For more than a decade, blogging has been a great way for people to express their thoughts and knowledge. It not only became a way to become popular on the internet, but it also became the primary source of income for a lot of people.
With the availability of good quality cameras and fast internet at low prices, we have seen the rise of vlogging on social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram, etc. and starting a vlog is very Easy these days
So, a question arises – which one of them is better in 2021? There are a lot of things we need to consider when finding the answer to this question. Let’s take a look at them.
Table of Contents
The Niche
To start the discussion of blogging vs vlogging, we need to know which niches are more suitable for vlogging and which niches are best for blogging.
There are a few factors that we need to consider when selecting a niche. Firstly, which one of them is liked more by people and secondly, which one is more profitable and will attract more advertisers and sponsors.
Most Popular Blogging Niches
Here are some of the niches suitable for blogging.
You can make money by teaching people how to make money, as everyone loves making money. This niche is extremely popular and profitable, and there are a lot of sections you can cover. Methods of making money always get updates, so you don’t have to worry about running out of topics.
Whenever people buy something, they look for reviews on that product. That is why there are so many successful review sites present on the internet (you may face a bit of competition here).
The best part of making a review blog is that you can cover any topic you want, like electronics, home décor, entertainment, technology, and more. If you provide genuine and reliable information that helps a person to decide whether he/she should buy a specific product or not, then you may never have to look back.
A lot of people look for the latest trends and fashion fad to hop on to. You can make a blog focusing on the latest fashion trends, which will help them discover the latest trends.
Most Popular Vlogging Niches
These were some of the most popular niches for blogging. Let’s see what vlogging has to offer.
When it comes to buying gadgets or using an application, people prefer to look for video reviews on YouTube. The same goes for any other technology.
In this category, you have to use the newly released gadgets and technologies and then give your opinion on that. Your review can be about smartphones and other physical goods or even different software and applications.
We have seen a lot of travel vlogs on social media, and that niche is not going to lose popularity anytime soon. A lot of people want to travel to a lot of areas, but sometimes it is not possible for them to go.
So, they watch the videos of travel vloggers to experience these places and discover new and unexplored areas sitting at home. This niche may require some investment, but you can get a lot of viewers and earn a lot of money.
Foodies like to learn new recipes and try out new dishes. So, they look for cooking guides on the internet. In fact, a lot of people who learn to cook food look up at YouTube for guides and tutorials.
This niche is profitable as you won’t need much investment as all you’ll need is a camera and ingredients.
Blog vs Vlog: Equipment Required to Get Started
When looking at blogging vs vlogging, another thing we need to consider is the equipment required.
A Blogging Site: Here are the things you need when starting
Your laptop will be your primary tool of trade. You can write your content, research for topics, and do most of the work as a blogger on your laptop. Now, we recommend that you use a laptop because it is light, portable, and you can do the same things as a desktop, with a few additional features that may be helpful for you.
Take a Look
Best Laptop for Blogging
You cannot become a blogger without an internet connection. You need to research topics, post your articles, place ads, perform transactions, etc. And you cannot do any of that if you don’t have a stable internet connection.
When you are at home, you can simply connect to your WiFi and browse the internet. But, if you plan on working when traveling, you need to buy a dongle or wireless router.
To let people know about you and your blog, you will need to give a name to your site. Anyone who wants to read your blogs will search for that name and come and interact with your site. You need to buy a domain for that.
When you buy a domain, that acts as the name of your website. You can select the name of your blog and that will act as your identity. After buying a domain, you can proceed to website building and hosting.
I recommend Godaddy.com as it is Easy and Convenient to setup
Now that you have built your site, bought a domain for it, and have written some articles, you will need to publish your articles to the internet so that people can come and visit your site. For that, you need to host your website. There are lots of website hosting services out there, choose one according to your budget and traffic.
If you want to make money from your blogging website, you need to put a lot of focus on getting traffic from search engines. For that, you need to use better keywords, keep an eye on what your competitors are doing and make changes to your site based on the preference of your viewers.
You will need SEO analytics tools that will do keyword research and analyze your backlinks. There are lots of good tools available on the internet.
Installing proper plugins is absolutely necessary if you want to optimize your content and get more traffic compared to your competitors.
There are a lot of free and paid plugins that offer a lot of functionalities like XML sitemaps, snippets, keyword optimization, image SEO, etc.
A picture can hold a lot of information compared to plain text. To make your website more appealing to your viewers, you need to add images and other visual content.
Even if you are not a graphic designer, you can take the help of different tools for graphic design that you can use to create images for your blog posts, logos, social media covers, and more.
A Vlogging Channel: Here are the things you need to start .
Vlogging Kit
If you’re thinking of doing vlogging as a hobby or full time you need to build a Vlogging kit that’s suitable for your style.
These will be your primary tools of the trade. You will need a camera for all kinds of vlogs. If you are making tutorials on how to use applications or if you are reviewing some device, game, or application, you will need a good screen recorder.
There are a lot of useful screen recorders out there like Bandicam. As for the camera, you can either buy expensive ones like DSLRs or mirrorless, or you can use your phone’s camera if it can record videos in high quality.
Take a Look
If you are on a tight budget take a look at our Article on
Best Camera for Vlogging under 300$
or You can get a full on vlogging camera
When you are recording videos, your voice needs to be crystal clear so that your viewers can only listen to what you are saying and not get distracted by any background noise. For that, you will need to buy good mics.
When you start your channel, you may be low on budget, so you can stick to your earphone mics. But upgrade to better mics as soon as possible.
Check out our list of affordable Vlogging mics with good noise absorption abilities.
To record videos, edit them, do live streams, record screens, you will need a laptop or PC. If you record your videos indoors, you can get a desktop. If you make travel vlogs, a laptop may come in handy.
Take a Look
Check out our Top Pick for Best Laptop for Video Editing in 2021
Every vlogger needs video editing software. If you are a newbie in editing, you can use video editors that are easy to use, like Filmora. They have the necessary tools and effects required to make your video suitable for uploading on the internet.
Read this article on how to become a video Editor if you’re new to video Editing.
Vlog or Blog: Ease of Making Content
Both vlogging and blogging come with their own share of challenges that a person needs to overcome to deliver quality content.
The main challenge comes in creating content. In the case of content creation, a vlogger has to work a lot harder compared to a blogger.
A vlogger always needs to create original content and deliver a proper performance to his/her viewers. He/she may be camera shy, so they need to overcome that with constant practicing. Plus, you also need to focus on making sure that the video looks lively.
As for a blogger, you have to do a little less work. You need to do research on the topic you want to write about. Then you need to add images and videos to your vlog to make your content better.
As for writing, you need to have good writing skills and constantly improve them. If you are bad at grammar, there are tools like Grammarly to fix that. But you also need to put focus on placing backlinks and keywords and making the article engaging. You must ensure that you attract the attention of your readers in the first few paragraphs and use the proper call to action to make them read more of your blogs and share them.
The next challenge is hosting. Here, things are a bit harder for bloggers.
You need to host your own website or use a blogging platform to post your articles. That means you need to buy a domain, design a website and pay for hosting that site. It is a bit laborious, and you need to spend some money.
That’s not the case for vloggers. Video-sharing platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube are completely free. And the process is extremely simple as well. Just upload your video, and you are done.
Which Is Better in the Long Run – Blogging or Vlogging?
If you want to make a blog or vlog your full-time job, you need to think about its future.
Well, to be honest, both will be viable in the future. Even though the internet is available for cheap, and a lot of vloggers post content on the internet, the monetization potential, and popularity of blogs are still increasing.
A lot of people prefer to watch vlogs as it shows live results. Meanwhile, blogs allow users to get detailed and documented content, plus it is easier to find exactly what you are looking for.
Vlogs may be more reachable to people, but in some niches, blogs perform better.
At the end of the day, both bloggers and vloggers have the potential to earn six figures. Whether a person will watch vlogs or read blogs is up to him/her.
So, will vlogging ever overcome blogging? No, it won’t. They both will exist together as both of them have their pros and cons.
Blog vs Vlog – Which Is More Profitable?
Both blogs and vlogs have the potential to make you rich, but which one of them is more profitable depends on the method of earning money.
Both vloggers and bloggers get some revenue from Google, but their main source of income is advertisements.
Bloggers can place ads on their websites as popups or as backlinks. Plus, they can also earn more via affiliate links.
Vloggers can talk about their sponsors in their videos. They can also use affiliate links and put them in the description as well, but the chances of a viewer going to the description to click on them are low.
Both vloggers and bloggers also earn money by selling merchandise or by monetizing their content and putting them behind a paywall, like Patreon or YouTube Membership.
Final Thoughts
There is no clear winner in this blogging vs. vlogging battle. Both of them have their own advantages and disadvantages.
Vlogging is good for some people as:
However, it has some drawbacks.
Here are some benefits of blogging:
Just like vlogging, blogging also has its drawbacks.
In both of these, you will need to work hard and deliver original content. So, at the end of the day, it is fully dependent on your preference and skills.