Is blogging dead and why are so many blogs and small independent websites and businesses seeing a huge drop in website visitors or giving up? What does AI have to do with this and should I keep blogging?
The Struggle To Be Seen In Search
Early last year I shared with you my struggle to be found on Google after many years of success and positive feedback. That is still a big problem for bloggers and small businesses and independent websites. Organic traffic to our blogs is disappearing fast…
Google search results seem to only focus on big corporations, shopping ads, news sites or Reddit posts. You just can’t compete with them. This is now common knowledge to website owners and bloggers.
The New Problem in 2025 is even bigger…
I really did not expect what happened in 2024, though… For the first time since the start of the internet, search engines were under threat. A.I. quickly became the new way to get answers or learn things, fast. I remember hearing people in public last year say “I just asked A.I. how to…” and people I know say “A.I. told me how to…”.
How things have changed. Even if you think that you don’t use AI like this or haven’t noticed, this is just the same as email or smartphones. Eventually, it will reach you, every app and major website is adopting AI tech and it’s getting more intelligent every day.
Google and other search engines must have seen a drop in people using them and realised the search engine could be about to become extinct. Google took action quickly. What did they do? They put an AI response at the top of the web search results…
Why This Was A Bad Move
Now users get an answer straight away just like they did with ChatGPT and all the AI apps. They didn’t have to look through search results, read different blog posts or articles and try to figure out what was true or best… A quick fix that was very short-sighted.
In 2024, this led to a dramatic drop in people visiting websites and blogs in general. I’ve heard the drop in traffic is crippling most information-based websites (where you learn things). Nobody is reading what they wrote or paid a writer to write anymore.
This leads to another issue they don’t seem to have considered (more on this in a moment).
How This Has Impacted Me As A Blogger
I saw this too, views continue to reduce in 2023-2024. See the screenshot above of my website visitors for the last five years to understand what I’m seeing at my end. What Google forgets is we are paying money to have a website and all types of fees such as website security for crickets…
People get annoyed when their social media posts don’t reach anyone anymore but imagine if you paid to have a social media profile? It’s so discouraging and demotivating to experience this. I have kept at it for years, posting twice a month but see no improvement no matter what I do…
Why This Is So Hurtful To Bloggers & Writers
What Google and other search engines didn’t think about is who taught AI? It was us… AI scraped the internet for information written by human beings to learn everything it knows.
AI search results rarely give credit to where the info is from or if they do, few will read the original post as they got the answer anyway…
What is so short-sighted is, if people stop blogging or websites stop paying for hosting as nobody is visiting them, how exactly is AI going to learn anything new? Does Google think we want to put valuable time, effort and money into training their AI responses?
What will they do when everyone stops writing? Because there isn’t much left to justify blogging or writing articles any more when so few people still read them. I really appreciate those of you who do still read my articles but as you can see it’s a fraction of what I saw four years ago.
Should You Start A Blog?
Right now you know my answer. Definitely not anymore. Maybe things will change? Social media is also a shifting landscape but you have more chance of reaching people there these days as a human being.
Do You Even Need A Website Anymore?
I still think a website is useful but not in the way they used to be. They are more like business cards to keep important info or sell products and services. Websites also show you are professional and can help you with getting people to join your email list.
But remember the current low web traffic means fewer people subscribe to anything. Websites that sell products seem to turn up in search results but most have to pay for ads to be seen.
On A More Positive Note
For me, I am seeing continued growth on my YouTube channel. This is the only social media site I have which is effective these days. I am able to reach existing and new people. It’s also a new way to share and teach what I know online. It’s also personal and you can see I am not an AI robot, unlike text websites which can be AI-generated now…
Yes, there are AI channels on YouTube but they are not given a higher status than real-life human channels. Also, YouTube lets me stop AI from learning/stealing from my videos! You have to OPT IN to AI learning, which I can’t see channels wanting to do that.
Will I Stop Blogging?
Right now, I am seriously wondering why I am bothering. I really appreciate those of you who read my blog posts but there’s no growth here. Readers are vanishing monthly, my posts are SEO but nothing is working. I understand the Internet has changed and people learn differently.
I have a huge free library of crystal healing articles here and I’ve covered so much already. I do struggle to know what to write about sometimes. I’m often left with more obscure topics which are not that popular with readers. Things that would work better for books and courses.
However, I have very little on my YouTube channel. I haven’t even covered the basics there (cleansing crystals etc). Moving forward, it would make more sense to put my time and energy into that.
That’s what I feel is a better time investment. I’m thinking about perhaps doing 3 videos a month and one blog post for now. Please note that videos take me more time to produce so this will be more work for me.
UPDATE: To be clear I am more than happy to put the time into a YouTube video because it is more rewarding. My videos are evergreen on that platform and the community is very active. Plus since last year I now get paid by YouTube for putting my content on their platform.
Meanwhile, Books Are Doing Great!
Books are selling well worldwide in all formats and bookshops are having a revival. Since I released Crystal Grids Power 2, my book sales have been doing really well and I am very happy with how it’s going.
At some point this year I will be able to dedicate time to an online video course, which I am now capable of putting together because of the YouTube learning curve.
What are your thoughts on AI vs Search, is blogging dead? I would love to hear from you in the comments below (PLEASE keep any questions you have concise and stick to this blog post topic if you want a response).
If you’re looking for help with something else then please check to see if I’ve already covered it in a blog post by searching my website:
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With gratitude,
Ethan
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