The Path to Earning Through Blogging — The Beginning #01 | by Toshi | Oct, 2025

I’m an ordinary Japanese guy living with my wonderful wife, our baby daughter, and two adorable cats.
To be honest, I’m fairly satisfied with my income and lifestyle, but a few months ago, I started thinking — what if I could earn a little extra through a side hustle?
That’s how my blogging journey began about two months ago.

Here, I’d like to document my progress — the ups and downs of trying to monetize a blog that started as a small side project.

Actually, this isn’t my first time blogging.
A few years ago, I tried running a blog aimed at Japanese readers, but I ran out of ideas pretty quickly.
I wasn’t sure what to write about anymore, and eventually, I gave up.
Finding time to write after work was already tough, but for me, the hardest part was finding fresh topics.
Anything I wanted to write about already existed somewhere online.

I probably didn’t even last a full year, but I did earn a tiny bit from an affiliate link once — around 720 yen (about $5).
It wasn’t much, but it was still exciting to see a small result from my own writing.
Unfortunately, the effort it took to reach that point completely drained my motivation.
And considering that server fees alone cost around 13,000 yen (about $85) per year, I decided to stop.

Then one day, an idea hit me.
Maybe I could write for people outside Japan instead.
Writing about Japan for Japanese readers was difficult because I always had to look for new angles, but for foreign readers, even ordinary things about Japan could be interesting.
So I decided to start a blog for an English-speaking audience.

Of course, that meant I had to write in English.
The problem? I’m not very good at English. In fact, I’d even say I dislike it — and I can barely speak it.
But thanks to Google Translate and ChatGPT, I figured it wouldn’t be a problem.
If this English sounds awkward at times, please forgive me — blame it on AI, Japan’s English education system, and my own lack of effort.

Despite what I said about English, I actually work in an environment where I use it occasionally, so I didn’t feel too intimidated about writing in it.
I’m optimistic by nature, so I figured if 90% of what I write makes sense, that’s good enough.

With the help of “Professor GPT,” I prepared to launch my new blog.
I decided to host it with a Japanese provider called ConoHa.
It cost me 3,993 yen for a 3-month plan — not free, but I wanted my own domain and server since it’s better for future monetization.
Let’s call it an investment in the future.
I even asked GPT to create my icon and background design — and it did a great job. Seriously, the professor is amazing.

Now, this might sound strange, but honestly, if AI keeps advancing at this pace, blogs might not even be necessary in a few years.
I know that.
My goal is to achieve monetization before that happens.
After all, ChatGPT’s answers often come from blog content on the internet — but those blogs don’t get page views or revenue from it.
That’s a serious issue, and when I asked GPT about it, it said it’s already a known problem and there are discussions about improving it.

Anyway, while I was working on my blog with GPT’s help, the professor suddenly said something shocking:

“If your goal is to make money, it’s actually easier to monetize a blog written in Japanese for a Japanese audience than one in English for the world.”

Wait — what!? Really?

Apparently, it’s because of competition.
Even if I write about Japan, there are far more English blogs covering similar topics, so it’s harder to stand out.
The Japanese market, on the other hand, has less competition and is therefore easier to monetize.

When I thought about it, it made sense.
But for me, finding untouched themes for Japanese readers or competing with high-quality Japanese blogs seemed even harder.
So I decided to stick with the global audience.

I named my blog “Real Life in Japan.” Simple, right?

It’s been about two months since I started.
So far, I’ve published around 35 articles about Japan — recommendations, traditions, culture, and product reviews.
At first, I didn’t pay much attention to SEO.
I just wrote about topics I enjoyed and found easy to write about.
Writing for an international audience feels natural to me, and since I can write about almost anything related to Japan, it’s genuinely fun.

That said, my ultimate goal is still monetization.
I need to write articles that people actually need, and there are already plenty of blogs in English about Japan.
So I either have to write better ones, or find a unique angle that others haven’t covered.

After two months, my blog has had 144 visitors and 249 page views.
Only 17 clicks came from Google Search — but hey, that’s something!
It’s not zero, and I’m proud of that small progress.
From now on, I plan to focus on more niche topics and improve my content quality.
I’m motivated — let’s do this!

You can read my blog from the link in my profile.

Anyway, I’ll post an update soon.

Thanks for reading!