The Simple Difference Between Blog and Vlog That You Need To Know

W hat's the difference between blog and vlog?

The difference between a blog and a vlog is that a blog is a website that anyone can create on any topic to share written content with like-minded people. A vlog serves a similar purpose but is in video format and is usually hosted on a platform like YouTube, TikTok, or other social media channels. 

If you’d like to learn more, such as the money-making potential of blogging and vlogging, and help you decide which type of content creation is a better fit for you, keep reading!

Key Takeaways on The Difference Between Blog and Vlog

Here’s a quick breakdown of the important differences:

• Content Format:
  • A blog is mostly made up of written content, such as articles, stories, or essays.
  • A vlog (video blog) is a blog in video format – with the content presented via recorded videos.
• Medium:
  • Blogs are text-based, usually presented on websites or platforms designed for written content.
  • Vlogs are video-based, typically hosted on video-sharing platforms like TikTok, YouTube, Vimeo, or dedicated vlogging sites.
• Content Creation:
  • Writing and editing are the foundation of a blog, along with adding images or other multimedia elements.
  • Vlogs require recording, editing, and producing videos, often with additional elements like titles, graphics, or music.
• Content Consumption:
  • A blog audience reads written content, scrolling through text and images.
  • A consumer of vlogs watches and/or listens to video content with the option to pause, rewind, or fast-forward.
• Audience Engagement:
  • Readers can leave comments and engage in discussions through text-based interactions.
  • Viewers can also leave comments, like/dislike videos, and engage through video responses or live chat during streams.
• Personal Connection:
  • Blogs can create a personal connection through the author’s writing style and tone.
  • Vlogs often offer a more personal and intimate connection, as viewers can see and hear the vlogger directly.
• The Barrier to Entry:
  • The barrier to entry to start blogging may generally be lower than vlogs. Writing and publishing text-based content on a website is relatively straightforward and requires minimal equipment (just a computer/device and an internet connection).
  • The barrier to entry for vlogs is a bit higher. Creating video content involves additional equipment like a camera (or smartphone), microphone, lighting, and video editing software. So, you may need to invest in gear and learn video production skills. Plus, uploading and managing video content often requires faster internet speeds.

But let’s also explore each in a bit more depth to help you decide whether blogging or vlogging is best for you.

Blog vs. Vlog: Definitions

Let’s also include more formal definitions of the two to ensure we’re covering all the bases!

What is a Blog?

Again, a blog is a website that publishes articles, also known as “blog posts”.

The newest blog posts are usually displayed first on a blog’s homepage, called “reverse chronological order.”

Blog posts mainly consist of text, but they can also include images and other formats of content for your blog, like video and GIFs, to keep readers engaged.

Bloggers can write articles on any topic they want. For example, some successful types of blog topics include personal finance, health and fitness, food and drink, parenting, marketing, and so on.

To give you a better idea, here is an example of a popular mom blog called Alpha Mom.

The Alpha Mom blog regularly publishes articles on pregnancy and parenting and displays the newest posts on the homepage.

What is a Vlog?

A vlog is a video blog or “video log” and is a type of blog where people create content in video format.

Vlog content can be about a person’s life, experience, or thoughts.

But, like blogging, you can “vlog” about anything you want, such as makeup tutorials, product reviews, video game tutorials, and more.

Here’s an example of a vlog:

Casey Neistat is a popular vlogger on YouTube with 12.6 million subscribers. He regularly releases high-quality videos documenting his everyday life in New York City.

Many successful vlogs are published on popular platforms like YouTube. You can also embed vlogs on your own website, which we’ll explain how to do later.

As you can see, there are some similarities between a blog and a vlog. But the key difference is that bloggers share their thoughts on a particular subject through written words, and vloggers make videos about their topics of interest. 

Blog vs Vlog: What’s More Popular?

Because of the growing popularity of well-known video platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Twitch, you may assume that vlogging is more popular than blogging.

So, it must be better to start a vlog, right?

Not necessarily!

Just because videos are popular doesn’t mean that writing is outdated. In fact, blogging is still very relevant today.

Let’s take a look at the popularity of both vlogging and blogging:

Popularity of Vlogging

Popularity of Vlogging

Based on video marketing statistics, the average viewer spends 100 minutes daily watching digital videos.

So, there’s no denying that people love video content.

However, as you can see in the graph below published by Oberlo, influencer videos, and vlogs are the least popular type of video.

Instead of watching a vlog documenting a person’s everyday life, internet users prefer watching comedy videos, live streams, how-to/tutorial videos, and educational videos.

So, rather than creating a typical “vlog,” you might consider making how-to videos to teach users how to play the guitar.

When you can solve a problem or help a user reach their goals with your videos, it will be easier to attract a loyal audience.

Popularity of Blogging

Blogging has been around since the dawn of the internet. In fact, what’s often believed to be the first blog – Links.net recently celebrated its 30-year anniversary.

According to the latest blogging statistics, there are over 1.9 billion websites on the internet, and it’s estimated that over 600 million of them have blogs. That means the blogging industry takes up a third of the entire web!

Here are some additional statistics to show that blogging isn’t dead:

• 77% of internet users read blog articles.
• Blogs have been rated as the 5th most trusted source for accurate online information. 
• Blog posts are among the most shared content online.

Plus, businesses with blogs experience 126% higher lead growth than non-blogging businesses, and 60% of people purchase a product after reading a blog post about it. Blogging can still help you generate leads and boost sales for your business.

Blogging vs. Vlogging: Money-Making Potential

This is one of the most asked questions regarding blogging vs. vlogging: How much money can I make?

Of course, whether you create a blog or a vlog, it will take some time and work before you’re earning big bucks.

But, with the right strategies, you can start earning some extra money on the side quickly.

How to Make Money Blogging

With a WordPress blog, there are zero limitations on making money.

There are tons of WordPress plugins and other tools that you can use to extend the functionality of your blog and diversify your income.

Let’s take a look at just a few ways you can monetize a successful blog:

• Advertise on Your Blog – Display ads with Google AdSense or sell ad space on your blog directly.
• Do Affiliate Marketing – Sign up for affiliate marketing networks and earn commission for promoting products on your blog.
• Sell Digital Products – Easily create and sell digital products like ebooks, audio files, videos, PDFs, and more using the Easy Digital Downloads plugin.
• Offer Online Courses – Use a plugin like Thrive Apprentice to create and sell online courses on your blog.
• Create Membership Subscriptions – Turn your blog into a membership site where users have to pay a subscription fee to access your content.
• Sell Physical Products – Add a complete online store to your blog to sell and ship physical products.
• Accept Donations – Easily accept donations from your readers right from your site using a free plugin like WP Simple Pay or WPForms.

How to Make Money Vlogging

If you decide to publish your vlogs on YouTube only, your monetization options are very limited. You can only earn money through video ad revenue, channel memberships / super chats, and sponsored videos.

That’s why many YouTube vloggers have their own blog besides their YouTube channel.

This allows them to drive traffic from YouTube to their website, where they can earn more money using the methods we mentioned in the previous section, such as selling ad space directly, creating online courses, selling products, and more.

For example, popular travel vlogger Hey Nadine has a YouTube channel with 510,000 subscribers where she uploads her vlogs.

She also has a travel blog where she embeds her YouTube videos. As people browse the blog, they can purchase Nadine’s premium online courses and ebooks or buy the affiliate products she recommends.

Overall, blog vs. vlog income is pretty even. That is, as long as you create your own website instead of simply uploading your vlogs to YouTube.

How to Start a Blog or Vlog

At this point, you may have already decided that you prefer blogging over vlogging or vice versa.

So, we’ll go over how to get started and what type of equipment is required for each option.

Creating a Blog

One of the best parts of blogging is that it’s easy to start.

First, the only equipment you’ll need is a computer with an internet connection.

Next, you need to choose the right blogging platform. For that, we highly recommend WordPress.org.

Over 43% of all websites use WordPress.org as their content management system, and it remains the fastest-growing blogging platform. It gives you complete control over your website, allowing you to install plugins as you wish and monetize your blog in any way that you want.

Plus, the WordPress software itself is free to install and use!

Note: WordPress.org is not the same as WordPress.com. To learn the differences and avoid choosing the wrong platform, check out our post on WordPress.org vs. WordPress.com.

Then, to publish your blog online, all you need to pay for is:

• Domain Name – A domain name is the address of your website. This is what users type in their browsers to get to your blog.
• Blog Hosting – Blog hosting is where your website lives and all your website files are stored. This is what makes it possible for your blog to be accessible on the internet.

For web hosting and domain name registration, we highly recommend Bluehost. It’s affordable, reliable, and one of the best blog hosting services on the market.

Bluehost is also officially recommended by WordPress.org and offers easy 1-click WordPress installation.

Simply click the link above to claim your Bluehost discount, then follow along with our tutorial on how to start a blog for step by step instructions.

Creating a Vlog

If you’re interested in creating a vlog, you’ll be happy to know it’s fairly easy as well.

To get started, all you really need is a smartphone.

But, keep in mind the quality of your videos is important if you want to grow your business. So, in the future, you may consider purchasing a better video camera, microphone, lighting, video editing, software, and more. This can get a bit pricey.

To publish your vlogs online, you can create a YouTube channel for free. Simply follow along with this tutorial on how to create a successful YouTube channel.

As we explained earlier, though, most successful vloggers have a YouTube channel and their own blog, as it allows them to be more in control of how much money they can earn.

That’s why we recommend that you create a blog too. You can quickly and easily set up a WordPress video blog with Bluehost for as low as $2.75 per month.

Click the button above to claim your Bluehost discount, then follow along with our tutorial on how to start a blog for step-by-step instructions.

Note: One important thing to remember when creating a video blog is that you should never upload videos to WordPress.

Instead, you should first upload your video vlogs to YouTube – and use that for your vlog hosting. Then, you can embed your videos in WordPress, which is much easier and saves you bandwidth.

For step-by-step instructions, see this article on how to embed videos in WordPress blog posts.

You can also use a WordPress video embed plugin like Smash Balloon YouTube Feed Pro.

YouTube Feed Pro allows you to automatically display all of your YouTube channel videos in a beautiful gallery format.

You can display as many feeds or playlists on your blog as you want, customize the design to match your brand, show upcoming live streams, add custom video pause and end actions, combine multiple feeds from different YouTube channels, and more.

To learn more, check out our detailed Smash Balloon review.

The Difference Between a Blog and Vlog in Closing

That brings us to the end of this article! We hope it clearly explained the difference between a blog and a vlog. Now, you can decide which option is right for you, and get started on your journey.

If you thought this article was helpful, you can also read our guide on smart ways to make money online for more ideas.

While you’re here, don’t forget to sign up for our email newsletter for more helpful blogging tips!