Blogs vs. Vlogs: What Makes The Most Money?

Have you ever thought about starting a career in content creation? If you have, then the question comes, which one should I do? A blog? Or a Vlog? There are many factors to consider in comparing a blog vs. a vlog. And perhaps the most important one is: which one earns more money? A blog or a vlog? However, there are other considerations besides money.

You should see which one suits your skill set better. Which one do you find the easiest? After all, both blogging and vlogging are full-time jobs and take up a large portion of your time. This article will make your decision much easier. So, read on!

What Is a Blog?

A blog is basically a written text that you publish on your website or one of the mainstream blogging platforms. If you are considering becoming a blogger, you should know that your way with words should be better than most. You can add pictures and already posted videos to your blog posts to communicate your meaning more effectively.

What Are the Pros of Having a Blog?

• It’s easy: keeping a blog takes a few hours of your time every day. You usually spend this time writing and proofreading your work.
• You can use your blog to promote your business: keeping a blog on your website draws more traffic. Therefore, the audience gets more exposure to your products and services, which might lead to higher sales.
• It helps build trust: if you are selling some products or services on your website, showing your knowledge off in a series of blog posts can help your potential customers trust you more easily.
• It makes you a better writer: if you plan to pursue a career as a content creator or a writer, nothing like a blog can give you the practice and experience you need to express yourself.

What Are the Cons of Blogging?

• Writing might not come naturally to all: writing is a skill acquired through years of study and practice. You might find it quite challenging to become a writer practically overnight.
• It could cost a lot: publishing new content daily and updating the existing blog posts might be more than a one-person job. What’s more, you might need to hire an SEO expert. There are also the recurring costs of designing and maintaining a website.
• It takes a lot of time to build up an audience: the majority of internet surfers never go to the second page of the search results. This means that in order to appear on the first page, you have to spend a lot of time writing. Trust that you will attract the audience’s attention with your high-quality content. But more importantly, be patient.

What Is a Vlog?

A vlog involves creating video content regularly and posting it on various video-sharing platforms. With the audience’s shortened attention span, many people tend to watch a video to find the answer to their questions. This is an opportunity for people with something to contribute to this vast ocean of knowledge.

What Are the Pros of Vlogging?

• You can become well-known in your industry: true, it hardly ever happens overnight. But with enough time and commitment, your voice can be the most notable in your area of expertise.
• The audience range is more expansive: with a high-quality video, you can attract audiences from all professions and walks of life. The primary platform for publishing user-made video content, YouTube, has over 2 billion active users, and more than 5 billion hours of video are played on it daily. These numbers cannot be underestimated easily.
• It has a higher engagement rate: most people turn to a blog to have their questions answered or check up on some information. Even with newsletters, daily engagement is not that high. In a vlog’s case, on the other hand, your audience will get attached to your voice and face as the single star of your show. So, they might check your channel daily to see what you have come up with.

What Are the Cons of Vlogging?

• It takes too much time and effort: unlike a blog, you cannot outsource your videos in a vlog. You have to do most of the work yourself.
• The equipment is expensive: in order to have high-quality video content, you need to buy the essential recording equipment and invest in several video editing software subscriptions as well. Unfortunately, none of these come at a low price.
• You have to be camera ready every day: you can indeed include some personal details of your life on occasion. But keeping a cheerful demeanor is what keeps your audience interested and engaged long-term.

What Are the Main Topics for a Blog

A blog can come in all types and topics. For example, you could write long articles covering all aspects of a topic or write quick updates to a topic you have already covered.

Whichever area you pick to write about, there are several points to consider: first, your topics should be niche enough to answer a specific need your audience might have. But it should be broad enough for you to cover it from several angles. Second, you should be sufficiently interested and knowledgeable about the topic. And finally, you should scan news outlets daily to keep up to date with the latest developments in the topic.

Personal Blog

In a personal blog, you can write about your daily challenges and joys. These blogs usually focus on your life as a mother, a father, or a professional.

Business Blog

A business blog covers news and information about the stock market or any other kind of market you want to join. you can use graphs and charts to clarify your meaning and provide your audience with crucial information.

Niche Blog

A niche blog is where you talk about something specific you are an expert in. For example, it could be your experience with a certain lifestyle, in a particular societal position, or as a professional in a niche industry.

Affiliate Blog

An affiliate blog promotes products and services of your choice. For example, you could have an entire blog dedicated to affiliate links, or you could use the occasional link in your blog posts related to the product or service that you are promoting.

An Educational Blog

As mentioned before, people usually turn to a blog to learn something or gain insight into a topic. You could create an educational blog in the area you know most about. Being known as a reliable source of information will also help your business attract more customers and increase sales.

What Are the Main Topics for a Vlog

The topics of a vlog are more widespread compared to a blog. You are freer to talk about anything and show anything as long as you have the knowledge and interest. What’s more, a vlog has the capacity to show your audience practical things like making, troubleshooting, or installing something. Here are the most popular topics for a vlog:

Commentary

Commentary vlogs have become widely popular in the last couple of years. You can give your audience honest opinions about a trending topic, comment on an issue you are an expert in, or react to a video or even you are watching. All these commentary vlogs have large audiences and can become really successful.

Unboxing Videos

Another type of vlog that has gained countless views recently is unboxing vlogs. People have come to these unboxing videos to get a glimpse of a product before buying it themselves. The audience also uses unboxing vlogs when trying to choose a gift for their loved ones.

Lifestyle Vlogging

Lifestyle vlogging usually promotes a particular type of lifestyle. For instance, if you are a fitness freak, then some of your vlog posts show you while exercising and others have you sharing fitness and nutrition tips.

Tutorials

Tutorial vlogs are usually reserved for professionals in a specific field. In recent years, makeup and DIY tutorials have found a steady number of viewers. Sometimes, you know you will never follow these instructions, but as the audience, you can’t help watching just to see how it turns out.

Reviews

And finally, we have review vlogs. If you are interested in music, books, movies, or any other types of art, then you can share your review of what you read, hear, or see with your audience. These types of vlogs are best at keeping constant interaction with the audience, as you can ask your viewers to share your experience and invite them to tell you about their opinions.

What Are the Differences Between Blog and Vlog?

Blogs are different from vlogs in several fundamental ways. But there are also some subtle differences that make one more desirable to you than the other. Let’s see what these differences are:

Platforms

A significant difference between a blog and a vlog is the platform they are published in. some of the platforms are free of charge, and some you have to pay for.

If you are thinking about starting a blog, you might as well do it right. A WordPress website is the best place you can set up a blog. You will have to pay for the basic costs of starting a website, but it will ultimately be worth it because it’s highly customizable.

There are other platforms where you can publish your blog posts for free. The most popular ones are Medium, Wix, and Squarespace. If you are unsure about doing a long-term blog, you can start with these platforms and move on to a personal website whenever you are ready.

Platform	Active users
WordPress	60 million
Medium	60 million
Wix	45 million
Squarespace	3.79 million

The best place for a vlog is YouTube, which has the largest number of active daily users. However, platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and Vimeo are quickly catching up. You should know that making a vlog for each platform has its own requirements since they all have their audience and guidelines. You can recycle a video for several platforms but do your homework first and make sure the content and topic suit the audience of the platform.

Platform	Active users
Facebook	2.9 billion
YouTube	2.1 billion
Instagram	1.44 billion
TikTok	1 billion
Vimeo	60 million

Equipment

Marking a blog post does not need any significant equipment. There are many devices on which you can type your text, including your cell phone or personal laptop. You could invest in a grammar checker like Grammarly to ensure your writing has the best quality possible.

A vlog, on the other hand, is a different story. The audience is attracted to high-quality videos with good lighting and professional edits. If you already have a phone with a good camera, you will only need a tripod and a ring light to start your journey. Later, you can add more equipment and professional editing tools to your workroom. Let’s see how much the essential equipment for vlogging costs:

Equipment	Cost
Camera	$700 to $5000
Lights	$20 to $200
Microphone	$30 to $600
Tripod	$20 to $200
Green Screen	$20 to $500
Editing software	$50 to $90 per year

Time

To make a blog, you need 2 or 3 hours a day to plan and write your content and another hour to add pictures, proofread the text, and upload the text onto your platform.

Vlogging, however, takes a lot more time. Planning and recording the video can take 3 to 4 hours of your time every day. The main hurdle is editing the video. If you are a novice, editing your video could take up to 6 hours. But as you gain more experience and get a sense of what you want from your video, this timeframe is shortened significantly. So, there is a reason people say practice makes perfect.

Audience

The audience for a blog and a vlog have significant differences. At a glance, you could say that people turn to a vlog because they have too short of an attention span to read a lengthy text. Also, a video usually takes a shorter time and less energy to watch.

However, people who turn to a blog are more serious readers and want to learn something new and retain the information in written form. For instance, if you are looking for a list of some kind, or the steps to doing a project, it’s just more efficient to have it in written form rather than watching it in a video and trying to memorize it or take notes.

Monetization

There are several ways you can make money from a blog or a vlog. You will read all about the monetization methods for a blog and a vlog in the following paragraphs. But you should know that a blog has the potential to make as much money as a vlog. If done right, a blog can get more views over time, and in the case of sponsored blog posts, this can lead to a passive income.

On the other hand, seeing your merchandise on YouTube has become extremely popular in the last few years. This has the potential to become a vlogger’s primary source of income. What’s more, many vlogging platforms, including YouTube, offer vloggers money per view if they allow advertisements with their videos. Therefore, increase the number of viewers to earn more money from your video.

SEO

SEO or Search Engine Optimization, is something that only bloggers should be concerned about. In fact, SEO is a set of guidelines and strategies that help your blog posts be discovered more easily by the audiences who search for a specific keyword.

Every SEO process starts with a keyword research and ends with setting the proper tags and links in the published text. If you want your SEO done by professionals, it’s a good idea to hire an SEO expert and ask them to do the on-page, off-page, and technical optimization for your website. Does it cost a lot? Yes! Is it worth it? Absolutely.

Popularity

Speaking of popularity, there is no doubt that vlogs have the majority’s attention. This trend really started in 2005 when YouTube was launched for the first time. Today, social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook have also joined the ranks and are making vlogging easier and more popular than ever.

What Are the Steps to Start a Blog

Domain and Host

To start a blog, first, you need to register a domain name and buy a hosting plan. Several companies that offer hosting plans, including Bluehost, Hostringer, and Hostgator. As a starter, it’s better to get a shared hosting plan at a lower price. You can always opt to get dedicated hosting or VPS when you want to expand your blog.

Registering your domain name and getting your host plan will end with getting an email address for your blog. Then it’s time to turn to WordPress.

If you don’t know what to name your blog’s domain, check out domain name generators.

CMS

WordPress is the single most popular CMS platform out there. In fact, more than 60% of websites are based on WordPress, and there is no reason you shouldn’t join this crowd too. The beginner plan on WordPress is $20 a year, but as you expand your blog over the years, you might have to buy an advanced plan for $600 a month.

Once your WordPress account is in place, you can add free or paid WordPress themes to build your website and then gradually add the widgets and plugins you need.

The other option is to have a professional web designer build your website. Of course, a web designer’s fee depends to a large extent on the size of your website and the expertise of the designer. However, a basic website might cost somewhere between $300 and $3000.

If you want to start blogging on a WordPress platform, we recommend you to check out this article on How to Make a WordPress Website.

It’s important to remember that the choosing the best WordPress theme for your blog is also a key factor in attracting and retaining visitors.

SEO Tools

Your website is up and everything is ready to start a wonderfully successful blog. Well, that’s not it. Before you can embark on your writing journey, you need to use one of the popular SEO tools, such as SEMrush.

SEMrush will find the most critical keywords in your area of interest, help you do a more comprehensive competition analysis, and SEO audit your website to stay as optimized as possible. The pro plan for SEMrush will cost you $119 a month.

Content

Finally, it’s time to write. Using the keywords you have found from your SEO tools, you can finally start writing your blog posts. Adding pictures and other visual aids, internal and external links, and proper tags to your blog posts will help you get a higher ranking in search engine results. Be patient; it all comes with time and experience. Content marketing is a marathon, and it could be up to three years before you start feeling successful as a blogger. 

What Are the Steps to Start a Vlog

Pick a Platform

The most common platform for vloggers to publish their videos is YouTube. But there are other platforms, such as Vimeo, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok, that accept videos as their content. The important point is to have a good knowledge of these platforms and their audience and then choose your platform accordingly.

You can also use the same video on several platforms or edit it slightly to fit the bill perfectly before recycling it. What’s common among all these platforms is that they are all free, and you can start your vlog on them without any trouble at all.

Buy the Equipment You Need

It’s completely ok to start your blog with just a phone and its camera. All the other equipment mentioned before is merely for improving the sound and picture quality of your videos. The number of vloggers on social media has grown so much in the last few years that it’s sometimes necessary to have the best quality possible to gain the audience’s attention.

Do Some Competition Analysis

Talking about competition brings the famous saying to mind “keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” Before you start your blog, you should have a deep knowledge of what the other vloggers in your field of interest are doing.

You don’t need to do complete keyword research as bloggers do. But going over the topics and the style the others are using would help you understand what to discuss and avoid.

Start Recording and Editing

This is the central part of your day as a vlogger. As mentioned before, recording and editing videos take up a large portion of your day. On the other hand, it’s not that hard to upload your videos on the platforms, and you won’t need regular updates for your content.

How to Earn Money From a Blog?

One of the main questions people ask about blogging is, “when does it lead to an income?” Well, the answer to this question might be different for various types of blogs. First, however, you need to be established as a reliable source of information before you can start to monetize your blog. Once you have accomplished that, here are some ways of earning an income from a blog:

Google AdSense

Google AdSense is a system in which Google’s paid ads show up on your blog posts, and you get paid for it. In order to start the process, you need to make some space available for the ads to show up. Using Google AdSense is entirely free, and you will get paid based on the clicks and impressions you get from the ads.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a $12 billion business that is considered one of the primary income sources for bloggers. It involves promoting the goods and services offered by another company in your blog and earning money on a commission or per click.

The first stage in affiliate marketing is finding a network. A network is what makes the connection between you and the businesses with the products or services you are supposed to promote. That is, of course, in case you have a solid body of readers and have earned their trust.

Once you have found your business, the rest is all about devising a strategy and coming to an agreement with your new business partners.

Online Courses

If you are a blogger who is an expert in a field you can teach, then online courses are the way to monetize your content. All bloggers in digital marketing fields, programmers, and SEO specialists can use their expertise to create courses on their websites.

Online courses work in two ways: sometimes, your course is actually online, and people pay to participate in the course. You can add a video platform to your website or use YouTube or other services that allow live streaming of video.

Sometimes you create a video course, and people can use it per demand. This type of online course is more convenient and can be a source of passive income for you since you work on the video only once. On the other hand, people tend to enjoy online streaming courses more as they give them a sense of community.

If you need more help, take a look at this detailed guide on How to Sell Online Courses in 2022.

Sponsorships

Sponsored posts are usually used to create a social buzz about a brand. The monetization process in sponsorship is completely different from affiliate marketing because, in sponsorship, you are paid by a business to provide a link or advertising space. In affiliate marketing, on the other hand, you are paid based on the impressions or clicks that your posts get.

How to Earn Money From a Vlog?

Google AdSense

One convenient way of earning money for a blogger is by using Google’s AdSense. This service allows short video advertisements to be played before, after, and during your videos. To start making money, the only thing you have to do is to activate YouTube’s AdSense while uploading your video. You will be paid based on the number of views your video gets.

Sponsorship and collaborations

If your vlogs have more than 1000 subscribers and viewers, you can consider getting a sponsor for your posts. You can make a collaboration with a brand and get paid for mentioning the brand name. This is a highly recommended way of monetizing your vlog since you rely on your audience and their trust in you to help the brands you sponsor.

Channel Membership

Some vlog channels on YouTube offer their members some unique insight if they buy their channel’s membership. This monetization method is especially useful for financial advisors, day traders, and tutors.

The key to this method is to offer helpful information in your vlog free of charge and invite your subscribers to pay for a membership if they want to learn more about the topic.

Super Chat

A super chat or a super sticker is the opportunity you give your followers to stand out in the comments sections of your live streams. People or businesses use super chats to promote their goods and services or just their vlogs. To use super chats and super stickers in your YouTube live streams, you have to take some simple steps.

First, make sure that your live stream is eligible for offering super chats and super stickers. Second, go to your channel’s monetization settings and enable super chats for eligible live streams.

And finally, set some blocked words and phrases to make sure that the messages people put on super chats stay appropriate and relevant. Selling these super chats and super stickers can be a great source of income for vloggers who have regular live streams.

Paid Reviews

Paid reviews involve reviewing some goods and services in your vlog post and discussing their features and price. Vloggers can get paid to recommend a business, brand, or service to their audience in a vlog post.

The good news about paid reviews is that you don’t have to be on YouTube to monetize your vlog. Paid reviews work just as well on other social media platforms, including Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook.

Merchandise

If your vlog has a large number of fans and subscribers, you can think about designing and selling your merchandise. It could be a t-shirt, mug, jewelry, handbag, or any other kind of object with your logo or famous catchphrase printed on it.

Creating your merchandise can require a small investment on your part to purchase or create the items. But it’s an excellent way for you to monetize your vlog and create a sense of community in your audience at the same time.

You can encourage your followers to find each other by using your merch in public or show their solidarity with a cause you care about by using the merch. Of course, the possibilities are endless.

Which One Makes More Money: A Blog? Or a Vlog?

After all this, we come to the most important question of all! Which one makes more money? Of course, there is always the possibility to earn money both from your blog and vlog simultaneously. But in the discussion on blog vs. vlog, we have to come to a single conclusion.

The answer to this question for a blog is highly complicated! The first factor is the number of page views and newsletter subscribers you have. Then there are the monetization strategies you use. And finally, your topic makes a difference in the money a blogger earns.

However, there are some statistics to look at. According to a survey done by Digital Nomad Wannabe, about 12% of bloggers earn between $1000 and $2500 a month. This story is different for the biggest names in the blogging business. For instance, HuffPost, one of the largest blogs on the internet, earns about $500 million a year.

Estimating how much a vlogger earns each month is a little easier because YouTube offers an income per view if the vlogger has enabled monetization on their channel. For instance, you could make between $800 and $1000 per month for 20,000 daily views of your vlog posts.

As discussed before, there are other ways that vloggers can earn money. So, depending on the number of your followers/subscribers and the monetization strategies you pick, your monthly income could be different. Right now, the highest revenue on YouTube belongs to Mr. Beast, with an annual income of $50 million.

A Blog or a Vlog, That Is the Question

If you are still wondering whether you should start a blog or a vlog, take a long look at yourself. If you are the character type to be camera ready all the time, go for vlogging.

On the other hand, if you are more comfortable with written words rather than spoken ones, blogging is the carrier for you. As you saw in this article, both professions need a considerable amount of time and dedication. And the earnings are not that different.

Therefore, you should do whatever you are more passionate about. And remember that with both blogging and vlogging, you have to be extremely patient and work for nothing for a long time until you can finally see some results.