When should you stop blogging? If you’re not enjoying blogging and the money you make from blogging isn’t important to you, then yes, feel free to stop. But before you do, read this post!
Websites (blogs, because a blog is a website) have a value. If ever you feel that you want to stop blogging, be certain you can’t sell that blog or domain name for, what can be, thousands of dollars, more.
The value of the blog will be determined by its age, the number of quality backlinks it has attracted, the relevance of its niche, how much money it makes right now, and how good a job you’ve done in building that blog.
This “how good it is” metric is to do more with the quality of your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) than it is to do with the quality of your writing.
We’ll talk about all of this, and when you should stop blogging because it doesn’t feel right, in this post.
A list of good reasons to stop blogging or to not blog. All of these assume that you don’t make a significant or important income from your blog.
Of course, you don’t have to stop forever, you could just take a break and come back when you’re ready. Your blog will still be there so long as you continue to pay for it. Taking a break shouldn’t decrease your rankings too much, even if that break is months or years.
If blogging is a chore and either you don’t make any money from your blog, or the amount isn’t significant to you, just stop.
If you run out of topics to cover or original things to say, go ahead and stop if writers block is stressing you out.
If you’re attracting negative attention, trolls, bullying and hate that you can’t handle and that affects your mental health, stop.
If you’re sinking a lot of money you can’t afford into your blog, stop blogging.
If you started blogging as a hobby but found you didn’t enjoy it, stop.
If you’re giving it your all, doing everything you can and you’re just not attracting an audience, stop.
If blogging serves no purpose to you, then stop.
If your life doesn’t have time to blog, don’t blog.
If blogging demands are stressing you out, stop.
If you started a blog to make money and it is making nothing, then stop because you’re likely doing it wrong. Or study harder!
Stop blogging if you’re over-sharing and making your blog too personal. This is the only time I’d delete a blog. If you’ve made an error of judgement and shared images and words that display way too much of your life, your friend’s lives, or your kids’ lives (in particular). Stop and delete. This is not a good idea. For the same reasons don’t sit down to write a blog post when you’re emotional. It’s a step too far that you’ll likely regret.
If you’ve done anything that wasn’t smart, like infringed copyright by using other people’s words or images, stop. Stop right now before the person you stole from takes you to the cleaners for thousands. Likewise if you’;ve bought links, probably best to stop or clean up that whole mess you made.
I know that, personally, I will never stop. I love my websites, all of them.
The constant challenge of getting them to rank is what I love best, not the writing. I also love to share exciting and obscure travel destinations and get my know-how out there for others to use.
I love data and analytics. I love having an income that allows my family and me to be digital nomads, for us, it’s the ultimate lifestyle. I will never, ever, quit blogging. I will not retire from blogging, it is my joy.
My only fear is that old age may remove my ability to blog in some way.
That is the only point at which I may sell my blogs. It could make me a very rich old lady if I sell at the right time.
Reasons For Starting a Blog
A lot, maybe even most people, start a blog as a hobby. Some start a blog because they saw something about blogging being lucrative and they set out from day one to generate an income from a blog.
Some big companies start blogs, using a professional team, to increase their profits in some way.
Most people probably have no clue how to blog when they start their first blog. I know I didn’t.
Today, when I start a new site, it’s because either, I think it will be lucrative, or, I have something else to share that I can’t really put on this travel blog.
For instance, I now have a gardening/homesteading site because that’s where life took us during lockdown.
Something I’ve found over the years is that I can actually put all sorts of content on this travel blog and it still works. Niche really isn’t as important as some people make it out to be.
For instance, this site ranks highly for food, homeschooling, worldschooling, and of course, travel blogging, as well as for information on travel to over 50 countries. We even publish a few recipes.
This site is far more than just a family travel blog
Is Blogging Still Relevant in 2022?
Yes, blogging is absolutely still relevant in 2022. Blog articles (blog posts) regularly appear at the top of the Google search results pages (SERPS) for thousands of different search terms.
Blog posts appear at the top of the results pages because people like them. The SEO has to be good too, but if people don’t like the results Google serves, those posts won’t stay at the top for long.
Yes, it is becoming harder to do this. There is more competition, more cheats and scrapers, more copy-cats, and Google’s display now puts Google’s own content at the top of the page, but you can still get to the top with a blog post and beat big companies in the process. If you know how.
When should you stop blogging? If all of this is just too much for you and you’re overwhelmed and not enjoying or benefitting from the process.
Is Blogging Dead?
No, blogging is far from dead. Blogging is huge. Many people finding information on the internet just don’t realise they’re visiting and reading blogs, constantly.
This is a blog post. It looks like an article, guide, or any other webpage. But this is a blog post, created by a blogger, in WordPress. Big companies also publish blog posts or articles constantly.
Blogging is not dead, I make a full time income from blogging and thousands of other bloggers do likewise.
Some believe that we are in the era of YouTube and video stories and that vlogging is taking over from blogging. YouTube is huge, yes, but so are blogs.
Most bigger blogs (such as this one) will combine videos with the words on the page and these videos can and do rank in the same way that YouTube videos rank.
In my experience, vlogging for YouTube is far more work, and more intrusive into your daily life, than website creation.
Blogs Make Money
Blogs can and do make a lot of money. The blog you’re looking at right now has made 4 figures in one day. 6 figures in one year.
A lot of bloggers have multiple blogs (websites) and multiple income streams relating to those blogs.
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Advertising. The adverts you can see on this page earn the blog owner (me) an income.
Affiliate Sales. Sending readers to companies to make a purchase via the bloggers’ links, earns a percentage commission for the blogger. This should cost the reader nothing extra. Most big companies have affiliate schemes.
Paid writing or speaking jobs for the blogger.
Branded content, some bloggers are paid to showcase products, this can be on their blog, social media accounts, or in their email newsletters.
Some bloggers monetise YouTube or Podcasts with advertisements in the same way that this page is monetised with ads.
Bloggers can sell pdf sheets, planners, worksheets, guides etc. Or sell their own e books or other self-created platforms.
A blog can be a platform to sell a course.
If you didn’t know that blogs weren’t just a strange little hobby, this is probably a big wake-up call! I own 8 blogs, they pay the mortgage and allowed us to travel full-time for several years. Blogging is my full-time job.
We have documented our income for blogging for 2020 and for 2021. We didn’t publish blog income reports prior to the global shutdown because we thought it a bit vulgar.
So that’s our post on why you should stop blogging, or not be a blogger. Have you made your mind up to stop working on your blog? Tell us why in the comments.
Alyson Long is a British medical scientist who jumped ship to chase dreams. A former Chief Biomedical Scientist at London's West Middlesex Hospital she started in website creation and travel writing in 2011.
Alyson is a full-time blogger and travel writer, a published author, and owns several websites. World Travel Family is the biggest.
A lifetime of wanderlust and over 6 years of full-time travel, plus a separate 12 month gap year, has given Alyson and the family some travel expert smarts to share with you on this world travel site.
Today Alyson still travels extensively to update this site and continue her mission to visit every country, but she's often at home on her farm in Australia.
