“Dan, what are you doing? Starting a blog in 2026? Don’t you know blogging is dead?
SEO is dead, blogs are trash, don’t you know AI is taking over, you won’t make any money.
Everyone is on TikTok, YouTube, or podcasts, that’s where the money is!”
Is it, though?
I’ve spent over 10 years creating marketing content.
My professional life has been dedicated to blogging, news reports, journalism, web building, and SEO.
I’m still employed and doing alright for myself, so I must be doing something right. Right?
This blog “North East Dad“ is my chance to prove it.
Or prove the critics right.
If a guy with a decade of digital marketing experience can’t make a fresh blog work in 2026 & beyond without relying on social media shortcuts, I’ll be the first to admit it: blogging really is dead.
The Challenge: A Brand New URL, a 10-Month-Old, and Zero Social Media… for now.
I launched this site on 24th July 2026, and as I write this, I’m 13 posts in.
I’m not taking the easy route here:
- Brand-New Domain: No existing domain authority, no pre-bought traffic, no jump-starts.
- No Social Media: I haven’t created Instagram, TikTok, or X channels yet. Pure organic search only.
- Real-Life Constraints: I balance a full-time job alongside a 10-month-old baby. Time is short, but I want to prove you can still carve out an hour to write every day.
My target is 60 posts by the start of October.
I want to cut through the repetitive negativity from people who write one 300-word post, get zero views in a month, and quit saying “SEO doesn’t work.”
Why a Dad Blog?
Finding a niche that wasn’t impossibly narrow was a hurdle.
But after becoming a father, I noticed a gap I had experience in that I thought I could write about day after day.
Almost all the parenting content out there comes from fantastic mums.
I’m definitely not bashing Mums here. Dads simply don’t talk about the reality of fatherhood online as much.
Or at least, I couldn’t find much in this space.
If I couldn’t find much UK dad content after 10 months of parenting, it was time to build some myself.
The First 22 Days: My Google Search Console Data
In marketing, you publish content, look at the data after a week, adjust, and do more of what works.
Fresh blogs on new domains, however, are the absolute slowest feedback loop in digital marketing.
Here is what my Google Search Console looks like 22 days in:
| Metric | Performance |
| Total Posts | 12 |
| Impressions | 159 |
| Clicks | 8 |
| Average CTR | 5.0% |
| Average Position | 12.7 |
It’s not thrilling reading, but here is the key takeaway: 90% of those impressions and clicks come from 1 specific post, my review of the VTech VM924 Baby Monitor.
Early Takeaways: Keywords vs. Authenticity
That early data highlights an interesting SEO dynamic: Highly specific keywords (like product reviews) rank and get traffic quickly.
However, it leaves me with a classic marketer’s dilemma:
- Would that review have ranked if I hadn’t written the personal, emotional dad posts I wrote first about my daily routine, and weekend routine, and parents starting to babysit?
- Did Google index the review better because my earlier posts signaled that I’m a genuine dad writing authentic content, rather than an anonymous review site?
With so little data, it’s hard to tell.
But that’s the fun of this experiment, or torture I guess.
What’s Next?
I’ll keep grinding towards this 60-post milestone for October I’ve set for myself posting near enough every day.
Then slowing down posting every other day aiming for 100 posts by the end of the year.
Later this year, I plan to roll out email forms to build a subscriber list and potentially explore social media channels at the start of next year.
For now, this post is just me venting into the void, I guess to 8 viewers (thanks by the way) I’ve had, documenting the frustrating raw start of a brand new blog / website.
Time to get back to writing, I’ll check back in with another data review in October!