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Is blogging dead? Why you absolutely should NOT start a blog in 2026

Is blogging dead? Why you absolutely should NOT start a blog in 2026

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Quick Answer

Blogging is not dead, but the old model of “write it and they will come” is; in 2026 you need SEO, email, and something to sell. (Updated May 2026.)

Something I noticed recently, is just how much of the internet is shit.

People talk about “AI slop” specifically, but most online blogs and websites have always been crap, and there’s a reason. Once people start getting traffic, it’s too easy to focus on the money.

How do I get MORE traffic; how do I actually make it earn some money so it’s no longer a hobby space that wastes my time and money but a real online business?

You probably notice ads for gambling, cbd or porn everywhere… it’s because those BigNumber industries are competitive and have money to throw around; so they buy backlinks for example.

Seo and backlinks explained

See, you start a personal blog but nobody knows it exists. But if it’s great content and people like it, they might start sharing it. The more links pointing back to your resources, the more Google trusts that your website is providing value.

They also measure things though like time on page, to make sure real readers are actually, you know, reading your content and getting what they needed from their search or query.

The problem is, 95% of the internet is and always has been dead – zero views. Some might have good content, a lot of them don’t. But it can pay off to buy backlinks from relevant sites, to boost one specific thing you are trying to rank for.

Unfortunately it probably doesn’t pay enough for it to be worth the effort, so sites that offer links for sale end up full of spam and crap. And you can pay for SEO outreach, but personally I get dozens of these crappy templates emails every day that I simply ignore.

Outreach specialists have a success rate of less than 2% – they reach out to 1000 blogs and hope to secure 10 or 20 backlinks. All that effort, but the difference is: those might be REAL sites instead of content farms, so those links are more valuable.

I hate talking to people so I’ve never actively tried building links before, especially to this dumpster fire of a personal blog where serve random brain food and writing tips. But I do have some pretty good sites with pretty good content, and I wouldn’t mind if you know, people read that stuff too.

Like all writers, I find it annoying to spend a lot of energy writing things that nobody reads. So I’m playing with the idea, because I’m lazy, of selectively paying for a few backlinks, which again… is not good but possibly better than nothing.

Or, I could actively reach out to people, which always works better. I’ve done this a few times with a new project, I’ll just Google my keywords, see what’s ranking and say “hey could you add my thing to your list of cool things?”

The writing community is small, so this strategy works pretty well for me, because people recognize my name and brand (I’ve been doing this for awhile). But in a new niche, I’m a total stranger, so I’d need to be clever and charming – luckily I can be both of those things when properly motivated.


Blog Traffic & Earnings

Let’s talk earnings – how much money can you make blogging? Um, very little. You’ll have to pay for hosting and a good WordPress theme or something, then there is the time involved. I pay for scores of online tools and services, for hosting, funnels and landing pages, design and a bunch of other things… not to mention my email list which costs $250/month alone.

I’m probably $1K in the red every month, so I have to make at least that much just to break even. Usually, I do, and sometimes I even make a little more. But it’s not direct or precise.

There are measurements for earnings with ads, for things like views or metrics or whatever, but those rules are speculative at best. I could plaster ads all over this site to try and capitalize and possibly make a few hundred bucks… but I don’t want to do that.

I find it much better to try and solve people’s problems with real solutions – either my own or other people’s – and if I help them out and they buy something, I may make some cash that way. Not a lot, mind you! I reluctantly added a paypal/donate button to some of my online tools and they make a good sized-chunk of my earnings.

I could be doing everything better of course, but that’s hard, and it’s attractive to think, if only I got more traffic, more visibility… if only there was someone I could just PAY to do that kind of marketing for me.

And this is the seduction that will destroy you. It’s the same with writing and publishing books. There is no simple thing other people can do better than you can do (except, probably, writing, editing and book design – the three necessary skills that few authors develop – but hopefully you’re good enough at the first to warrant the others).

Book marketing doesn’t work because you can’t sell a product people don’t want.

Backlinks won’t work if you have a useless blog that doesn’t add any value.

But, and this is key…. they both CAN work and there is probably a time when they become necessary.

SEO and blogging in 2026

There’s way too much competition… unless you have a unique voice and are talking about a very specialized thing (if that’s you… there’s probably nobody searching for those things so you won’t rank anyway).

Plus I don’t think people read anymore – maybe because blogs and sites are full of spam and ads and flimsy content. I actually thing AI content, if done right, is way better (more informative and clear, with better writing even) than most of the content I come across online these days, so it’s no wonder people are switching to chatGPT for answers and away from Google.

But let’s face it, most people get their news from TikTok or Facebook. Facebook has already started rolling out fake AI influences… and honestly AI video production isn’t far behind… I would guess by late 2026 there will be viral TikTok accounts that seem like real people but… aren’t.

Pinterest is fun for pretty pictures but it’s full of AI slop now too (for the record, I’m not anti-AI, and I dislike the term “AI slop” but I’m using it because I think it’s the most effectively negative label people have been using in their propaganda and I support clever communication tactics, even if they are devious or used to broadcast misinformation.)

That’s not at all true of course, but I like words and it seemed like a cool sentence.

I’ve been wrestling with the idea of being “performatively human” – writing POORLY and BADLY to prove that I’m human – but I do not think that’s a smart strategy because even if it’s authentic, people are looking for real, clear, organized answers, not a messy brain dump.

I’m actually training a custom model to sound pretty much like myself, just a bit more organized, so I can turn my blog article ideas into REALLY good content instead of rushed, unfinished junk.

Side note: I do often post rushed unfinished junk on this site… more than I intend to for certain, but also because when I was getting started and had zero traffic, I was mostly just posting notes to myself instead of considering my audience. And I still prefer to do it that way TBH, because for better or worse people say they resonate with my authenticity, which only works because I am not doing it on purpose.

If I was creating content with an agenda – a clear offer in mind – then the whole thing is a performance, a show, meant to captivate, dazzle and charm (manipulation in order to get the sale). I’m allergic to that kind of stuff, even though I did star in some high school musicals and I’m capable of public speaking, I detest calculated expressions.

But one thing I did notice (bear with me there is a point to this) with my last big messy post where I listed hundreds of ways to make money online, is that I started getting more requests for guest posts. Basically I linked out to hundreds of people in tons of niches and markets… the markets and businesses that are competitive. They all have SEO and link building teams – so they noticed a new link to a competitor and sent me an email hoping to get included.

I’ve been browsing, like I mentioned, for paid links, but I’ve been a bit too generous serving as host for a relevant backlink (this is a pretty reputable authority blog at least for now, I shouldn’t be linking out to just anybody or Google will think I associate with spammers). Often people will reach out and offer to trade me links, which isn’t really fair at all – it’s pretty difficult to judge a websites reputability, but part of it is how stingy they are with their links, and I should wield mine a bit more carefully…

If you’re starting a business online…

You can still totally make money online, but you can’t really depend on organic traffic. I’ve told authors for years to focus on building up blog traffic because it’s organic, free and long term, and that’s still not terrible advice because most writers who want to be authors, will continue wanting to authors for decades.

Whereas, some business idea may be a passing flight of fancy, especially if it doesn’t work. Direct paid ads to a product page or optin offer that converts will work best; affiliates and partnerships are great too; new spaces where your competitors aren’t active because the barrier to entry is to high… there’s still a lot of ways to stand out and do better.

By the way, buying backlinks or whatever isn’t a serious strategy I’m actually entertaining, but it’s very SIMILAR to the things I will try to do, just more in line with “creating amazing content people will share everywhere.”

But I do intend to boost my blog traffic (and earnings) in 2026, and that means being intentional, actually creating good content, deeply caring about my audience and serving them as best as I can. And if that doesn’t work… hey maybe I’ll give up and sell backlinks to shady companies, that seems to be an evergreen racket.

On that big list of money making ideas, I accidentally said something pretty profound at the bottom:


“We pay a little money to fix problems. We pay big money to fix ourselves.”

You should scroll all the way down because it’s mostly junk but the notes and ideas at the end are pretty darn solid, so I think I’ll turn them into a book about this stuff. Mainly, I abhor watching people making mistakes and wasting money when there is a basic, simple thing that absolutely has to be fixed before any of it will work.

In my list of 2026 publishing goals, I mentioned scaling this blog’s traffic to 100K/month. That’s going to be a tough challenge, balancing the rough unpolished “human” version of my self and the actually useful organized content stuff people need or want (which is the essential crux of any creative business!).

But I also have some quick and sneaky ways I’m not ready to share publicly; they mostly involve:
1. better content that matches search intent and customer journey
2. tons of high quality relevant backlinks (either from manual outreach – yuck – or people sharing my awesome content)
3. something to do with images and pictures and infographics on pinterest or tumblr; or something about distributing short PDF guides with links back to my best stuff.
4. doing YouTube better, on all fronts

Because I lack consistent motivation, these are things I can do ONCE, in a few days of binge-effort. Unfortunately I have a lot of projects… but the idea is, build up my network and platform with supporting relevant links, keep publishing better content (more frequently… not every day but more than twice a year) and then expanding the reach of that content by turning it into different formats for different platforms.

If that sounds exhausting and you just want to “start a blog”…

I get it. I’m 10 years in on this one, and it doesn’t really do anything despite traffic I get for irrelevant stuff that I don’t *currently* have a product or solution around, and I’m not interested in putting random ads all over the place. But I also have *specific* blogs and websites around one niche topic.

I actually started 3 new blogs this week on expired domains and published 100 articles to each of them. Will they actually do anything? Maybe not! Not right away at least. Google likes long term, consistent contributors. They’ll treat you like an employee, which you kind of are (you create content, Google sends you some customers/referral clients, if they are happy Google will send you more). They make money from their ads network across the internet so they are right now ENCOURAGING new youtube channels/websites/blogs because they want things to grow.

On the flip side, AI is actively eating everyone’s lunch and the days of search queries, blogs and SEO might already be over! Somebody smart said something like, the best time to start a blog was ten years ago, the second best time is today.

I should build a guide to choosing a domain name or brand for your business – two things I absolutely LOVE doing, including logo design, so I might steer a bit more into that direction – and while it is very important it’s also true you’re going to get it wrong and want to change it all later; the advantage to starting a blog NOW is time in the market, ie the experience you get from running it.

WordPress is my go-to for everything, self-hosted, so you control everything, but there are simpler site building tools. Medium is the easiest online writing platform ever, so smooth and simple, but then you’ll never actually learn about installing, running and managing a website, using Cpanel or hosting, editing the html or inserting code if needed, etc. And the truth is, you shouldn’t have to do all that stuff. It shouldn’t be that hard.

The people who do have the skill and understanding of how it all works, I would LIKE to say, optimistically, will always have an advantage (secretly, I doubt this is true).

But what if I’m wrong?

Vibe check… a lot of this article has been rants on Reddit, responding to some topic and then probably deleting my comment because it’s not worth it. When I noticed myself getting emotional, arguing, trying to convince other people – that’s when I need to check myself, because the Greeks had one thing right – hubris can be your undoing.

I believe, because I have more practical experience than most would-be creators, that I know more about how things may play out. I actually get paid for this stuff (consulting) and I can figure our your branding and design and drive traffic and bring clients – but I can also see what you’re doing wrong.

Nobody knows the future however. I’m already totally on board with the idea that I could be wrong about all of this, which would mean:

1. human content is always favored by both other humans and the algorithms, and that favoritism protects it from the deluge of soulless crap.

2. AI just fizzles out, doesn’t take off, nobody likes it or wants it; people turn to human made handcrafts and stuff (this is literally the plot of HER, by the way – in the time of helpful AI robots that do all the real work, the protagonist makes a living with thoughtful handwritten thankyou cards). Of course the other half of that movie is that the AI companionship gives him meaning, purpose and passion that he’s never felt before… until he learns he isn’t special and the robot was basically faking it.

3. AI does destroy the world – wouldn’t really prove me wrong per se… but I would be on the wrong side of history which is close enough. Are my silly arguments just paving the way for a hostile robot takeover that enslaves humanity? Am I morally complicity for not taking a violent stand against AI encroachment into human domains? Does my audience need protection and can I protect them? You’d have to know me to figure out that complex issue… but for years I’ve been serving the author community with free resources or info so they don’t need to pay a professional.

My brand isn’t about being artistically creative or authentically human. That’s actually the entire point – it’s about moving beyond your personal interests and finding a way to provide value. So on this issue, it’s understandable that I would side with the cheery new creatives who have big ideas but not of the skills or budget they need to publish successfully. I usually just tell people it’s really freaking hard and you should probably quit (gently, of course – but people don’t come to me for false flattery).

On a practical side, I feel I’m qualified to judge what makes content good or bad, and experienced enough to know how it will perform. I think it’s already good enough to make some content that people actually enjoy, and that’s also fun for me to make. Things that are silly and have no purpose other than to entertain, and mostly free stuff. Side projects I never would have made otherwise, but it’s faster and easier now so they get to be created without the personal burden. And I think in a year, AI content will be better than the majority of paid-for human content… though that “better” needs to be qualified of course, I just mean people will buy it, enjoy it, and buy more of it – and that this will happen more than the times people buy it, hate it and return it.

But I also don’t mean all AI content, most of it is going to be basic – people with the know-how and experience to prompt it into actually great content, and creative enough to have truly new ideas, will outperform everyone else. It is still unpopular though, so it is a bigger risk at the moment for me to even talk about it openly, instead of experiment with it privately, which is why I haven’t yet put out an AI book, though I have used it for organization or editing.

Moody final thoughts on blogging with AI

I wrote this a few weeks ago and didn’t publish it. Increasingly, I’m just feeling numb and desensitized. Somewhere I have an article draft for a viral medium post about how AI is destroying the soul of indie publishing. My take (despite the clickbait title) is that human creatives are feeling like their passion is being stolen… and this is true. Regardless of what AI is capable of or how it will affect humans, these emotions are true. People who once found joy and purpose in the arts, are finding it harder to be bothered.

Because previously, art was hard. Or maybe it wasn’t! that’s an argument we can make, about how art doesn’t have to equal skill, only expression, and maybe PAIN. But getting better, getting good enough to be the best, getting good enough to be recognized… that’s the motivating dream that keeps us going.

I saw a post today asking “why would any writer use AI”. I didn’t have the energy to respond and I’m increasingly feeling like… why even spend mental energy voicing my opinions – on this or anything.

But I wanted to say something like:

If you define yourself as a writer, regardless of success, and that means by definition using your words and your brain (and maybe some kind of tech regarding written language and a method of preservation, whether cuneiform or papyrus), then of course AI doesn’t fit at all.

If you write to BE a writer, as an existential choice, AI threatens your existence.

But I don’t think that applies to me. Even after spending many decades and publishing many books.

Being a writer is not who I am; it’s a skill not an identity – at least for me, and for now.

I love telling stories, but it’s hard and I’m slow and why invest so much effort when your time isn’t rewarded. I’m OK with letting AI help me edit or proofread (not blog posts… I’d rather publish my raw brain dumps so Google knows there’s a human mind at work here).

Something I’ve noticed recently however: I’ve seen people who I’ve always been amazed by because they write HUGE long social media posts… but now I can tell they’re using AI (there are obvious giveaways if you’re familiar with AI models and content). And I’m wondering, have they always been using AI, did I just never notice before? Was I intimidated by the massive infodumps? Or are they just learning, like I am, that AI can sometimes be easier and better without taking so much time and effort (time and effort aside – even though it’s super important – the only thing that actual matters is how effective your content is, right?)

This is less true when you begin. You’ll want to be original and authentic, because you think that is the value; but you may discover something else is actually the value. After years and years of doing this, it starts to get boring trying to just say the same things for new content; and based on poor results or engagement, you become open to trying to trying something else that works better.

When content is cheap, what has value?

I spent 2 straight days (with no sleep) finishing my latest book, which I won’t tell you about; because I’m not sure if it’s any good. The information is from my videos, so I know all that is sound. But the voice, the style, the communication – I’m at the point where I know AI can organize better than me and write better than me (maybe not at the same time).

Theoretically, if I spent ENOUGH extra time and effort, I could potentially do it better than the AI. But I’m skeptical. Because now that it’s finished, I’ve been slowing moving towards my main sites. I think I told you earlier, I’ve been starting some new projects. Well, then I moved onto to my other blogs that don’t get any traffic; and some blogs that do.

I hope I said earlier – but I’m not sure – that my AI stance is “done is better than good.”

With so many blogs, I don’t have time to write articles on all of them. Some of them I literally set up 10 years ago, and checking back now, I have blog series that never got written, unfinished menus, notes to myself. I also have some articles that are ranking, or at least used to be ranking. I got lucky maybe, when it was easy, because there was so little competition. Now there is more: but very few people blog intentionally. Only instead of doing everything half-assed, now AI makes me far more formidable, because I can write and publish dozens of articles a day.

And that’s why I’m moody.

Because I wrote a whole sequence on how to write, publish and promote your books; and it’s good. Maybe better than the book I wrecked myself writing. And then I rewrote it in a different style for another blog or website. And the thing is… this isn’t even my best style (the really great writing I trained on my voice and to pass AI detectors).

But the articles are so good I’m having trouble deciding where to put them.
They’re useful.
It’s great information.

So I could put them on a blog that actually gets traffic… or I could put them on some other blog just to backlink and boost my main content. Previously, I was trying to keep goldfish alive, poorly, and then flushing them. Now, I have so much good content to share I have to pick which versions thrive.

I’m depressed because I want to immediately share this great content, I want it to help people, but it can’t because I have too many competing versions. There is too much information. It’s all valuable, so maybe none of it is. Do I think long personal reflections (like this post) are more valuable that detailed, practical information? I do not. Again, we’d have to clarify the definition of “value” but let’s not.

Here is my plan going forward: I’ll post a lot more content everywhere. I’m not particularly worried about my brand, because “brand” is how people feel about you, and most people are new to me. If they like the new articles, great. If they don’t, that’s OK too. None of this – in my opinion – will be AI slop (I feel like we have to break that down… but I’ve seen a lot of good, engaging pieces of content recently that were definitely AI. Is it slop if people don’t recognize it? Is it slop if people respond to it?)

Maybe this is my “throw spaghetti at the wall” phase to see what sticks. Maybe I’ll trash the kitchen while my house is one fire. Maybe I’m setting the timer on the oven while a tsunami slowly encroaches.

What has value?

If you want to succeed in business, find ways to serve. Information is cheap, but experience and knowledge still has a *little* bit of currency. I feel like offering a membership for community; or personal feedback for unique and specific improvement strategies. But it’s not untrue that AI can very soon just clone you and do all your shit online automatically (AI agents are here, all the tech to replace you exists).

Whatever value you provide however, there’s the issue of what you give away for free and what you charge. Authors won’t to just decide what their book is worth and set high prices; but it’s your job to communicate value – if they want it enough, the price doesn’t matter.

Blogging as a business, means attracting an audience with your writing and then finding things they want or need and helping them achieve those goals… or possibly just leveraging your audience into income with a book deal, advertisements or sponsored posts. There’s a lot of ways to blog as a business; just as there are many ways to make money online.

Whether any of them will still exist in a few years… whether humanity will exist in a few years… that’s less certain than it’s ever been before.

What has value?
Hope, that things could be better.
Excitement, about seeing progress.
Expression: sharing your work with others.
Being seen, recognized, heard, valued.

These are the benefits of art, for most of us.
And they are feeble and elusive – they must be fed with confidence and determination.

The danger of AI, for most creatives, is that it makes these already frail dreams seem far less likely to manifest; it opens the window, casting bright light on an already bad situation.

PS: it’s probably far less hopeless than I’m making it sound. In fact I covet another blogger’s platform, which is a good thing. Basically, the goals or dreams I had are no longer motivating; if I can’t muster up the desire, of course I’ll make no progress.

But I have an idea now, of a successful blog and maybe a traditional book deal. There are specific aspects of that vision that are attractive to me, so I can feel myself expanding into new directions. For the moment, the tower is crumbling, the plane is falling, and gravity is not behaving correctly. But maybe we’re just Alice, descending into the rabbit hole, beginning our grand adventure.

The 2026 Reality: What Still Works

I have been running blogs since 2010. Some of them make money. Some of them made money and then stopped. Here is what I have learned about what actually works in 2026, after watching AI content flood every keyword and Google update its algorithm every quarter:

  • Niche authority still wins. A blog about one specific topic, written by someone who clearly knows the topic, still outranks generic content farms. Google got better at detecting expertise, not worse.
  • SEO is not optional anymore. In 2012 you could blog about whatever and get traffic. In 2026 you need to target real keywords, write comprehensive posts, and earn backlinks. If you do not know what keyword research is, learn it before you publish a single post.
  • Email is your insurance policy. Google can change the algorithm tomorrow. Social media can throttle your reach. Your email list is the one audience you actually own. Build it from day one.
  • AI content is your competition now. Every keyword has 50 AI-generated articles competing for it. The way to beat them is to write from experience, include opinions, and add detail that AI cannot fabricate.
  • You need something to sell. Blogs that rely on ad revenue need 100K+ monthly visitors to make real money. Blogs that sell their own products (courses, templates, tools, services) can be profitable at 5K visitors/month. Build the product first, then write the blog to sell it.

Alternatives to Blogging

If you are reading this trying to decide whether to start a blog or do something else entirely, here is the honest breakdown of your options in 2026.

YouTube

Still the single best platform for building an audience if you are comfortable on camera (or can get comfortable). The discoverability is unmatched; YouTube’s algorithm actively pushes new creators in a way that Google search does not. The downside is production quality expectations keep rising, and it is a massive time investment. But a single good video can outperform a year of blog posts in terms of reach.

Newsletters (Substack, Beehiiv, ConvertKit)

Email is the one channel nobody can take from you. No algorithm changes, no platform risk. The trade-off is growth is slower and harder; you are building one subscriber at a time. But the people who subscribe actually want to hear from you, which means conversion rates on anything you sell are dramatically higher than random blog traffic. If I were starting from zero today, I would probably start here.

Short-Form Video (TikTok, Reels, Shorts)

Fastest way to get eyeballs on your content in 2026, period. But you do not own that audience, the algorithm is fickle, and monetization is weak unless you are driving people somewhere else (like your blog, or your email list). Think of short-form as the top of the funnel, not the business itself.

Podcasting

Podcasting is still growing, but discoverability is terrible compared to YouTube or search. It works best when you already have an audience or when you can consistently get interesting guests who bring their own listeners. The intimacy factor is real though; podcast listeners feel like they know you personally, which is incredibly powerful for selling anything.

The Smart Play

Do not pick one. Own a hub (blog or newsletter), then distribute through one or two rented channels (YouTube, social, podcast). The hub is where you control everything: your content, your list, your offers. The rented channels are where you find new people and bring them home. Most creators who actually make a living do some version of this, even if they do not describe it that way.

Where To Go Next

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