It’s a very valid question and one I’ve asked myself too. I began SideGains in 2019. Prior to publishing my first post I too wondered if it was too late to start a blog.
If you’re asking yourself this question, I have the definitive answer.
Maybe. Maybe not.
It might not be the answer you’re looking for, but I stand by it and I’ll explain why.
Why I Can’t Say if Its Too Late to Start a Blog or Not?
Firstly it depends on why you’re asking and what you hope to achieve by starting a blog. If you want a blog for the sheer joy of putting your words public, then it’s definitely not too late to start a blog.
However, if you’re thinking about blogging to make yourself rich within a year, I’d argue it is way too late to start a blog. You should have started in 2005!
For me, it’s impossible to say whether it is too late to start a blog without knowing your objectives.
I’ll stop for a little history break!
Once Upon a Time It Was Easy To Start a Blog
Actually it is still very easy to start a blog: read my straightforward 16 step guide on how to start a blog for proof!
What I meant to say was around 15 years ago it was very easy to set up a blog and expect a reasonable degree of financial success in a relatively short timeframe. If that was your goal.
Excuse the pun, but time is of the essence here!
15 years ago, you could publish a handful of articles, get your site indexed in Google and start to get visitors almost immediately. You could achieve a lot with on-page SEO and some links.
If you’d set things up correctly, you could push affiliate products to your visitors and get decent commissions quickly. If that didn’t work out, and as long as you were getting visitors, you could just stick ads up on your pages and earn revenue share from clicks on Google Adsense ads.
I’m not proud, but I made decent money in the mid-2000s doing just this and made blogs purely for Adsense.
You didn’t have to work very hard to get high placement in search results. And you could do so with mediocre content. In all honesty, it was quite easy.
The game has changed considerably since those days and it seems everyone is blogging nowadays. Hence I completely understand why anyone milling over the idea of blogging would want to know if it’s too late to start. Especially if they want to make money from a blog.
First Mover Advantage in Blogging
You may think it’s too late in the game to start blogging because so many people started years ago. You’d be right: many people did start blogging years ago. No one is going to start a blog today and knock the first movers off their pedestal in a few months.
The people who get on the train first, get to choose the best seats. The first wave of bloggers were able to take advantage of this.
No niche was saturated 15 years ago, even if it was competitive. Today it seems that any niche you can think of is completely drenched in competitors. This is of course how markets evolve over time.
However, first movers don’t necessarily hold all the cards forever… they just got to the table early, which of course makes it more difficult for you. It means you have to work very hard and over a very long period to stand a chance of competing in any way. Even then you’ll probably never reach the success some bloggers have reached.
Let’s just be honest about it right now!
Of course some niches are more competitive than others, but here’s a fact: every niche is competitive! So if you have an idea for a blog, don’t necessarily be put off by competition and being late to the game. Just try to do things better then everyone else does, or at least the best you can, and keep working at it. And by that I mean think in terms of years rather than months.
But That’s Not Easy
Of course it isn’t easy! While that’s a big negative, I always think there is a positive in there too.
Because blogging is much harder nowadays than it used to be, many people who start a blog today will give up in around 3 months time. They’ll find they can no longer commit to it when the results don’t come as expected or hoped. It’s one of the main reasons why blogs fail.
If you can outlive these people then you pass one of the barriers to entry. You have to stick at it to keep your hat in the ring. If you can’t commit at least a year to a blog to see whether it has legs, then it might be too late for you to start a blog.
It’s a hard fact all new bloggers have to go through, including me. I try to think of it as a rite of passage!
So… Is It Too Late For You?
It’s NOT too late to start a blog if your ambitions or expectations are low. However, it IS too late for if you:
- Can’t commit to your blog for +1 years (probably much longer depending on the niche).
- Don’t have the motivation to write and publish post 3 – 5 times per week.
- Produce poorly-researched, low-quality content (content quality is vitally important for Google).
- Don’t have the drive to learn.
- Are not patient.
For most people it’s a big commitment to make… perhaps too much. For me, I believe it’s about applying constant pressure over time.
I don’t believe in any guru who tells you to just believe in yourself: they’re probably trying to sell you something! Of course a positive growth mindset is important to achieve anything. However, positivity alone will not pay your bills and it will not make your blog a success.
I do believe though that if you were to start a blog, write consistently 3 – 5 times per week throughout a 3 year period you will see growth. You’ll need to network, promote what you do, learn and adapt, but I cannot believe you won’t see growth over such a period if you work hard and commit. These are reasons why you SHOULD start a blog ASAP!
If you can commit in the way I’ve described, then it is not too late to start blogging!
That’s it for now.
Paul
Over to you. Do you think it is too late to start a blog? Leave your thoughts below!
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