UYal's blog

There were many reasons why I started this blog.
To be honest, one of them was money.

Of course, there’s the joy of writing itself—the satisfaction of organizing thoughts and preserving long conversations.
But I thought:
If there’s a structure where something can come back from what I put into my writing,
maybe I could sustain it for longer.

But after publishing my first post, reality hit—somewhat bitterly.
Some comments on my blog turned out to be generic, copy-paste lines from users only looking for reciprocal traffic.
Others were automatically filtered into the trash by Tistory.

Writing freely, on broad personal topics, rarely brings high search traffic.
Naturally, I began to wonder:
“Can you really make money with a blog?”

So I looked into Google AdSense to understand how the monetization model works.
And the answer is: Yes, you can earn money.
But the conditions to get there are not exactly easy.

---

💡 Google AdSense: The Basics

Step	Requirement
✅ Approval	At least 10 posts + steady traffic + original content without copyright issues
💸 Revenue Starts	Typically from 100–200 daily visitors and meaningful ad clicks
📈 To Increase Earnings	Keyword strategy, SEO optimization, series-type posts, informative content

The average payout is about $1–2 per 1,000 views.
Even with 500 daily visitors, you’d only earn about $20–30 a month.
In short, to make significant income, you need a structured strategy—like an information-based or marketing-driven blog.

---

But I know myself.
And I know I’m not going to write like that.

This blog wasn’t created to target a niche or generate easy-to-consume content.
It’s not optimized for traffic—it’s designed for thought.

Some writers have turned blogs into books. One such example is Steven Levitt’s Freakonomics.
That’s publishing.

Even in an age dominated by video,
books still reach deeper into the human psyche.
And expanding into books might offer more value than money.

✔ A visible outcome from accumulated writing
✔ A framework for understanding how I think
✔ An intellectual thread that might connect with others

Of course, publishing isn’t lucrative either.
GPT told me that for a $10 book, a writer might only earn about $0.70.
Selling 100 copies won’t even buy a few cups of coffee.

But this part stayed with me:
“Publishing is less about profit and more about proof.”
A proof that says, “I can build a world with my words.”

Still, I’m not saying I’ll make money tomorrow,
or that I’ll publish a book soon.

What’s changed is this:
I’m starting to think more practically about what writing can bring to my life.

And one thing became clear:
There’s a limit to writing in only one language.
The number of people I can truly share thoughts with—
is limited by the boundaries of Korean.

So while I began with a local, Korean-language blog,
I’ve started exploring how to connect with the world in English.

That story—
I’ll tell in the next post.

P.S.
This post was originally written on Tistory,
a Korean blogging platform where I began sharing my thoughts.
While the blog interface is in Korean, the reflections are part of a larger journey I’m now continuing here in English.

In the next post,
I’ll share how I eventually met ChatGPT—right here on WordPress—
and how that changed the way I write, think, and connect with the world.

Enjoyed the post?
☕ Support me here → Buy Me a Coffee