Do You Overthink Blogging?

This is a guest post by our top contributing author and travel blogger Ryan Biddulph. He is the founder of Blogging From Paradise, his course 11 Fundamentals of Successful Blogging and the author of more than 126 eBooks.

Believe it or not, becoming a professional blogger involves:

listening to your readers and solving their problems through your blog posts
building your blogger friend network by helping bloggers in your niche
monetizing your blog through multiple income channels

Follow those 3 steps for a while to go pro.

But most bloggers completely overthink blogging. Complex schemes, ridiculous strategies and difficult to execute techniques litter the minds of bloggers who overthink the process. Imagine reading the first step above and thinking:

“Can it really be that simple? The first step is just solving reader problems
through your blog content?”

YES!

However, simple does not mean easy because doing the simple thing of solving reader problems through blog content for 1000’s of hours spanning years feels highly uncomfortable in moments. No sane human being frames highly uncomfortable blogging activities as being easy.

For example, before I wrote this guest post for Cori I heard my ego chatter and its fears trying to convince me to take off the rest of the blogging day. I dislike dealing with the ego because it tries to use fear to scare me back inside of my comfort zone.

The simple act of writing and submitting this 600-700 word guest post became uncomfortable for a few moments. Guest blogging did not feel easy during those few moments. My neck hurts. My back hurts. I have blogged for 14 years; these types of days arise from time to time. Do not frame each observation I share as a complaint. Simply understand how doing simple, basic blogging things sometimes creates uncomfortable, unpleasant feeling emotions that make blogging appear to be:

hard
difficult
challenging

Of course, the ego in its delusion turns to complex, time-wasting blogging strategies heavily tied to imagined spectacular outcomes as absurd balms for these blogging pains. For example, if simple blogging strategies did not appear to quickly yield successful blogging results for me in the past I tried to write viral, in-depth, brilliant blog posts spitting out riches for me.

I envisioned myself writing a single post that would drive enough traffic and profits for me to go pro. Taking this complex, outcomes-attached approach led to failure every time. I barely made a dime through these posts because I overthought blogging while breaking the basic blogging success rule: create, connect and monetize in simple, generous fashion for a while.

Stop overthinking blogging.

Stop trying to add as many complex details as possible to one blog post you clearly intend to go viral for the purpose of getting rich. No blogger goes pro by publishing one complex blog post. Bloggers go pro by publishing a steady volume of simple, easy to understand and easy to execute blog posts filled with basic, practical blogging tips.

Think long term simple versus short term complex.

You do not need another proven blogging strategy to execute now. Stop looking to new bright, shiny blogging objects. Do not join the next emerging social network with the hopes of connecting with boatloads of readers on those sites. Keep blogging simple. Solve reader problems. Publish 1-2 helpful blog posts weekly. Read and comment on 5-10 blogs daily. Steadily open income channels. Write and self-publish eBooks and create courses like me. Offer coaching services or consulting services.

Do not overthink blogging.

Successful blogging seems to be simple blogging. Before making blogging a complex failure just see the simple, successful blogging journey through. Keeping things simple for a while yields slow but steady blogging success. Each comment you publish plants a blogging seed. Visualize each blog comment seed growing into a blooming blogging tree over the long haul.

Be patient. Observe the ego’s impatient urges to make blogging complex by overthinking basic, success-promoting concepts.