, but Micro-niches
Launching a blog in a specific niche was common advice a few years ago. However, finding a niche in 2024 or beyond isn’t enough. Many others have already delved into and blogged about your favorite niche. Now, it’s time to discover micro-niches—these ultra-narrow niches that haven’t been fully covered. While your instinct and experience may play a crucial role in identifying the right micro-niche, it’s advisable to use SEO and marketing tools before making a decision.
Don’t Fight against AI, use AI
AI is the hottest topic in 2023 and is likely to continue being mentioned almost everywhere. Obviously, AI massively impacts the blogging industry and you have to adapt to this new context. As mentioned above, there are plenty of uncertainties regarding the use of AI in content creation. Publishing AI-generated content is a lack of respect for users and for blogging as a profession. Yet, disregarding these tools is counterproductive. Adopting a balanced attitude, and accepting the use of AI tools to streamline the writing process without replacing it, appears to be the best approach.
Wrapping Up
Launching a blog in 2024 may be profitable and rewarding. However, it’s less and less attractive to launch a blog due to harsh competition, market saturation, and the rise of AI tools. Yet, there will be people who will set up a new blog in 2024 and will generate decent revenue. It may be you by working hard and choosing an inspired micro-niche.
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