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Hi Reader,

The “vibes” are lying to you!

Ok, ok, let’s back up…

I’ve been blogging for 11 years, and over that time I have noticed a strong phenomenon – so much of blogging is about “vibes”.

One minute everyone is doing SEO… and then the next minute SEO is out of fashion and everyone is losing their minds over AEO / GEO.

One minute Mediavine is the greatest thing since sliced bread, the next minute Mediavine is terrible and everyone is moving to Raptive.

One minute everyone loves Pinterest, the next minute Pinterest is awful and everyone’s obsessed with TikTok.

One minute blogging is great way to earn money, the next minute blogging is dead.

The problem is… the “vibes” are lying to you!

How do I know?

Because every year I survey the blogging community – asking all sorts of questions about pageviews, income, sponsored post rates, revenue streams, niche, content and more – and I end up with hard data on what is actually going on.

And time after time it shows that the “vibes” are not reality.

Not even close.

Last week I closed the 2026 Blogging Income Survey, and this week I’ve been crunching the numbers… and the results have been fascinating! Not least because it puts to bed perhaps the biggest myth of all… that blogging is dead.

It turns out that, blogging is very much still alive and kicking, and just as lucrative as ever… IF you are willing to stick with it, work hard and focus on the right strategies.

In fact, the success factors in blogging are EXACTLY THE SAME as they have been for the last 5 years:

• Longevity: the longer you’ve been blogging the more you earn
• Content: the more (quality!) content you publish the more you earn
• Pageviews: the more pageviews you have the more you earn
• Revenue streams: the more revenue streams you have the more you earn
• Strategies: the best way to earn more from your blog is to focus on content, SEO, email marketing and digital products
• Monetization: the highest paying monetization method BY FAR is digital products

So why is it that the “vibes” are giving us such a different message?

I believe there are a few well-documented psychological phenomena at play here…

The first is novelty bias – our brains tend to overvalue new information, products or experiences simply because they are new. Without even realising it, we assume "newer is better” and prioritize recent options over proven ones.

The second is confirmation bias – we subconsciously focus on information that confirms our pre-existing beliefs, while ignoring contradictory evidence.

(This means that if a few people start saying “blogging is dead” – we start seeing evidence for that statement all over the place – not because it’s true, but because our brains are now noticing every piece of information that confirms that belief and ignoring every piece of information that disproves that belief!)

And the third is the spiral of silence – this happens in group setting (e.g. Facebook groups!) and it’s where individuals remain silent when they feel their views are in the minority, creating a false impression that the majority consensus is stronger than it actually is. (And sometimes it’s not even the majority consensus – it’s just that a few very vocal people are saying it!)

Putting this altogether you get a situation where, for example:

• Everyone thinks their success at blogging depends on AEO rather than SEO.
• Or where everyone thinks Raptive is way better than Mediavine.
• Or that TikTok brings far more success than email marketing.
• Or where people believe blogging is dead… even though the data says something quite different!

So, what’s the solution?

The solution is simply to be aware of these 3 phenomena and treat “vibes” with a very large pinch of salt. Trust hard evidence over “vibes”. And approach every “new, exciting strategy” with a healthy dose of scepticism!

And, on the subject of hard evidence, here are 8 of the most interesting ‘sneak peeks’ from this year’s Blogging Income Survey data:

1. Blogging rewards longevity

This one has always been super consistent ever since I started the Blogging Income Survey back in 2022.

Many people expect blogging to be some kind of “get rich quick” scheme, but in reality most bloggers don’t start making decent money for at least 3 years.

In fact the average monthly income for bloggers who have been blogging for less than 3 years is $100.35!

While the average for bloggers who have been blogging for over 10 years is $7,060.72 per month!

2. Content is still king

But before you throw in the towel thinking “this whole blogging malarkey takes too long”, there are two things you can do to massively speed things up, and one of those is very simple: write more content.

The data shows that, bloggers who have less than 100 blog posts earn, on average, less than $40 per month.

While bloggers who have 300+ blog posts earn an average of $5,106.66 per month (rising to $9,460.09 per month if you have more than 500 posts!)

3. Digital products earn 16 x ads

Another thing that has remained remarkably consistent over the past 5 years is that the very best way to earn money from a blog – if you want to maximize your RPM (the amount you earn per 1000 pageviews) – is to sell digital products.

According to this year’s data, bloggers who monetize mainly via ads earn an average of $33.16 per 1,000 pageviews.

While bloggers who monetize mainly via digital products earn an average of $535.90 per 1,000 pageviews! (And yes, I did check and double check that figure!)

4. Mediavine and Raptive are neck and neck

I alluded to this before, but one of the “vibes” out there is the belief that Raptive pays way better than Mediavine. But the data simply doesn’t support that!

For the last 5 years Mediavine and Raptive have been neck and neck. This year they had near identical average RPMs.

5. Journey is the best of the rest by a country mile

And if you don’t yet meet the criteria for Mediavine/Raptive?

​Journey by Mediavine is hands down the best of the rest, with an average RPM of $28.60 (far above the average RPMs of Adsense, SHE Media, Monumetric etc.)

6. UK bloggers who target the USA have worse RPMs

A fun quirk of this year’s data is that, on average, UK bloggers who target the US market get WORSE RPMs than UK bloggers who target the UK market!

7. The strategies that make the biggest difference

This year I threw in a couple of new questions.

I wanted to understand which strategies made the biggest difference to blogging income… and the answers were very interesting:

The strategies that had the biggest effect on income were: SEO, Pinterest, Email Marketing and Keyword Research.

And the strategies that had the smallest effect on income? AEO/GEO, TikTok and X!

8. Email marketing will double your income

And one of the most interesting insights of all? Bloggers who did email marketing earned roughly twice as much as bloggers who did not!

How to succeed at blogging in 2026

So, putting all this together, it seems that the formula for blogging success in 2026 is to:

• Write lots of high quality blog posts​
• Create and sell digital products​
• Focus on SEO, Pinterest, Email Marketing and Keyword Research​
• Hang on in there!

It’s not “new” or “exciting”, but this formula is based on hard data - data that has been remarkably consistent over the past 5 years!

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this sneak peek… The 2026 data has now gone to my designer to be turned into pretty graphs, so it will be a few weeks until I'm able to share the full results, but in the meanwhile, why not check out last year’s data: Blogging Income Survey 2025. The actual figures are slightly different, but the general trends have not changed much!

Until next week…

Happy blogging!

Eb 😊
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P.S. Want to make 2026 the year you FINALLY get serious about email marketing? Right now you can get a whole month of Kit for FREE if you use my affiliate link: YES I WANT TO TRY KIT FOR FREE! (<<< I've even got my own fancy little page 🙃)

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