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Blogging is one of the most cost effective side hustles you can do.
With other gigs, like ride sharing or food delivery, it is will be very hard, if not impossible to turn that gig into a job where you can replace your day job.
With blogging, you can replace your day job and in some cases, out earn what you were making before.
There are many success stories online of bloggers who have had their lives changes by blogging.
They earn more money than they thought possible and have the freedom to work when and where they want.
But there is a downside to blogging.
While you see the success stories, what you don’t see are the aspects of blogging people don’t talk about.
This includes the hard work and effort you need to put into a site to even start making money in the first place.
In this post, I share with you 21 reasons to not start a blog.
The goal isn’t to stop you from starting one, but rather get a complete understanding of what it takes to be successful.
Table of Contents
21 Reasons To Not Start A Blog
#1. Not A Get Rich Quick Side Hustle
A lot of people interested in blogging get hooked by talking to and reading articles about successful bloggers.
They see these people as earning six figures of passive income a month while making their own schedule.
It sounds like a dream come true.
And it is.
But very few of these bloggers made it to these income levels quickly.
It took a lot of time.
For most bloggers, you won’t earn a dime for the first 6 months.
And from there it is a slow climb.
Yes there are exceptions.
If you have an amazing product or course that people need to have and you are good at getting the word out there, you can reach this number faster.
But it is more the exception than the norm.
And the hard truth is the majority of people never even reach this point.
This isn’t a bad thing.
If you can replace your day job and earn $75,000 a year blogging, you should be happy with it.
Just don’t think it will happen overnight.
#2. It’s A Lot Of Work
Digging deeper into the point above, blogging is also a lot of work.
The people you read about now who are successful only work 10-30 hours a week.
But this is because they have the income to outsource the majority of their work.
In the beginning, they were easily working more than 40 hours a week.
Doing keyword research to find keywords that people are searching for and don’t have a lot of competition could easily take you 40 hours.
And depending on your niche, you might only come away with a handful of topics to write about.
Then you have outline and write the post, edit it and format it.
While you are doing this, you have emails coming in to reply to and industry changes you have to keep up with.
Plus you have to be active on social media not only to share your own content, but to get content ideas, engage with your followers and build communities.
The bottom line is, when you first start out, you will be working a lot.
#3. It Also Takes A Lot Of Time
Piggybacking off the last point, blogging takes a lot of time.
For example, if you want to rank your posts on search engines so you can earn advertising income, you have to do keyword research, then you have to write quality content and edit it.
Then you have to format it for the web.
Next you create social media graphics and begin to share it online.
The entire process can take upwards of 10 hours for a single post.
If you plan to publish 3 articles a week, that is 30 hours right there.
And this is just the basics. There is a lot more you need to be doing.
An important thing to remember too, the search engine won’t start ranking your posts right away either.
It can take up to 6 months for this to happen.
The point is, if you decide to start a blog, be prepared to put in a lot of work.
#4. The Times Change Fast
One of the more frustrating things about the blogging world is how quickly things change.
When I first started, you could get away with writing a 500 word article and have it rank.
Now you need 1,500 words or more.
Also, years ago you wrote for the Google algorithm, so your writing was a little different.
But with Google becoming more human like, you now have to change your writing style.
Added to this, social media changes too.
There were social media sites you would share your content on that are now gone.
Or in the case of Facebook, they change the algorithm and suddenly only 10% of your fans see your posts.
It seems like once you figure things out and are humming along, there is a major change to things and you have to adjust.
#5. Not A Steady Income
As great as it is to earn living from your blog, you have to understand that in most cases, the income is not steady.
With your paycheck from work, you can rely on your income being roughly the same every pay period.
But as a blogger, this isn’t the case.
Advertising income varies throughout the year, as does your site traffic.
Income from book sales or courses you create also varies month to month.
If you like the predictability of a steady income, you may want to think twice about blogging or at least have a good amount of savings if you plan to live off your income just in case.
#6. Lots Of Time In Front Of A Computer
When you blog, you are always in front of a computer.
Writing, editing, designing, all happen in front of a screen.
Even if you are on social media, you are either on your computer or another device.
To break up the monotony of always being in front of a screen, many bloggers will work from a coffee shop or internet cafe just to be out and about.
#7. Not Healthy
There is a lot of talk about the negative health effects of sitting all day.
These include:
- Obesity
- High blood pressure
- High blood sugar
- Excess body fat
- High cholesterol
- Increased risk of cardiovascular disease
- Increased risk of cancer
And there is more.
Sitting can lead to poor posture which will make life harder as you get older.
Finally, sitting in front of a computer screen all day isn’t ideal for your eyes either.
You can combat these issues by being active, but you have to be disciplined about it.
As a blogger myself, I can tell you that it is difficult to simply get up and move around for 15-20 minutes when I am deep into writing a post.
I don’t want to lose the creative flow.
By the time I do finish the post or am ready to take a break, I have more things on my plate to do and usually just jump into the next task.
#8. Blogging Addiction
Another drawback to starting a blog is addiction.
Yes you can become addicted to blogging.
On the one hand, if you love it like me, it is easy to want to work on your blog all day long.
And then work some more in the evening and on weekends.
When you aren’t writing blog posts, you are sharing posts to build your social media presence, replying to comments, looking for new post ideas, doing keyword research, checking site metrics and more.
It is easy to get consumed and lie to yourself saying you are just going to do one quick task and before you know it, be working for over an hour.
I even have friends who have had to dial it back and are now proud that they can go the entire weekend without being online.
So as silly as it may sound, addiction is real and if you have a family, it can become an even bigger issue.
#9. Deal With Shady People
When you are online, you will be dealing with other people online.
This makes it hard to vet people out.
And chances are you will be scammed.
Either by a person or company asking you to write a post and they never pay you, to copyright trolls trying to get money from you for a picture you are using.
In addition to this, you might encounter people who follow you online and make inappropriate comments to you on your blog or social media.
This is one of the biggest reasons why some people shy away from blogging, simply because of safety reasons.
#10. People Can Be Mean
When you blog, you put your thoughts, ideas, and experiences out there for the world to see.
As exciting as it is to be able to connect with random people and help them, there is a downside.
You leave yourself open to criticism in the comment section.
While most of your readers will be kind and want to carry on a conversation, many times there are a handful of “trolls” as they are called, who write mean things you to.
This type of person will attack you, call you names, tell you why you are wrong, and more.
I’ve written guest posts for other sites that have been picked up by major media publications.
When this first happened, I was excited and scrolled down to the comments to see the feedback.
It was a wake up call.
The people were vicious.
The article was about how I dug myself out of debt when I was younger.
The comments were loaded with people calling me a loser and that my wife should leave me because I will probably ruin our financial lives, and more.
I was shocked.
Fast forward to today and these comments still happen.
But I just don’t read them.
It doesn’t benefit me in any way to get caught up in their remarks.
Most likely, they are unhappy themselves and are attacking me because they are jealous or simply bored.
While this shouldn’t be the main reason to not start a blog, it is something to consider if you don’t have thick skin.
#11. Possible Legal Issues
I touched on this before, but you open yourself up to legal issues with a blog.
If you are blogging about money, you better be sure to have an insurance policy or be doing business as a limited liability company so that if you do get sued, you don’t lose everything you worked for.
And before you ask, yes bloggers do get sued.
This even extends to any images you use on your site.
You better be certain you have the rights to use it, otherwise you will be paying a penalty for using it illegally.
#12. Exposure To Friends And Family
This is an area a lot of people don’t even think about.
In the beginning, when you have zero traffic, it is great to have your Mom or other friends and family read your posts.
All you want are people to read what you are writing.
But if you become internet famous, you might rather have your privacy back.
And depending on what you write about, it can turn into trouble later on.
For example, consider if you write in the personal finance space and talk a lot about your finances.
You are sharing these details with your friends and family and if you are a private person, this could have an impact.
They will see your struggles and successes with money and might treat you differently as a result.
Even if you don’t write about money, your views on topics will be exposed and this could create friction within your family.
#13. Getting Attention From The Wrong People
While this doesn’t happen all the time, there are instances where a blogger gets stalked by an online admirer.
The person might be leaving comments on the blog or even find your personal social media pages and start liking and commenting there as well.
Rarely does it ever go beyond this, but it is still uncomfortable and in some cases, scary.
You also will get emails all the time from people looking to buy links on your blog.
They will offer you pennies on the dollar for a link and the article they give you to post will be poorly written and won’t even fit your site’s topic.
I easily spend 30 minutes a day deleting these emails.
In the beginning, I didn’t know any better and would reply and negotiate with this people.
But it always was a waste of time.
#14. Work Life Balance Issues
It’s easy to get sucked into blogging.
You are constantly writing articles and looking for new ideas.
Then you are on social media a lot, including nights and weekends.
If you are single, this isn’t a big issue.
But if you are in a relationship or have a family, this can become a problem.
For me, I had to work hard to not log online over the weekends because blogging was cutting into my family time.
It might sound silly to some reading this, but work life balance issues for bloggers is a real thing.
You have to set limits on when you will work and stick to them to remain healthy in all aspects of your life.
#15. It’s Lonely Work
You are sitting at your desk on your computer all day.
You are not talking to clients or customers on the phone.
It’s just you writing and researching.
As a result, some people, especially extroverts, can struggle with this career.
Many turn to working outside the home, like going to a coffee shop to work.
Just getting out of their office once or twice a week is the spark they need to make blogging tasks more enjoyable.
Or they might seek out other bloggers in the area and plan work days together.
The trick with this is to make sure you are actually working and not just socializing all day long.
For me as an introvert, I enjoy working by myself.
But I will admit there are times when I too need some human interaction.
So I’ll go out to lunch or even do some grocery shopping, just so I can be around other people.
#16. You Don’t Like Learning New Things
As a blogger you are always learning new things.
If you are the type of person that just like to do your routine day in, day out, blogging might not be for you.
You will have days where you site is not working right and will have to troubleshoot.
There will be days when a new social media platform becomes the next big thing and you need to learn about it.
Or there will be days when Google completes a core update and you need to figure out why you lost rankings.
Almost every day there is something you have to look into and figure out.
And since you are your own business, there isn’t anyone else to rely on.
#17. You Can’t Write About You
There is a big misconception out there that blogging is all about writing about you.
This can be the case if you simply want an online journal or personal diary and are not looking to make any money.
But if you want to make money, you can’t write about your life or what you want.
You have to figure out what your readers pain points are and write articles that help them solve these problems.
Of course you can sprinkle in personal stories to connect more with your readers.
But you can’t only write posts about what you did over the weekend.
These posts will never show in search results, get traffic, or earn you money.
#18. You Don’t Like Building Relationships
To be successful as a blogger, you need to build relationships.
These relationships need to happen first with your readers.
As I mentioned before, you need to write solutions to their problems and relate to them so they feel seen and understood.
This will have them coming back to read more of your articles and even buy from you.
You also need to build relationships with fellow bloggers.
This is one way you grow your reach.
Whether it is through guest posting on their site or sharing their content with your audience, the more networking relationships you can build with others in your industry, the farther you will go.
So if you don’t like building relationships, you can still be a successful blogger, it will just be a lot harder and a lot more work.
#19. You Don’t Like Writing
If you are a person who doesn’t enjoy writing, then blogging isn’t for you.
While you can definitely hire writers so you don’t have to, the odds are in the beginning, you will be doing the writing yourself.
This is because you won’t have the money to pay for a writer.
A good writer charges between $0.05 and $0.10 a word.
For a 2,000 word post, that comes to $100 – $200.
Multiply this by 8 articles a month and you are looking at $800 – $1,000.
And if you are in a highly specialized field, a writer can cost you up to 10 times this amount.
The only exception to this is this. I encourage you to write a few sample posts first.
The reason is because you might not enjoy writing because you’ve always written on topics you aren’t interested in.
For example, term papers and essays in college.
But if you can write about a topic you have a passion for, you might realize you do enjoy writing.
If you truly dislike writing, then maybe doing a podcast or videos is a better choice for you.
#20. You Need To Be On Social Media
Social media promotion is a requirement for blogging success.
So if you absolutely despise social media, you might want to think twice.
But if you just dislike it, you can still be successful.
I don’t enjoy going on social media, so I outsource to a freelancer.
While this does cost me money, it isn’t a lot and it allows me to focus my time on writing and other tasks.
#21. It Costs A Lot Of Money
Finally, blogging costs money.
While you won’t be outsourcing everything from the beginning, you will be paying for other things.
Startup costs like hosting, website themes and design won’t break the bank.
But then there are the tools to help you improve and be more efficient with your time.
For example, there are tools you can use to help you post to social media sites more efficiently and other tools that help you with your writing.
These cost money.
And don’t forget about conferences. These are a must simply because of how much you will learn.
But there is the cost of the conference, the hotel, travel, food, and more.
So while at first you can get away with just a few smaller expenses, you need to account for the additional expenses that you will use to take your site to the next level.
Wrapping Up
There are 21 reasons to not start a blog.
Don’t take this as me telling you not to blog whatsoever.
I highly recommend blogging as a way to bring in extra cash at first as a hobby and then replace your full time income.
I wrote this post because I see too many beginning bloggers get swept up in the amazing perks that come with running a blog and they don’t stop to think about the other side.
They see others success and think it is easy and fast to replicate, when it isn’t.
This is why so many new bloggers quit after only 6 months into their blogging career.
They don’t take the time to see what goes into making a website grow and earning a regular monthly income from it.
If you decide this is a side hustle for you, I encourage you to read some of my other posts on blogging that will help you get off on the right foot.
And if you plan to replace your day job, it is essential you treat blogging as business from the start.
Many times bloggers fail because the blogger treats it as a fun thing to do and doesn’t make decisions that will grow traffic and income.
The more you can do treat your site like a business, the greater the chance of success you have long term.