A 15-Year-Old’s Take on Writing on Medium vs Personal Blog
You’d not wanna miss the 4th point. Make a wise decision after you’ve read this.
Years ago, I started a personal blog on WordPress.
Fortunately or unfortunately I only wrote 3 articles over there.
And then Medium happened, where I have written 100+ articles to date.
Why could I not write consistently on WordPress? I’ll get there in a jiffy. But I’m glad that I quit and started writing on Medium.
A personal blog can be your cuppa tea, but it’s definitely not mine. Not now.
What is a better fit for most of us, if not all, is something called a ‘Social Blog.’
And a great example of that is Medium.
Social blog, as the name puts it, is the combination of social media thingy plus blog.
Straight-forwardly put, it has its in-built audience. Just like Twitter or Instagram.
This makes sure that your #1 priority is always writing great content and worrying less about bringing your followers from somewhere else.
I acknowledge that a personal blog has its own share of pros. For instance, the blog of Tom Kuegler (findingtom.com). I just love it.
He runs a wonderful WordPress blog where he promotes his guides and courses. He also writes articles about money, self-improvement, travel, and blogging over there. What I love the most is its clean and minimal interface with no ads.
But if you know his full story you’d know that he started with Medium, got views, amassed a loyal following, and then shifted his focus on a personal blog.
Therefore, in the beginning, a personal blog is not the way to go. Until you are some celebrity or media figure with hundreds of thousands or millions of followers.
Here are my takes on why (I think) a social blog, like Medium, is better than a personal blog.
1. Discoverability
This one’s the biggest and most important pro of running a social blog.
A personal website has very low discoverability. You’ve got to do a lot of work on the SEO front to gradually improve your Domain Authority (DA).
It’s usually only you sharing its link on different social media, or here and there. That’s it.
But in the case of Medium, you’ve got an audience already waiting to read your awesome work.
If you can provide value, they will come with little effort from your side. And will come again. And again.
2. No BS to deal with
Who likes to deal with all those technicalities—SSL certificates, domain name registration, installing themes and plugins…?
Not me. At least.
Running a social blog takes all that friction out of the process.
It’s just you and a virtual notepad. That’s it. No BS.
Okay, you might disagree with me on this. But would you still disagree with me if I said it’s not worthwhile taking all these hassles and burdens when you’re starting off?
Probably your answer is a NO, right?
3. Start free and (if you wish) pay to scale
It’s not very wise to invest in a place where you don’t see promising returns. Right?
Then why here?
I read this line in a business book to the best of my knowledge. But I think it’s applicable in this case too.
Running your own personal blog comes with its fair share of costs. Some one time- and others recurring-cost.
But why invest your mind space and money on things you’re not certain that you’d continue?
Social blog wins here. It’s free. And the most you can spend (Medium specific) here is $5/month.
That’s it. Plus that’s also optional! It’s light on pockets, isn’t it?
4. Internal views
This one is super cool. But it’s very shy. That’s why I think it’s ignored most of the time.
And that is INTERNAL VIEWS.
When you run your personal blog, 100% of the views that you get are external.
Some come from social media sites and others from SEO. Some come from shares and others come from paid ads.
All in all, they’re all external sources.
You scroll pass fast here and you miss the magic and power of internal views.
Had I published it on my personal blog I’d only get that 1.3K views and would completely miss on that 17.1K chunk.
Wouldn’t I?
5. Easy monetization
No ads. No hassle of setting up your Google Adsense account. And no need to degrade the quality of your articles by populating them with headache-giving ads.
Who loves them? Not you, not anyone.
With Medium, you can monetize with ease. You only need 100 followers, a published article, and must be a resident in a Stripe-supported country.
That’s it. There will never be a single ad displayed on your articles, ever.
You earn if a Medium member (those who pay $5/month, in most markets) reads your story.
You don’t get this luxury if you run your personal blog.
TL;DR
- Discoverability: You get discovered easily on a social blog like Medium, where the audience is already available, compared to your personal blog.
- No technicalities to deal with: Forget everything and just focus on improving your craft. That luxury is affordable if you write a social blog.
- Easy on pockets: Almost everything is free when you run your social blog. Whereas it’s vice-versa in the case of a personal blog.
- Internal views: No internal views if you run a personal blog. Only SEO and shares on social media bring traffic. That’s not so effective if you don’t have an already loyal following. While on the other hand, you can get a lot of internal views should you choose to write a social blog.
- Monetize easily: Platforms like Medium makes it simple and easy to earn money from your writing. Whereas it’s tedious doing so on a personal blog. Plus ads make the user experience a lot worse if you choose to monetize your blog this way.
I hope this article was useful. Subscribe so you don’t miss the best of my Medium articles ☺️
This article is a part of “A 15-Year-Old’s Take On” series. I’ll be turning 16 on March 16 and I just want to document how I feel or think about certain topics (at this age). And maybe just reflect on them in the future. ☺️❤️
Stay tuned for the last one dropping tomorrow, March 16.
Read all stories in this mini-series here. Until next time, bye! 👋👋 Love y’all. Peace. ❤️☮️
