To blog or to vlog? Choosing between earning an income from publishing blog posts or making money by uploading videos on YouTube is a question many content creators ask. While both options can generate great revenue, how much you stand to make is up for debate. So, which is the more profitable – blogging or YouTube? Let’s find out. 

The blogging vs YouTube battle is a longstanding one. Bloggers and YouTubers have been arguing for years about which medium is the more profitable choice. Blogging has proven to be a sustainable income option, providing bloggers with myriad monetization opportunities while allowing them to build profitable businesses. YouTube, today’s dominant social media video-sharing platform, reaches a massive market, giving content creators an exciting avenue to earn income for their videos. 

We compare blogging and YouTube, checking out how they stack up against one another on the profit front. From the advantages and risks of each option to how much you can expect to earn from your content, the showdown between blogging and YouTube starts here. 

In many ways, a busy blog and a YouTube channel are pretty similar. In others, they’re worlds apart. While blogging harnesses the power of the written word, YouTube is already riding high on the next big medium boom – video. Despite their different formats, content creators and YouTubers alike are netting healthy revenues, using similar methods to earn money online. 

Let’s take a look at the fundamentals of blogging vs. YouTube.

Blogging

Blogging involves posting blogs, articles, and other written content to a dedicated blog site, in the blogging section of a regular website, or on a blogging platform. Blogs can vary anywhere in length from 600 to 3,000 words, and they rely on search engines being able to seek out and find their content. Bloggers use SEO and other strategies to promote their blogs, striving to produce original, relevant content that provides value to people. 

Blogs are dynamic digital resources for sharing information and helping people find answers to their questions or solutions to their problems. Blogs are great for making money through display advertising and affiliate marketing and also provide excellent opportunities for advertising and selling products and merchandise. 

Anyone can start a blog, and many different tools and resources are available for getting up and running. Bloggers build trust and credibility among their audience by publishing accurate, high-quality written content optimized and enriched with resources that people can use.

Click here to learn more about what blogging entails and what a blog really is.

YouTube

YouTube is a video-orientated social media platform where creators can post content to their channels for others to watch or download. Videos can run up to 15 minutes by default (longer if you have a verified account), and vloggers can enrich them with clickable in-video links or through resources included in their video descriptions. 

YouTubers rely on people sharing and liking their videos in order to succeed and use various optimization tactics to allow the platform to place the right videos in front of the right audiences. YouTube’s audience is massive too. With over 2.6 billion active users, content creators on the platform have access to one of the largest markets on earth. 

YouTube is great for earning income beyond advertising, with sponsorships and subscription-based revenue streams, and brands love collaborating with successful YouTubers to promote their image and products. The platform has begun incentivizing content creators to generate more engaging, high-quality content and is now actively paying them to do so. 

There are many different options available to content creators to generate income by posting blogs or videos. While most are effective across both mediums, some work better than others. 

• Display Advertising – This is the primary revenue stream for blogging and YouTube. Bloggers can collaborate with ad networks, adding advertising to their blogs and getting paid based on how many impressions and pageviews they get. YouTubers can use the platform’s partner program to access revenue shares from ads in their video content.

• Best for: Both. YouTubers’ ads play before and during videos, while blogs can post their ads alongside their content or with pop-ups. 

• Affiliate marketing – Affiliate marketing allows content creators to include links directing people to affiliate partners’ websites. Every time someone clicks on a link or makes a purchase, you get paid.

• Best for: Blogging. People are more likely to click on an affiliate link in a blog post than during a video. While YouTube does allow you to include affiliate links in your video descriptions, click-through rates remain pretty low. 

• Sponsorships and paid content – YouTubers and bloggers with big followings and high traffic to their respective sites and channels can partner with brands, getting paid to create content that promotes the brand’s products or image. 

• Best for: YouTube. While some bloggers earn big bucks from big brands for creating promotional blogs and article content for brands, YouTube’s wider market reach and video appeal make the platform ideal for getting paid to promote. 

• Selling merchandise and products – Content creators looking to sell their own merch can count on both mediums to help them do so. Both blogging and video content are ideal for marketing your goods, and eCommerce is on the up. 

• Best for: Blogging (with YouTube still an excellent option). eCommerce sites like Shopify and BigCommerce provide site builders designed to help bloggers post content to market their wares and integrate with existing blogs. However, YouTube is quickly catching up, creating better features and capabilities that are allowing YouTubers to do the same. 

• Subscriptions & memberships – With high-quality the name of the game, creators can now charge people for access to their premium content, coaching sessions, and more. These subscription and membership fees are great long-term income options. 

• Best for: YouTubers, but also bloggers. Subscription revenue is a primary income stream for many YouTubers but often requires them to have large followings and view counts first. Bloggers are using various tools and platforms to get their readers to sign up for paid newsletters, premium posts, and high-quality content. 

Both blogging and YouTube offer many benefits for creators everywhere. But it’s on the income front where most of us are keeping an eye on things in the blogging vs. YouTube debate. We look at the pros and cons of each. 

Blogging Pros:

• Getting started is easy– With resources like WordPress, platforms like Blogger.com, and content writing services like Medium, getting your blog published and read is easy. Starting a blog has never been more simple. 
• Better revenue stability– While blogs are vulnerable to the ups and downs of making money online, in general, blogging income is relatively stable. Changes in income and RPM happen at a slower pace than on social media platforms, allowing bloggers to take action to offset any negative developments before it’s too late. 
• More content creation options– If you love writing, you’ll be happy to know there is more on the content buffet than simply creating blog posts. Bloggers can supplement their blogging revenue with other written content like newsletters, eBooks, guides, and more. These additional revenue streams can turn into lucrative incomes when built around a good blog. 

Blogging Cons:

• You’re often on your own– Unless you’re using a blogging platform, you’re alone out there, fighting for your share of traffic against other bloggers. So unless you’re an SEO, web design, and marketing wizard all rolled into one ‘superblogger,’ you’ll likely need a little extra help and resources. 
• Takes time to succeed– Blogging success doesn’t come overnight. Some blogs can take years before they become genuinely profitable, and even a small change in Google’s algorithm can set you back months, if not years. 
• Time and effort– Arguably, the biggest drawback to blogging is the time and energy it takes to consistently produce engaging, high-quality blog content. There are only 24 hours in a day, and many bloggers soon learn that blogging can be time-consuming labor-intensive work. 

YouTube Pros:

• Support– YouTube will do everything to help creators retain subscribers because then they make money too. Their partner programs are already bearing fruit, rewarding creators for sticking with the platform and churning out better content. 
• Massive built-in audience– There’s no denying that YouTube’s colossal reach and engaged community are a big plus for the social media platform. With such a sizeable ready-made market at your fingertips, creators are flocking to the video-sharing site. 
• Video on the up– With improving bandwidths and a preference shift towards video content, YouTube content continues to grow in popularity and profitability. As people find more innovative and exciting ways to deliver their messages via video, so too are audience tastes and preferences changing. 

YouTube Cons:

• Can be difficult to start earning– YouTube was once notorious for only being profitable to a small percentage of top content creators. But while things have changed, making earning income on the platform more accessible to smaller creators, generating a long-term, sustainable income can still be challenging.  
• You’ll need some video skills (and equipment)– While all a blogger needs to get started is a laptop, and an internet connection, for YouTubers, good video equipment is key. From adequate lighting and a powerful camera to editing software and video skills, turning a profit on YouTube may require significant extra upfront investment and hard skills. 
• Content ownership & use– One of the biggest drawbacks of making money on YouTube is that you don’t fully own your content. Where bloggers own all the rights to their content and can check online if anyone is using it without permission, catching people pirating your YouTube video content is far more difficult.

Choosing between going the blogging or YouTube route is up to you. Depending on your interests and passions, skills, and resources, your goals and objectives may complement or conflict with one another. 

Either way, whichever you decide when considering the potential between blogging vs YouTube, you’ll need to know how to get started before considering which options will likely be the most profitable.

Starting a blog is easy and affordable. Bloggers can pick between blogging on their standalone website or publishing on a blogging platform. Many bloggers do both, publishing across multiple platforms and social media channels to ensure good market reach and access to a wider audience.