YouTube vs Blogging: Which is Better for Earning Income Online?

If I was paid a dollar every time someone asked me to choose between YouTube and blogging, I would have earned more than $1000.

In fact, if I'll be honest, the reason I started a YouTube channel was to make the comparison and find out for myself.

Ordinarily, I'm a writer. I love to write and share my ideas. But when it comes to speaking, I'm not really that great. I even stutter a little bit when I speak.

So, I've held myself back from starting a YouTube channel. Over the last 10 years, I've owned more than 10 blogs but didn't shoot a single video until 2020.

What I'm trying to say is that I have a bias for blogging, but I did YouTube just to compare both and come up with a conclusive answer on which platform is better for making money online.

I know you already think my conclusion would be biased, but I promise you that I did an honest comparison, and my conclusions might surprise you.

So, if you're confused about which way to go between starting a YouTube channel or starting your own blog, this post would guide you to make the best decision for your online journey.

Ready? Let's get right into it.

Trying to Make Money Complicates Things

This point is very important and you should read it carefully.

YouTube and blogging are very easy and fun to do if you're not trying to make money off of them.

So, if your plan is to share your ideas to the world or just vent out your opinion on issues, then you could use either platform.

If you prefer to talk, just use YouTube and record yourself talking. If you prefer to write, simply sign up for a free blog on blogger, WordPress, medium, or even X.

Sharing your ideas is always a fun activity until you try to monetize your content. Trying to make money with either YouTube or blogging complicates things and comes with its own frustrations.

For example, to make money with your YouTube channel, you have to either create your own product for sale, or you could use the YouTube monetization program which requires you to get at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time.

That's more work than just sharing your ideas and hoping that someone would watch.

On the other hand, if you want to make money with your blog, you'll have to purchase a domain name and hosting for your blog, do keyword research, and optimize your blog to get search engine traffic.

That's really a lot of work for someone who just wants to share their ideas online.

But I guess that you want to make online, that's why you're curious about finding out which platform is better between YouTube and a blog.

YouTube: My Experience

In my experience, YouTube is easier to start than blogging if you want to make money online.

You don't have to spend any money on domain and hosting. However, you'll need to have some basic video editing skills, which isn't hard to grasp.

I remember publishing my first YouTube video and asking myself, “is that it?”

I mean, it was way too straightforward to do than blogging. I know that there are a few similar requirements for posting videos on YouTube such as keyword research and video tags, but posting on YouTube just seems more structured and organized to help you do things well.

Blogging: My Experience

Starting a blog is obviously more difficult than starting YouTube, if you want to be taken seriously as a blogger and make money online.

YouTube is already a website on its own that you can start publishing videos on, but starting a blog requires you to build the website from scratch.

You'll have to brainstorm to come up with the right domain name and purchase it, find and purchase the right hosting, find the right theme, design the logo and favicon, write the site description, integrate analytics, and search console, upload the required plugins, etc, and that's before you even write a single line of article.

Blogging requires you to have diverse skills such as website design, SEO, server troubleshooting, graphics design, etc.

It would really be difficult for a newbie to start making money with a blog within the first year, unless they outsource tasks or have an experienced person guiding them.

Outsourcing Simplifies Things

If you're a talented person looking to create content and make money via either YouTube or a blog, then it's advisable to just outsource the complex tasks.

It helps you to just focus on what you know how to do best while getting experienced hands to do the frustrating stuff.

I know how frustrating it was for me in the early days of blogging, when I tried doing things by myself.

I had many sleepless nights and depressing days. It wasn't fun at all, and I wish I could afford to outsource the complex stuff then. It could have fast tracked my journey to making money online.

So, my advice is, don't sweat the difficult parts of blogging or YouTube. If there's anything you're struggling with or anything that's taking too much of your time, simply outsource it.

If you struggle with editing your videos, outsource it. If you struggle with SEO, outsource it. Outsourcing simplifies things anyway.

Content Control & Ownership

This is a vital part of your online business, and you must decide how you want to manage it.

How much control and ownership do you want to have with your content?

Do you just want to post anything you want without worrying about getting censored?

Do you want to own the platform and do whatever you want with it?

One of the biggest reasons why I chose blogging over YouTube is because I want to own the content and the platform 100% and do whatever I want with it.

Also, in my experience, it's easier to exit blogging profitably than YouTube. I've sold several blogs, and it was easier to appraise the blog and know what it was worth.

When I wanted to sell my YouTube channel, it wasn't as easy to appraise it and the market for buyers wasn't as big as that of a blog.

So, having a blog gives you a sense of ownership and you could easily find a buyer to pay you for it whenever you decide to exit.

YouTube vs Blogging: The Middle Ground

Fortunately, for people who do not want to deal with the complexity of either starting a blog or a YouTube channel, there is a middle ground.

I know that trying to make money with your content complicates things, but you can avoid the complex stuff and still make money.

Social Media Content Creation

Nowadays, with social media, you can get paid for publishing content. Facebook, Twitter (X), Quora, and medium now pay their users for creating useful and engaging content.

So, if you just want to write or post a video about your idea or opinion on issues and still get paid, you could leverage one of the mentioned social media platforms.

Quora and Medium are mostly geared towards written content, while Facebook and X can be used to publish both written and video contents.

One can argue that publishing on YouTube is no different from publishing on these social media platforms, as you're likely to face similar challenges such as censorship and lack of ownership.

However, creating content on social media gives you more flexibility to create a diverse mix of content types and share it to the people you're already connected with.

This helps your content have more impact and increases your chances of going viral, which means that you can gain more visibility and make more money.

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