Hi there, its Praneeth here.

Blog vs podcast, it is one of the important decisions anyone would probably take in starting an online business and audience.

In this blog, you will learn exactly everything that is there to know about blog vs podcast, what are they, how they started, and a to z.

Without further ado, let’s dive right in.

Here is a 30000-foot view of the blog.

Definition.

Blog.

A blog is in the simplest form is called an informational website, like this one you are reading.

It is a shortened term of the weblog.

Difference between blog and website.

A blog is a type of website where it is frequently updated.

In the case of a website, the content is not updated, it remains static, unlike the blogs.

Both blogs and websites have static pages like about, privacy policy, terms, and conditions, contact us which are not updated frequently.

But,

In terms of the information uploaded on the blogs are quite frequently uploaded and updated regularly, and in blogs, we call it posts.

The posts in the blogs typically include media files like images, screenshots, graphics, videos, gifs, etc, based on the content format.

Podcast.

A podcast in its heart is a digital audio file.

These are usually recorded audio files of two people conversing about a topic.

The name was coined from the word iPod and broadcasting.

Of course, you can listen to these audio files without having an iPod as well today because of the availability of the internet and platforms easy to access.

Difference between the podcast and radio.

Most people misunderstand podcast with a radio which it isn’t.

Here is the table that represents the differences between a radio and a podcast.

s/no.	Radio	Podcast.
1.	They are appealing to the masses and on general topics.	They are appealing to specific audiences and on specific topics.
2.	They are mostly live broadcasted.	They are prerecorded and thoroughly edited before going public.
3.	They are scheduled to time and the audience cannot understand what the topic is if they miss the intro of the broadcast.	They are easily downloadable and the audience can restart the whole audio to listen from whichever part they missed, they don’t need to stick at a place & time to listen, podcasts are easily portable.

How both work:

In this part, you will learn how both podcasts and blog work.

Blog.

Blogs display information in reverse chronological order which means the latest published post appears first and vice versa.

Blogs are divided into 4 different sections, they are

1. Posts.
2. Categories.
3. Tags.
4. Menus.

let’s know each.

Posts refer to the separate pages of content that are published on the blog.

Categories, as we all know, are the section where the relevant content to a specific topic is organized and arranged than randomizing it which gets easier for the reader to separate posts on topic wise.

Tags basically refer to what the content is all about on the page.

Menus, it is that you see in the head part of the website.

These menus are paths that lead to different areas of content published on the blog.

BY doing SEO properly, blogs rank on search engines like google and bing and bring traffic on your website.

Google uses over 200 different ranking signals to rank websites.

Here is a video of how Google’s algorithm works.

Podcast.

Podcasts are audio files stored on the internet which can be downloaded.

Today there are podcasts on all topics like health, fitness, success stories, news, everything you can imagine of.

There is no predetermined structure, length, format, and style of podcasts at all.

The podcasts are stored on podcast hosting sites.

Just like blogging, but people head over to these sites and visit the podcasts and listen to them.

The interesting thing about podcasts that separates radio aside is,

You have the option to subscribe to the podcast for notifications whenever a podcast is released.

It is a pretty fast-growing source of content consumption on the internet today, more on that later.

This is how podcasts work.

History.

In this part, you are going to learn how both blogging and podcasting started.

Blog.

In 1994, a college student called Justin hall created a site called links.net.

Where he could do his writing online, the site was pretty simple containing few links and photos which this guy found to be interesting online.

In 1997, Jorn Barger coined the term weblog which was actually logged of his internet activity.

In that time, those blogs were confined to as online diaries and personal pages, like more or less a journal.

In 1999, a programmer called Peter Mergholz shortened the term from weblog to blog.

During that period, many new blogging platforms came up like bloggers, Xanga, and Livejournal.

Blogger, as we all know it today, was actually created by a company called Pyra Labs in 1999, which was later acquired by Google in 2003, the money was undisclosed by google.

As time passed by WordPress was now launched on May 27, 2003, it was found by Matt Mullenweg, and mike little with little templates and a new admin interface.

And the plugins section was introduced one year later to make it more easy and convenient, and functional.

Many people started looking at blogging as professional career from the time of 2004.

Because

Google officially bought blogger [free blogging platform] and made it free to use and introduced the AdSense policy to show third party ads on blogs and earn money.

Podcast.

According to Wikipedia.

The first podcast published live was in October 2003, It was matt Schlichter launched his weekly chat show which was called the backstage pass.

The radio show was an hour-long was recorded live and later transcoded in a 16-bit audio file in online uploading/streaming.

In August 2004, Adam curry who was a former MTV video jockey along with a software developer dave winner launched his show Daily source code.

The show was largely focused on chronicling, daily life, news, development, discussions on the podcast.

It was a live test to see if the audience of that age preferred this type of audio content.

Daily source code was the root behind the present consumption of podcasts we see now.

As the audience found interested in the type of audio content that was published.

Developers created their own projects and improved the code they used to create the podcast back then.

Slowly, podcasting took its pace, many new people started podcasting.

Later in June 2005, Apple released iTunes 4.9 and added formal support for podcasts where people can easily download and transfer these content on their mobile devices.

Pros and cons of each:

In this part, you will learn what are the pros and cons of each.

Blog.

Without getting into details of all, here is a quick overview of the pros of blogging, why people start, and the benefits of blogging in general.

pros:

1. Blogging is a low investment-best online business idea that can potentially earn you millions in the future.
2. Blogging on a topic helps you establish yourself as an expert and build authority and brand online.
3. With blogging, you can work where ever and whenever you want, you are your own boss.
4. Blogs are the best ways to drive massive targeted traffic to your website through search engines.
5. Blogging is a great way to build a loyal and big audience online.
6. Blogs increase the credibility of a business which leads to more sales.

Cons:

1. Results in blogging take time.
2. It is a really competitive industry so you need to work hard to get success.
3. You need to deal with lots of technical issues on your website.
4. Mistakes in blogging are costly as they can lead to google penalities.
5. There are lots of places where you can screw up things and fail.
6. The landscape of blogging is constantly changing because of frequently changing google’s algorithms.

Interested in learning more about blogging,

• Read, 13 reasons to start a blog.
• Read, why blogs are important for SEO & business?
• Read, Discover 10 truths about starting a blog.

Podcast.

Without getting into details of all, here is a quick overview of the pros of the podcast, why people listen to it, and why people stick to it.

Pros:

1. Podcasting helps build relationships & network with the audience on a deeper level because people can hear your voice, sound & emotions behind it as it is more of a one on one conversation between both of you and people.
2. Podcasting helps you establish yourself as an authority and expert on the topic.
3. Unlike blogging and vlogging, you can listen to podcasts like the way you listen to music, while driving cars, while jogging & multitasking, that differentiates podcasts from blogs & videos.
4. The podcast helps you easily promote products to the right audience on less budget.
5. It is not as competitive as blogs and vlogs if you compare, the podcast is in its early stages.
6. Podcasts are on point with no distractions for users, unlike blogs that are mostly filled with ads, links, and notification push bars/sidebars which are pretty distracting for users.
7. It is one of the fastest-growing content formats on the internet in less competition.

Cons:

1. You need to be consistent on your uploads of the podcast of high quality because people who subscribe to your podcast are intelligent & have higher expectations from you in both quality and quantity-wise.
2. It takes a good amount of time & works to create a good quality piece of an audio file, like good sound quality, background sound, retakes, trimming where necessary, and all are time-consuming tasks, unlike blogs.
3. Podcasts are not easy to skim, you need to listen to the whole thing mostly.

How to start each?

In this part, you are going to learn how to start a blog and a podcast from scratch with the investment and skills required.

Blog.

Well, it is pretty simple.

First, select a niche, click here to learn how to select one for your blog.

If you want to start a blog professionally and take blogging seriously, you have to invest money in web hosting and domain name.

Web hosting is the place you buy for rent to store your files on the internet so that people can access your website.

A domain name is the name of your website.

Learn more about web hosting here.

After buying web hosting and domain name.

Install wordpress.org on your host.

Here are quick things you need to do after installing WordPress on your host.

1. Connect your website with google search console and google analytics.
2. Install some necessary plugins on your WordPress.
3. Select a responsive and mobile-friendly theme like Astra and Divi etc.
4. Publish some important pages first like about, contact, privacy policy, and terms and conditions.
5. Do keyword research and publish blogs of low competition first.

Well, the process is pretty complicated if you are a beginner.

Check out the following blogs to learn more about starting a blog,

• Read, The ultimate guide to blogging on WordPress in 2020.
• Read, 31 blogging mistakes to avoid.

Well if you don’t want to invest money and you want to experiment with things, you can start your blog on blogger and many other free blogging platforms.

Click here to learn more.

Well, if you are serious in blogging but don’t want to invest money in hosting and domain name.

Then you should probably think twice, you are expecting to make money in blogging, in that sense you got to invest money in blogging for sure.

• Read, why blogging for free is a bad idea.

Podcast.

Things are pretty simple here.

But if you want to get started in the podcast, you definitely need to invest money in some equipment.

Here is the list.

1. A good microphone.
2. Headphones.
3. A pop filter to avoid unwanted sounds in a podcast like voice cancellation.
4. A mic stand.
5. Recording and editing of audio software.
6. A podcast hosting account.

These things are a one-time investment, unlike blogging where you need to renew your subscriptions every month.

Now that you have these essential things in place,

Get your recording done with all editing and other things in place, upload the audio on the podcasting sites.

• Learn more about starting a podcast.
• Guide to start a podcast from scratch.

Monetization.

In this part, I will share with you how you can monetize your blog or podcast to earn money through it.

Blog.

Here are 6 ways through which you can earn through your blog

1. Through Google AdSense or media.net which is advertising on your blog or direct advertising of brands through banners.

2. Through affiliate marketing, it is actually recommending products on your blog so that when someone purchases the product through the link you provided on your blog you will get a commission of it.

3. If you have anything of value like an ebook or a course that helps solve a problem or a need for someone for something then you can sell it and earn a good amount.

4. This option is mostly used in the youtube platform which is giving access to premium stuff like exclusive content or courses or direct chats and contacts or advice charging for some price every month/ membership website.

5. Writing sponsored posts about any product and company on your blog and earn a decent amount out of it.

6. Doing the consultation to your clients and helping them to solve a specific problem for hourly rates.

Podcast.

Here are a bunch of ways you can monetize a podcast.

1. Asking for donations and crowdfunding of your podcasts is one way of monetizing your podcast.

2. Create membership tiers and ask people to join the place for a monthly subscription for exclusive content.

3. You can talk about some brands and get your episode of podcast sponsored by companies and brands.

4. You can join an advertising network where you will earn money through people listened to the podcast by placing ads in the starting, middle, and ending of the podcast based on the CPM value, you will have a share of 70/30 or 60/40 which depends on Ad-network and your listeners.

5. Post your podcasts on youtube as well to earn money from AdSense as a video podcast as joerogan does.

6. You can sell your own merchandise like physical products and other products.

7. You can sell products of brands which is affiliate marketing.

8. You can start consulting and services business as well,

To learn more about how to monetize a podcast, click here.

Future & potential of growth in each:

In this part you are going to learn, what is the future of the podcast and blog is going to look like, and are they going to grow or fail, many things in this section, without further ado, let’s learn them.

Podcast.

The podcast is just in its early days.

You know, what I mean, the podcast is going to grow a lot.

Here are some things about the podcast you need to know.

Considering the increase in growth and interest of podcasts among people, Spotify has invested 500 million dollars in the podcasts startups and launched its own voice assistant to improve the users listening interactiveness.

Through voice command, the users can open and close and easily switch to different podcasts if in case of driving a car, where they couldn’t manually type to switch.

Apple has introduced a full-text podcast search on the podcast app and google’s search engine is ranking those in the search results.

Google has its own network and group of podcasters available.

In China, this podcast industry targeting the niches of education and self-improvement is worth more than 7 billion dollars in 2018 and still increasing.

You see these high-tech companies are investing so much and focusing a lot on the podcasts which signal that podcasts are going to stay for some time now.

Here are some interesting facts about podcasts.

• You see, Around 67 million people listen to podcasts every single month.
• Those who listen to podcasts spend an average of 105 minutes of audio per day than the American average and spend 25 percent of their total audio time on their devices on listening to these conversations.
• 1 out of 5 Americans prefers listening to podcasts even in a tight schedule.
• About 15% of Americans listen to a podcast at least once in a month.
• In mobile users, 58% of Americans have mobiles and one out of four Americans play these podcasts in cars almost every other day.

Source: smallbizgenius.

The trend of podcasts is increasing due to its flexibility and benefits and slowly grabbing pace and spreading into other countries.like India.

• Among the 500 million internet users present, 40 million of them listen to podcasts and the number is rapidly growing.

Blog.

Blogging is going to grow and grow and grow.

Today blogging is a pretty competitive industry now,

In the future, blogging is going to be even more competitive.

What do I mean by this,

Well, blogging actually started as a personal diary form, but now it is all about informational content.

No one reads and cares about you, what you did yesterday and today.

Similarly, the practices people use to blog in the past are not going to work anymore now.

What do I mean by this,

Here is the truth,

• The CTR on google SERP is decreasing which means organic traffic is decreasing due to excessive SERP features like featured snippets and other SERP features which make the organic results less visible.
• Google is giving more emphasis on user signals than backlinks.
• Google is getting smarter & penalizing websites badly who try to trick it.
• The industry is more competitive than you think, over 4 million blog posts are published every day.
• 94% of all blogs on the internet do not get links, traffic, and shares at all.
• Video and audio content is also on rising.

Does that mean you should not start a blog,

No, absolutely not.

If you are really committed and passionate about a niche and hardworking for it.

YOu should definitely start a blog.

The facts are.

• 77% of internet users read blogs.
• Companies which blog gets 97% of more traffic and links to their sites.
• Each and every month, approximately 409 million people view more than 20 billion pages on the internet.
• B2B marketers who give more priority to blogs get 67% of more leads and sales than those who do not.
• Blogs are considered the 5th most trusted source of information available online and the most shared content online.
• Around 70% of the consumers on the internet prefer getting to know about the companies through blogs than ads.
• 53% of marketers have said that blogging is their top content marketing strategy in their priority list.
• Internet users spend 3x times more on reading blogs than they do on emails.
• Around 60% of buyers buy products only after reading blogs on the internet about that product.

Source: Optimonster and isitwp.

Still, you can make a good amount of money blogging with the right strategies and plans in hand.

If you are curious to know more about the future of blogging,

• Read, how blogging is going to look like in a couple of years from now.

The blogging is going to grow for sure,

In order to stay relevant in blogging, you have a bunch of choices.

• Stay less dependent on google and start collecting emails of your audience through lead magnets.
• Put more focus on content and search intent.
• Updating content is a must, there are over a billion blogs on the internet and google does not want to view old content for users.
• The author’s reputation matters a lot for google especially in niches covering topics related to health, money, fitness, and life.
• You need to leverage other media types in your blog posts like videos, audios, graphics, and animations, etc.

Final verdict.

This is the concluding part, in this part, you will get to know which one to go after based on facts and your skills.

Blog vs podcast, Which one to choose & why?

Well, the decision totally depends on you, but I will help you with a point of view on which one to go after.

You have understood all things related to blogs and podcasts.

Here are a few things you need to know about blogging and podcasting if you want to start either one.

There is a lot of data out there but whats important is self-introspection and action on the data you have.

Now it is your turn, you do self-introspection now.

Understand yourself/ your goals.

What are your strengths,

Are you good at speaking, or good in writing?

What is your situation, do you travel often or stick to a place.

Does your working schedule varies constantly or just rigid?

Also analyze what kind of content you want to create and what it takes to create that content like lots of visuals, videos, text, and images, or only audio.

If you are

• Often traveling,
• Your working schedule is not fixed.
• You are good at the technical skills of the website like HTML and CSS.
• You are good at writing & creating an educational piece of content that requires lots of visuals to understand.
• You have time to create content and have the patience to get ROI.
• You want to grow an online brand.
• You are good at design works.

Blogging is the right thing for you to do.

If you are,

• Good in public speaking.
• You want to build deep relations with the audience.
• You want to increase your network and connections.
• You have a rigid working schedule.
• You don’t have much time in creating content.
• You don’t have much money to invest.
• You worry about competition and want the results of your labor faster.

The podcast is your place to visit,

In fact, you can start a podcast even from your phone recording.

There are quite similar things you can accomplish through choosing either blogs or podcasts.

But.

The podcast helps you build a deeper level of a personal relationship with your audience because you know the audience is actually listening to your voice which is like a conversation between both.

The audience can listen to your emotions, intentions, your character, and your personality, etc.

Another interesting thing about podcasts is it is flexible,

You can’t drive a car reading a blog, but you can drive a car listening to a podcast.

The ability to do multitask along with consuming content through podcasts is an x-factor in podcasts,

It’s like listening to music.

This choice gives you an edge over the blog.

Maybe the money you can potentially make in blogging is huge, actually, there are people who are making millions of dollars in blogging.

But, podcasts are new and fresh with less competition and fast-growing.

As a matter of fact, there are more than 500 million blogs are there on the internet and only 2 million podcasts indexed on google.

You have good a glimpse of the level of competition you have in both blogs and podcasts.

That does not mean you will not succeed in the blog, rather it means, takes time and patience to achieve your goals which are worth it considering its ROI in the long term.

Ending remarks:

There you go, I have answered each and everything that’s relevant and necessary about blog vs podcast.

Do let me know in the comments section which one are you going to start doing, blog, or podcast.

If you are interested in more of such blogs,

Do checkout,

• Blog vs vlog, all queries solved.
• Why blogs are important for SEO and business.
• 10 truths about starting a blog.

Please, do consider sharing the blog with your family and friends if you found it helpful,

Let them also enjoy reading this informative blog,

You know sharing is caring.

I will catch you in the next time,

Meanwhile, keep learning and keep growing.