Episode 8

The Secret to Blogging Success No One is Telling You

by | Aug 26, 2020 | Podcast

What makes a blogger successful? Is it SEO tactics? Is it learning how to trick Google and other search engines? Everyone wants to sell you on the hidden tactics and strategies that will make you a “better” blogger. It is much simpler than all that.

The reality is there are only three things that make a blogger successful: Being Simple, Consistent, and Persistent.

Listen to episode 8 with Ryan Biddulph and learn why these three things alone will make you a better, more successful blogger and entrepreneur.

Nick (00:00:00): Today we have an episode. I think many of my listeners are going to enjoy if you follow me on Twitter, or if you're in the same circles on Twitter, which I know several of you are, you'll most likely recognize this week's guest. His name is Ryan Biddulph, and he's a pretty big deal in the blogging space. Ryan has had a ton of success with his blog, Blogging From Paradise, which has allowed him to do a ton of what he loves and a big part of that is traveling. So in this week's episode, I chat with Ryan about why and how he has been able to become so successful in the blogging space and how others can try to see the same successes he's having. Kind of a spoiler alert here, a lot of it comes down to building genuine relationships and connecting with people. This was a big topic in last week's episode with PJ Sorbo. So if you haven't listened to that episode yet, I highly recommend you go back and listen to episode 7. But anyway, I hope you enjoy this episode with Ryan Biddulph. Let's get it. This is the Nine-Five Podcast and I'm your host, Nick Nalbach. Where we get into the minds of entrepreneurs and people just like you, so you can start, build and grow your own online business.

Nick (00:01:12): Welcome to the Nine-Five Podcast. This is the show where we get inside the heads of entrepreneurs, business owners, business professionals, so that we can kind of help you become better professionals. So today on the show, I have Ryan Biddulph with us and Ryan, welcome to the Nine-Five Podcast.

Ryan (00:01:32): Nick, thanks so much for having me, buddy. I really appreciate it.

Nick (00:01:35): Oh, thank you, man. I've been following you quite a bit on Twitter. Um, that's kind of where we first had our first interactions and you were doing a lot in the blogging space and that's where I started and kind of still where I'm working towards developing. And I know a lot of people are in the same boat. They're just starting out in the online business career. And the blogging is I guess the first step in all of that. So I brought you on because I want to dive into your mind about blogging.

Nick (00:02:03): I, in my mind, you are the blogging expert. You've got that stuff down. So I'm super excited to talk to you about blogging, just to start the entire show. Why don't you give everybody the listeners a little bit of an idea of who you are and what it is you're actually doing?

Ryan (00:02:17): Sure, sure. Well, my name is Ryan Biddulph. I am the owner and creator of BloggingFromParadise.com. I help people become successful bloggers by sharing really simple, powerful, practical, blogging tips. I know how confusing the journey can be blogging-wise, online business wide. So about six years ago and Fiji, I decided to trash my old log in brand. It was more of like a make money online deal. My wife says, you know what? Maybe you should do something that kind of reflects what you've been doing the past couple of years. She made that mention. I had it in my mind already, and I picked Blogging From Paradise from there. And that's pretty much it, it was just doing what I'd been doing because the three,

Ryan (00:03:00): Two years prior, I had retired to a life of Island hopping through blogging, but it just gave me clarity to have that experience. And I came across a lot of bloggers, especially travel bloggers who struggled to make money online. So I said, Hm, why don't I create a blog to help these folks out and for anybody else who wants to travel and blog professionally. So that's kind of how it all started.

Nick (00:03:21): Awesome. And how long did you say, how long ago did you start blogging? Like from the very beginning.

Ryan (00:03:26): It's been a decade, believe it or not, Nick, it's been over 10 years now yet. It's, it's weird because it seems like Yans ago in some ways. And then in other ways it's been a blur. It's just crazy how you find that mix between the two.

Nick (00:03:40): Yeah, no, that's awesome. So you are, you're well seasoned in the art of blogging.

Ryan (00:03:46): I have a couple experiences to call upon over those 10 years and 15,000 hours of blogging. Yes. Most definitely.

Nick (00:03:55): So where did that all come from? Is it, did you just like writing or how did you decide on blogging?

Ryan (00:04:01): It's funny. The opportunity I was exploring when I first hopped online a decade ago, my mentor who kind of just sent me an email, said, Hey, buy a domain and hosting and do something called blogging. It was kind of it, I didn't do much homework. That was my fault. I didn't do much research and he kind of vanished, what should I, I totally own that. I didn't do my due diligence on them. He just said that, do something called blogging. I'm like, what's a blog. I had no idea. I didn't know what a domain was. What hosting was, I was a security guard before this down a shipping terminal, working that job for a number of years. So literally dude, it was like somebody told me to do something called blogging and I started blogging. I bought my domain, my hosting. I had no clue what I was doing for so many years, but at least that put me in the direction of understanding the power of blogging.

Ryan (00:04:55): As far as building your brand, building a business, gaining a authority and credibility, gaining exposure, and most importantly, owning your online real estate and doing most of your creating, connecting through there. Because as we see more and more every day, it seems let alone every week and every month want to own your online real estate because Google, Facebook, Twitter, everybody else, YouTube, they, the whatever they were just the product we're we're we're users, we're the product. So that's one of the things that really nudged me in the direction of blogging. As I got clear, it was really more about seeing the power of it and enjoying it and having fun with it and realizing if I just keep writing and practicing I'll gain more skills and collaborating confidence. And again, a decade later here I am,

Nick (00:05:38): That is very much something that I see a lot on Twitter and other social media platforms. You had talked about bringing people over onto something that you own, your own real estate. And I think a lot of people on social media tend to kind of get ingrained into that platform. And they don't really think about bringing people off, bring people to something that they own. And that's, I mean, I see a lot of people that are doing really well on Twitter and it's kind of, I'm, I'm nervous for them because who knows what could happen?

Ryan (00:06:07): Totally. 100%, you know, I do a podcast chat, my one friend Alonza Pachardo, he's a highly successful network marketer. He's podcasts. We've done just casual chats, no promoting there's like 700,000 listens I think. It's just really through the roof and we don't even vote. It just all organic. We just talk about collectively 20 years of experience online for both of us and all together. And just how many people we've seen get burned by spending so much time and energy on these platforms that they don't own for one of a billion reasons, you could be shut down overnight within a split second. And it happens so much. Sometimes we see people complain about it. I actually had one friend, my one friend Rob Cubbon last week and he built up his list. He has his site, so he was smart about it. But at 35,000 fans on his Facebook page has some nice engagement.

Ryan (00:06:55): And then overnight Facebook just yanked the page. No, explination no excuse. It was just like goodbye. So he's like, thank goodness I have my list in sight. And I do most things through there because we set the rules for our blogs, unless you do something totally insane or egregious, you know, the person you buy your domain and hosting farmers to say the entity, they're not going to close your out. You have to do something crazy. Other than that, you're going to be fine. So that's why you want to spend most of your time and energy, creating a connecting through your blog and then use social media for what it is helpful way to create and connect to and bond. But my friend Alonzo says again, Alonzo Pachardo, look at the social media as like the branches of the tree and your blog as the roots and the actual base, like that's where you're going to want to do most of what you from then go to social.

Nick (00:07:45): I like that. I like that image that's I came into a very similar situation with Facebook and luckily, luckily or unluckily. However you want to look at it. I didn't have that big of a following there, but I can't post anything. I think I've talked about some previous episodes, but I can't post my website URL. They've completely blocked my website entirely from their community. Whatever said I went against their standards. Don't know what that means. I've come up with several possibilities as to why that happened, but I've tried correcting it, tried reaching out to them and fixing it. I haven't had any luck so far, so it's, I'm glad I didn't have the huge following there to begin with because that would be just devastating at this point, but it's makes it a very real and it puts it right at the forefront for me. So

Ryan (00:08:33): That's it. Yeah. Just have it happen once. Happened twice to me with YouTube, I got two channels shut down. Not two channels, had a channel, my main account, shut down a second one, shut down because a bunch of folks trolls just started mass flagging my videos. I was doing nothing over the top. It was just, you know, uh, blogging and business. And again, they big following. So I'm like, let them go. And I just learned my lesson. I'll do a little bit on these sites, stick to my blog and everything a lot more seamless since then.

Nick (00:09:03): So I like to kind of kick off the show obviously with the introduction, but then I like to ask the guests what their superpower is. And by superpower I mean, what is it that you do better than anybody else, whether that someone is coming to you for advice or they have questions. You're the guy for the job? What, what would you think your superpower is?

Ryan (00:09:26): Mindset, blogging mindset. I mean my own mindset and the mindset aspect of blogging. Nick, I, I spend three to four hours some days, minimum three, every single day, managing my energy through. I'm not as much meditating recently, but doing Kriya, yoga, Yin yoga, power walking, just getting behind the icy cold shower every morning and here up in the forest and upstate New York, it's actually, they have, well, water probably goes down to 300 feet. So it's ice cold again, which feels good. But by managing my energy and just strengthening my mental muscle, I've been able to help bloggers pinpoint all of their blogging struggles as figments of their imagination as byproducts of their fear within their mind. So that's one thing I do. And I know it myself, just from a place of clarity and knowing, you know, no big deal, you know, I'm the blogging mindset guy, but I just know it.

Ryan (00:10:21): And then obviously I get this reflection of my clarity. A bunch were like, how do you draw these parallels? How do you see this? Like anything, it's just a skill that you develop over many thousands and thousands of hours. The skill itself decided to go into that area of blogging mindset. But then also I had to do the mindset, work, the energy work to expand my awareness of that point, to where I could write a whole ebook about how being attacked by a two Thai lady, boys street, streetwalkers taught me seven blogging lessons. Like I draw these crazy parallels. Sometimes I haven't done this in a while. I do it a little bit now, but then I'll go into the mindset of it and talk about, you know, it was literally two minutes and a very intense incident in Bangkok. And I, you know, I could write a 6,000 word short read on Kindle and it's that type of stuff where like, where do you come up with it? I had to work on my mindset and it's not always very comfortable, you know, meditating and doing yoga, you know, exercising every day. But then it helped me own that gift hone and own the skill that's helped me empower a lot of bloggers and inspire them and serve them, which is really what makes blogging the most fun when you're helping enjoying the ride.

Nick (00:11:27): How did you, I guess initially start or if other people were trying to, I guess, get that mindset, attribute, wrap their mind around everything. What would be a good place for them to start?

Ryan (00:11:38): Yeah. Yeah. It's really, it's interesting Nick, because all of us have our own special, genuine one of a kind journey that we're all going to take. So your heart will tell you the more, what I would suggest for every single human being go inside a quiet room, lock the door, okay. And no internet, no phone, you put everything. I don't even have minutes on my phone. So that's why my wife winds up buying them because I'm just like, I don't know. I've been online for 15,000 hours over the past when you spend that much time online on the laptop, on the Chromebook on that HP. So like I literally just, I go into quiet for these extended periods and it was what I suggest people do. And you'll start getting these intuitive nudges and ideal will enter your mind. You know, I should really start meditating.

Ryan (00:12:25): You know how maybe I should maybe doing like Korea, yoga or yoga, or maybe prayer, you know, devout high energy prayer. So it's going to be different for each person. The one reason I suggest meditating is because when you meditate and if that idea comes to you and you're in this quiet room and it kind of will because being in a quiet room, doing nothing else, but observing, it's kind of a meditation, you're just watching it all. You're going to start seeing that all of your problems in life, like every single problem that you have is because of a fear that you're repressing. Once you meditate more regularly, and then maybe you hop into Kriya yoga, which is a very powerful, powerful form of yoga, Yin yoga, just, you know, hopping under that icy cold shower to make sure you check with your doctor for a heart attack.

Ryan (00:13:09): Really haven't, you know, it's not about doing it, you know, a hundred percent. It wants to see a little bit at a time, but engaging in these practices just shows you all of your problems are your fears. And when you engage in these practices more regularly, you unearth face feel and embrace and release your fears. And then from there life, some comfortable sometimes, but it gets easier and easier and no matter what you're doing sports, business, blogging. So I would say getting into that mindset aspect of just being hyper aware of your thoughts and feelings are more aware. It all starts with spending time in a quiet room, shutting off the phone, putting away the laptop, no internet. And just even if you grab a piece of paper and a pen, start observing the feelings and the thoughts that are arising in your mind, and you'll gain a very intimate glimpse into why your life is how it is, it's all in your mind. But the quiet room is where it's, whether it's the real deal. Like it's not going to be pleasant at first for most human beings because we're, especially in the West were Olympic-level of repressors. And I believe our situation. Now the current news headline United States may be showing us that we've repressed a lot of stuff over the years collectively, which is okay, you gotta become aware of it to, uh, you know, face these problems and face these fears. And that's where the clarity comes in.

Nick (00:14:31): That makes a lot of sense. Meditation is something that I've held that was probably a year ago. Maybe I started getting into it and I actually really liked it. And then I kind of let everything else going on around me take over and kind of got pushed aside. But it was, it wasn't anything crazy. It was 10, 15 minute sessions. I think I had that Calm for your phone. And they do like self guided meditations and everything. And each session would have been, yeah, 10, 15 minutes a piece. And they had a whole programs in there. It was like focus or relaxation or productivity or based on what you're like, what they would try to make you visualize what your goals were and through meditation kind of, yeah. Try to bring that out. And I mean, it was really cool. I it's something that I definitely need to get back into. It's I've neglected it the past year.

Ryan (00:15:18): Life can intervene. That's for sure. And I think meditation, one of the cool things about it is it shows us our attachments. I mean, none of us here, like the Buddha or Jesus Christ, it's not about that pure level of enlightenment. It's just about seeing, okay. I know I could set aside that little bit of time, 10, 15 minutes, even five minutes in the morning. And the more you stick with it, you'll start seeing your attachments away from that and how not so much that they're good or bad, but how they're kind of ruling your life in certain ways. And then you start coming back through. If I could just get myself as quiet space, a guided meditation mentioned, Calm or whatever the app is, the more time I spend in quiet, it's just, it's gonna just wake you up. Like, Oh wow. I could do whatever I want to my dreams and empower people. But it's that steady, progressive following your passion and your fun and your, and all that good stuff. And then as you do that facing and feeling the fears, which is, it's not pleasant, it's not, it's uncomfortable, but it's necessary to, to reach those greater levels of success. More importantly, to feel more fulfilled and to really enjoy life and get the most out of it.

Nick (00:16:28): That's something I always say, if you want to make progress and you want growth, you need to, I guess, push yourself into uncomfortable situations. If you're constantly living in a state of comfortability, of being comfortable, you're always going to be there. You're never going to advance any further than that. So I think that's a very great point.

Ryan (00:16:44): Totally.

Nick (00:16:45): Okay. Now I want to get into the whole reason we brought you on here. Let's talk about blogging. So we already discussed when you started and you started about a decade ago. What did that look like then? Was it still, were you on WordPress or how, how did blogging change, I guess from when you started to now?

Ryan (00:17:04): Wow.

Nick (00:17:05): That seems like a very broad question.

Ryan (00:17:07): No, no, but it is, you know why I said, "wow,?" It's, it's thinking about how much it's changed. It has, I wasn't wordpress.org. I did start. And it was a different blog at the time. It was more like, kind of a make money online, online business type niche. But blogging was so different then, because you are only two to three years out of the 2007, 2008 wild West of blogging, where you could gain Google and rank on page one, position, one with an article on easing articles or Yahoo Answers. I mean, you didn't even need your domain and hosting. They weren't up to snuff back then. They, they, they did not, no, you didn't have all these Matt Cutts updates. You didn't have that back then. So I didn't have much success with that Cause I didn't know my blogging butt from my elbow. I had no clue.

Ryan (00:18:00): But I slowly through just being exposed to enough successful bloggers at the time, focused on not trying to really drive Google traffic, I didn't try to engage in these hacks, these shortcuts. I developed the foundation, which I'm so grateful for today of just understanding that if you create helpful content and you make friends with people by being generous and by helping out fellow bloggers and retweeting them, mention them on your blog. Ask for nothing in return, expect nothing in return. Those creations in the connections will help you succeed over the long haul. So even though I struggled back then I didn't network as much as I should have. I want to stretch network at all. And my writing skills were not where they're at now because I just didn't have the practice. I was a new blogger. I still had the fundamentals down and it was on wordpress.org.

Ryan (00:18:48): So, you know, same blogging platform, but blogging was so different because you could spam and succeed, quote unquote. You could game the system. You could write thin crappy articles and you stuffed keywords in there like nobody's business and rank them on page one. So it was weird that you could actually do that stuff back then. Maybe not so much, 2010, but a couple years out. And there were still really poor quality articles popping up on page one back then through free sites, which is crazy to think about that. Now you could do that, but slowly but surely, Matt Cutts and those really smart folks at Google started issuing more discerning updates that forced you to create quality content. Now you have to even network. You can't just sit back and, you know, write a post and say, you got to gain those organic back links. And so much of those backlinks that flow to you organically are gonna throw flow through your relationships and your network, your generosity. So Google's really evolving and morphing into a creature that's forcing bloggers to create and connect generously to build their business and their blogs on rock solid, compassionate, heart centered fundamentals that benefit all of us. Which is really, really cool.

Nick (00:19:59): I think blogging in my mind. And probably the main reason that I had gotten into blogging in the first place is that it kind of gives you a well-rounded insight into everything involved in starting a business. Like you said, you have to network, you have to make friends, you have to put out great content. This isn't anything different from starting a business outside of blogging. You still need to do all these things, but blogging is kind of a easy to enter barrier to getting into online business.

Ryan (00:20:26): Totally, totally there, like the only barriers to entry are pulling out your credit card and buying your domain and hosting. You do that and you'll start then from there, it's obviously a more challenging journey along the way, because you're building it up from just your ground zero, your base you're, you're building it up with other bloggers and learning, but like you said, Nick, you got to do that to build your business the right way anyway. So blogging gives you great practice to understand that, Hey, it's going to be about the skills you develop, the practice, the value you create, the quality and depth of your friendships with successful entrepreneurs in your niche, and then monetizing through multiple income streams, picking channels that resonate with what you enjoy doing. Your blog, your brand. I mean, just as an example, I was posting on those link farms, admittedly, back in 2011, 2012, 2013, kind of like those multi-category sites, easy money.

Ryan (00:21:24): I wrote helpful posts. Uh, you'd pay a certain amount to these blog owners and they'd place the links. And then Matt cups update Matt Cutts. Rather his update in 2014 was like, that's all done. You know, you're not gonna be doing that any longer. So rather than panic or be upset, I said, okay, it had its day. I was doing that. That was one of my income streams. I just started writing and self-publishing books where I could use my writing skills and passively profit, help people. So that's an example of just how you have to evolve over time, like with blogging and business, just whatever you're doing. 5, 10 years ago, it's going to be different. It just has to cause changes the one constant. So that was one example of me learning through blogging and obviously business wise, too, that you have to be nimble and you can't sit around and complain. You know, evolution is just the call of life. So blogging gives you a really, really good lesson in developing these business fundamentals that will only help you, whether you start an online or offline business.

Nick (00:22:18): I want to talk a little bit about your website Blogging From Paradise. So I actually pulled it up on my computer right now. I'm looking at it in Ahrefs and the stats on here are insane. You have 30, this according to this database is showing 36,000 backlinks, 2,000 referring domains. I mean, you built up a lot of authority with this website. What I know you've already touched on a couple of things, being helpful and making friends in the space, but what do you think contributed to the success of that blog?

Ryan (00:22:53): I really like from my heart genuinely fell in love with the process, not the outcomes. So out of those 36,000, I've seen a lot 40 51 sites at 50,000 links awhile ago. Say 36,000, say that's where it's at. I only pitched two people. I pitched the contributing, the editors of positively positive set for awhile, I guess, posted for them. And they have like 2 million Facebook fans and an 80,000 subscriber list. Mark Cuban, Seth Goden. Those are fellow contributors. And I landed that gig. That was such a high authority blog. So I pitched them and I pitched a top blogging tips blog, or like a week into Blogging From Paradise. Other than those two human beings. And probably like they may have made up maybe 25 or 30 of those links, those remaining 35,000 links flow to me, organically People linked to me, Forbes linked to me, Fox news linked to me.

Ryan (00:23:46): I asked nobody, they pitched me. So when you think about that, it's a hard, it's just, I was so focused on having fun, helping people and creating a connecting. I never checked my metrics until recently. And that was just for the heck of it to say how many links I have. Um, didn't get caught up in this. I was just focused on the process. So then when you're creating and connecting so much, and you're so busy, you don't even think about the outcomes, those outcomes manifest. So when you're really invested in the process and you have fun doing it and you don't stop to check, how am I doing? Where am I going? That stuff takes care of itself. And it's just something I learned from like hyper successful entrepreneurs who just reached these insane levels of success that were so happy, actually, funny of story.

Ryan (00:24:30): I remember when we were in Fiji, we were in Saba Saba. We lived there for four months in 2014. And our neighbors had all these Tony Robbins stories because he owns the world famous Namale Resort, In Saba Saba. He spends over any months, a year there, he just talked about his kindness and his generosity and just, I could go be for an hour talking about how like you see his success and his happiness and just how humble and grateful and generous the man is. It's the story of their legend. He did things. He did not have to do it all. And just, it's amazing. One of the things I read about him and it really kind of inspired me was that when his company went public, he was doing one of his shows where he like he's on his feet. And I talked to enough.

Ryan (00:25:11): People who have been in the shows, he doesn't take a break for like 14 hours straight through. 12 to 14 hours on his feet goes, goes, goes the one time he took a little break, they called them back and they're like, Tony, your company just went public. You're now worth $330 million. And he looked at the guy and he was just like, "Oh, okay." And he just said, "okay." And then he just walked right back on the stage. Like it was not meaningless worthless, but it didn't matter. And that's the type of commitment it takes to the process. Not that he doesn't have his own jet and he doesn't, you know, enjoy the money and invest it. But it's such a small part of why he does what he does. And it's just so difficult for most of us to embrace this mindset because maybe we've been raised. A lot of us around folks were maybe more poverty conscious and are in survival mode. And they're very outcomes and money and traffic focused. If they're bloggers and they're like, screw the process. I got to get paid for this. The people who make the headlines and have great worldly power, but a very compassionate and generous and really lift up humanity. They're heavily invested in the process and likely invested in outcomes. And that's the exact energy that helps you succeed and to manifest these numbers that make most people scratch.

Nick (00:26:20): I think that's a really powerful message. I know a lot of times the destination is what's glorified. So you hear about Tony Robbins. Like I've never heard that story. And you think about Tony Robbins and you're like, you look at all the stuff. Yeah. You look at all the stuff he has. And you're like, wow, look at that guy. Look at all that stuff. I, I could have that stuff someday. Maybe it's not for him. It's not about the stuff. It's about everything in between getting to the stuff yet. He has the stuff and he can enjoy it and he likes it. But it's about getting through that process.

Ryan (00:26:53): Totally. And the person you have to be, I mean, and he's another guy too. He doesn't talk about it a lot, but he had a brutal life as, as a, as a kid, you know, very, very difficult life. And he mentions it here and there, but just in passing, but very abusive house. Like one of his parents' parents had broken up, but I think his mom went at him with a knife and he like ran away from home. And it's difficult for most people to realize that the people who are hyper successful often have to face the deepest fears and the greatest pain and suffering to clear that stuff in order to shine brightly. It's just like, people look at me like you're so lucky you circle the globe. And I'm like, I share some of it, but I've experienced in my life. And it's all been for me.

Ryan (00:27:33): It hasn't happened to me. It's not a victim, it's not victim hood, but some of the experiences I've had occur in my life over the years, just my family and business and finances, uh, you know, very, very scary and painful and difficult, but all happened for me, not to me. And I think that's a difference too, that I learned from these folks who are icons, I could all happen and unfolds for you to learn more about yourself, to explore your deepest fears. So again, when you get to that mindset aspect of it and you understand what it really means, it's exquisitely powerful to develop this mental muslce.

Nick (00:28:04): That's something I listened to Ed Mylett. I don't know if you listened to his podcast at all. That's one podcast that I listened to quite regularly. And he talks about that extensively. Everything happens for you not to you. If you haven't checked it out, I would, it's just called the Ed Mylett Show. I think that's one that you would really enjoy and I'll for everybody listening. I'll, I'll put a link to that podcast as well in the notes. I think it's a really, it's a very good motivational, like get your amped up about life type of podcast.

Ryan (00:28:33): Awesome.

Nick (00:28:34): Um, okay. We talked about the process several times and you've talked about how you fall in love with the process. I'm curious what your process is when it comes down to, okay. You're getting ready to sit, write a blog post. What does that process look like? Does it involve SEO? Do you do research up front? Talk about that a little bit.

Ryan (00:28:54): Sure, sure. I don't focus on Google traffic or SEO just because it's always felt heavy to me. Never been big on list building. I have a tiny list. Um, I go off like intuitive feelings, Nick. So I just got that poll years ago to listen to my readers or before I had readers to listen to readers on top blogging, tips,blogs, because I run a bloging tips blog myself and observe their problems and then solve them with my content. So when I sit down and write a blog post like this morning, I wrote about, Oh, I've already written a number today. I'm trying to remember pick one. I wrote one and then I wrote a number of guest posts, but one of them, one of the posts was about, Oh, okay. One of the videos which I put on my blog, just a quick link was about successful blogging buzzwords.

Ryan (00:29:40): And I thought about a lot of bloggers. They talk about struggling with being consistent and with keeping things simple because they try to, I see these bloggers that struggle. They write these really complex in depth posts. And then they hit the publish button and they disappear for six months. It's like, it's work. It's not, you're not going to knock it out of the park with a grand slam. You're not going to go viral. I always talk about develop a viral online presence, which means you want to be, keep it simple, you know, solve your reader problems and be consistent. Keep coming back and persistent to keep coming back, but stay on topic. That's how you succeed. So before I created the video, which I put on my blog, I just thought to myself, these are two blogging success, buzzwords. So simple, consistent, simple, consistent. And it was based on me seeing bloggers who make things complex and struggle and they lack consistency.

Ryan (00:30:33): So really it's more about observing my readers and readers in the blogging tips niche are just bloggers out there and their problems. So when I sit down and write a post I'm like, what are the issues I'm seeing on Facebook groups related to blogging that my readers are emailing me with that. They're messaging me with their DMing meet with, or I write a post and I publish it and somebody responds on Twitter or they leave a content on the blog itself. And they're like, awesome posts. I really struggle with this. So like, I put that in my mind with this and you could take it down. I don't know what the kids use today, Evernote or whatever, just a word doc. And I just put it in here. And then since I've blogged for 15,000 hours, research is here. That's the up side. So not that I know at all.

Ryan (00:31:16): I mean, I'll dig and I'll link to other bloggers, but I know this stuff like the back of my hand. And that's what happens when you work for free and for pay too. But when you put that much time into knowing your niche, like the back of your hand, I can write a post almost like I breathe. Like I could write a 600 word posts and eight, and I don't do it this quickly now. But when I'm in these moments of flow eight to nine minutes, I could write a helpful 600 word posts like eight or nine minutes. Now I've brought up the 20, I'm doing more formatting, but that's pretty much the process. I observed problems. I write my rear end off every day. I practice writing 500 to a thousand words every single day for very many years. And now I write thousands of words daily between my blog and it's three to four to five or six guest posts I write and publish every day.

Ryan (00:32:05): So observing problems, write the posts. Now, as far as the post itself, formatting, I've gone back and forth, but overall, I feel clear. Now I'm using headers to break it up, to make it more easily scannable. Then you want to use bullet points. Bold italics could help for a little bit of contrast, but never get caught up in the window dressing as much as just solving the problems with helpful content. Share your experiences. Of course, you have to blog to gain the experience. That's why experience is so critical. Hitting the publish button very important because you find out where you're really out with your confidence before you hit the publish button or even after, and you regret it and you think who's going to show up and skewer me. So, so observing problem, solving the problems, no SEO, not big on list building, but I am huge on relationship building and commenting genuinely on blogs. So for every blog post I publish, I'm going to read and comment on a number five or 10 perspective blogs in my niche. Because when you build those relationship bloggers link to your blog, they retweet you. They promote you, they hire you, they buy your stuff. And it's like having a built-in business grown component when you have a large loyal blog and friend network.

Nick (00:33:14): Awesome. Okay. You talked about, you're publishing thousands of words a day. How many blog posts do you think that amounts to? Obviously it varies a little bit, but are you typically writing like 500, 600 word blog posts? Or what, what does that kind of look like for you?

Ryan (00:33:29): It's about 600 hundred because I adopted a strategy to write 600, maybe 800 word post, sometimes 1200, but usually 600 because I wrote and self published so many, 6,000 wordy ebooks, a couple were 15,000, but they're really good promoters for my eBooks. And I've found that the clearer I get, I just hit the mark and exit stage left. So I've found myself in the past thinking a thousand words, 2000 words. And I got caught up in that really difficult frame of mind of value. And it's just not true value equals world count word count. And it's really, really not true. Even when people say Google ranks, these posts all your readers care about is if you solve their problems in very clear direct format and every reader is looking for a different thing. So to a lot of readers, my 600 word posts that are short, sweet to the point are perfect.

Ryan (00:34:22): Then if they want the more in depth resource, they buy my eBooks or some of them, or they buy my course, usually it's one post a day on Blogging From Paradise. Then I create a couple of videos that are short form and I just publish them as posts. So basically it's publishing these posts on my blog, maybe a 600 word posts a day, maybe 700. What I do is these relationships that I've built, I guest post, maybe two, three, four or five times a day. But of course I started with one a day just to kind of not even cross pollinate, but to leverage a bit, to reach out, to kind of access new audiences that are targeted. So right now, one blog post and roughly three to four guest posts a day, but it took a long time to develop that type of creativity and network to be able to guest post that frequently.

Nick (00:35:09): I was kind of in the same mindset that you were just talking about with a lot of my blog posts right now are typically 2,000-3,000 word blog posts. And that's, that really hurt me as far as being consistent. And I've just recently started thinking about it. Um, you had talked about helping people answering questions, observing what's going on. And one thing that I was looking at was finding what people are actually searching for like the questions people are asking about my niche and then writing a blog post about that one specific question. Just answer that one question that they have, and that blog post might be 300 words to 600 words, whatever it would be a shorter blog post, definitely, but it would allow the ability to publish more consistently. And I guess really answer specifically questions, people that are or questions people are having. What are your, what are your thoughts on that?

Ryan (00:36:01): Yeah, no, I like that strategy Nick, because I do something similar rather than trying to go really long form and not even so much, knock it out of the park per se, but just think, okay, I'm going to publish this and I'm really going to let this grow and build my business. I feel better and it feels more fun to me. And this is why mindset and energy is such a huge part of what we do. I feel clear on just listening, solving specific problems through these questions. People bring to me are these issues. And then I gained sort of a success momentum. So I really, I vibe with that. I mean my poster 600 words. I figure the way I look at it. If you solve problems that are simple and clear without trying to make the process too heavy or in depth or complex, and you keep popping up and being helpful, you're going to expand your online presence so much more quickly over the long haul by keeping it simple like that, versus trying to create one piece of longer form content.

Ryan (00:37:04): Even if it feels pretty fun and you feel pretty clear on it. It's so rare to gain that level of clarity and detachment to be consistent in publishing 2,000 word posts. It's just less your Neil Patel or Brian Dean. And they go even more in depth. Really love it. It's going to be tough to be realistic and knowing that you could sustain that. Like even me, I was writing an ebook every day, 6,000 words. And I did that every day for three months in a row. But that was, that was, I was an utter inspiration during that stretch. But even then that was kind of a challenge. I mean, by the time that was done, I was like, Ooh, I never wrote an eBook again. So it's, um, it's listening to your heart, but keeping it simple solving problems and think again, kinda like those successful blogging, buzzwords, simple and consistent, and then also persistent too.

Nick (00:37:50): Simple, Consistent, and persistent. I like that. Yeah. It's funny that you mentioned Neil Patel and Brian Dean. That's basically the reason why I was wanting to publish long form content. Like I wanted to create these almost all inclusive ultimate guides that they are constantly putting out, just because those seem to do the best in terms of driving traffic, but they also have the resources that are solo preneur myself don't have and the time

Ryan (00:38:16): Resources and the passion. Yeah, exactly. Well, the resources and just the absolute, like you could tell, they really have fun doing it and you get so many new bloggers or even established bloggers that are maybe just, it wants some more success. And they're like, who should I emulate? And they try to be, these icons have been doing it for years and are just so passionate. It's that unbridled passion for SEO and research and data. And if that's not you energetically, if you're not resonant with that, that's not coming from your heart. It's going to feel forced. It's going to be forced on some level and you won't be successful. And it's just, it's such a painful lesson for most bloggers to learn. And again, it's why I just go heavily into mindset and energy because you start seeing yourself in the light of truth and you think, I don't really want to do that.

Ryan (00:39:02): I just want some, I just want to be like Neil or like Brian and not even so much be like them, but emulate their success, write these long form posts because they say it and because Google likes it. And then it's like, well, what do you like? What feels most fun to you? What feels most enjoyable? What's your blogging journey going to be like? And that's your answer. That's where your greatest success is going to be had. So this is not something that's comfortable seeing ourselves in the light of truth, but it will really help you on your blogging journey when you're doing things from your heart predominantly, and really not too much from your head because logic plays its part and it has its, you know, plays its role. It's somewhat of an important part in the success process. But following your fun, your passion, listening to your heart, trusting your gut. These are the type of skills that when you develop, they will lead you to the blogging Heights that you can't even visualize the space of ego.

Nick (00:39:55): My next question for you, what are the, I guess, common mistakes you're seeing amongst new bloggers or even bloggers who have been in the space for awhile?

Ryan (00:40:03): Yeah, the biggest mistake I see, Nick, is most bloggers star and it gets it's reflected back to me through the quality of their content or lack thereof through their lone Wolf status, where they're not networking bloggers, relying solely on Google Ad Sense as their sole income stream. These forms of, and I love these guys. I love you guys, but these forms of delusion, they explicitly show that the biggest problem in blogging that I see from new bloggers, from veteran bloggers, who are still struggling, who just can't seem to find their flow is they hop into blogging thinking that it's just a way to make money online and that it's going to be easy and seamless and that they don't have to not so much work at it, but they have no clue that blogging is a highly developed skill that requires hundreds, but then thousands upon thousands of hours of practice over years of your life to get really good at it, to the point to where people will trust you enough to buy your stuff, to click on your ads, to hire you, to mention you on.

Ryan (00:41:10): So, which is general. The biggest problem is most bloggers have no idea that this is a serious skill that you have to learn the right way by investing in courses and eBooks and in coaching from professional bloggers, specialize blogging tips nature. Of course you can go into online business, you know, bloggers from other niches in other blogs and stuff too. But just from seasoned pro bloggers, you want to invest in their premium content. Then you want to read the book, listen to the course, take notes on the coaching, study this content, and then put it into action persistently to develop your skills. And that's really the chief problem. Most bloggers are like, okay, I'm going to start this thing called the blog buy domain hosting. Whip out the credit card? Write and publish a couple posts and then the money's going to come in. That's not blogging.

Ryan (00:41:55): That's buying your domain and hosting and mindlessly foolishly writing and publishing content without having any clue what you're doing. So that's somewhat similar to someone who wants to be a doctor. And I'm really kind of very similar. He says, I want to be a doctor. I want to make the big doctor bucks. I have no interest in going to med school. I have no interest in even getting my undergrad. I just want to get the shortcut Ryan to becoming a really successful doctor, making a lot of money cause that's what I'm interested in. So it sounds stupid when you talk about being a doctor, being a lawyer, but then when it's coming and professional blogger, it's just stupid that, you know, God bless you guy. So when you realize it's a skill, then you're gonna put in the hundreds of thousands of hours of blogging practice, blogging work to understand that that's what it takes to succeed, to become a pro, doing it the right way, but then common problems that I see.

Ryan (00:42:50): Thin blog posts, blog posts that are too bloated bloggers, relying on Google AdSense to develop, you know, to build their full time income stream. When Google ad sense is for high volume traffic blogs that are hyper-targeted, you have to get so much traffic and has to be so quality. So targeted over the long haul to actually make decent coin through ad sets, people relying on just one income stream in general, instead of opening up multiple streams of income bloggers that buy their domain and hosting. And then they asked me if they should wing it. I'm like, no, you shouldn't wing it. Don't wing it. You have no clue what you're doing or I'll offer advice. And I get, you know, that my advice could be very straight into the point and I'm compassionate, so I'm honest. So I don't sugar coat things because when you lie to people and you really don't care about them, it's when you're honest that you really do care about them because you're interested in their success but they don't want to hear you have bloggers that just turn around when I offer advice and I'm like, ah, I'm going to trust, you know, I'll trust my advice on this.

Ryan (00:43:50): And I'll say, that's okay. Who cares that I have 15,000 hours of blogging experience and you have five minutes. That's okay. You know, follow your own advice. So stuff like that, it's just it's amusing. But then I have compassion for people because I understand I've been there. You know, I made a lot of mistakes as a newbie blogger over a decade ago. So those are a few of the worldly problems, but really it boils down to people think it's going to be easy to make money online just because it's easy to pull out your credit card and buyer domain and hosting for whatever it is these days, you know, the basic package is a hundred bucks for the year, 120 and your domain. And most cases going to be 17 bucks. That's easy. Oh yeah. It took me a couple of weeks. So blogging is easy and Nope, it's a skill that you develop over many years of your life to do it. Right.

Nick (00:44:33): And all that's definitely how I, when I started, that was my mindset. I came in thinking, okay, well, I'm going to put these posts out. I started doing a lot of research into SEO and it was like, okay, well, it's going to take time, but this should be pretty easy. And I think a lot of people get caught into this. You see all the articles or you see the YouTube videos or whatever people talking about how you can actually do it. And I don't know, even though people tell you, it's not going to be that quick, it's almost like you have to go try them all out and be like, okay, well does this shortcut work? No. Does this shortcut work? No. You know what? Maybe there isn't a shortcut.

Ryan (00:45:08): I tell people, I think the one refreshing thing about my brand and my blog is I am as genuine as I could be. Like I tell people I live a movie worthy life. I've lived in Fiji and Bali and Thailand and Costa Rica. And now I'm in the beautiful forests of upstate New York and just Costa Rica, Nicaragua cutter. Omar. I've been in so many cool places, Nick and I've spent months or years in these places through blogging it's movie worthy because I have put in a movie where the energetic and work effort. And when I throw in that 15,000 hour number like I've blogged for 15,000 hours, a lot of humans haven't done anything for 15,000 hours. Some haven't lived that long. That's a lot of time. So then people look at me like you're such a natural. When you do these live broadcasts, Ryan, it's just, you have charisma. And you're just, wow, you're in the moment.

Ryan (00:45:59): And I never read any, I mean, I scan our questions before, you know, kind of get an idea for what we'll be doing chatting wise. But so many times I just look through and I'm like, everything's up here because I've given so much of my life to this to be able to live this cool life. So if you ever come across anybody guys that tells you blogging is easy or they live such a cool life and they're like, it's simple, it's easy. You'll do it quickly. Run away from because they're not telling me you give what you get, you get what you give. It's just, it's one of these things where if you want to live a really cool life through blogging, the energetic, emotional, the emotional intelligence that you'll have to establish along with the generosity of your blogging workload, it's going to blow most people's minds, but it is 100,000% worth it because nothing beats freedom.

Ryan (00:46:47): So all the hell that you go through all the fears and financial problems and just resistance and all these nightmares, it's really difficult in the long time. And man, I blogged for six months and I didn't make a penny. Doing it the right way is so worth being able to call the shots in your life and nothing beats freedom. Nothing beats not having to answer to anybody for your business or your paychecks. It's just, I can't explain it, Nick, because I came from such a poverty conscious frame of mind and just an employee mindset. I mean, I was at a pure bar, his security guard at my last job working 18 hour days, sometimes seven days a week. I did the whole 180 for trading my life for numbers on a screen for numbers on a piece of paper. To forfeiting my freedom, to giving up my life for four years, just to make money, to have a means of exchange sufficient, where I could eat and to doing what I'm doing now, I cannot explain the type of quantum leap mentally, emotionally work-wise generosity wise. I had to make, and it's a 1,000% percent worth it. And if I knew I was going to, you know, come back as a human being for 30 lifetimes, you know, if the Buddhist, what they say as far, I would do it again because nothing beats it. And that's ultimately what the biggest lesson in this whole journey, the past 10 years of my life.

Nick (00:48:06): Well, and you've, you've earned it. You deserve it. You've been earning it. You've been putting in the time. So I mean, it makes sense.

Ryan (00:48:13): Yeah.

Nick (00:48:13): You should be able to enjoy that.

Ryan (00:48:15): Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's you're going to get what you put into it. So it's not so much about hard work straining or striving. It's doing things from an emotionally intelligent, generous. Sometimes it gets really uncomfortable, but giving energy. And when you do that, and you're really persistent and you blog for many thousands of hours over years, longterm, you will stun yourself at the person you become, how many people you help and the life you live. I never could have mapped this out. Nick. I couldn't have dreamed it. My first flight was from JFK to Bali. I had never been on a plane. My first flight was 23 hours in total. My parents were like why don't you fly from New York or Philly or something for 45 minutes. You know, I'm from New Jersey, you know, right by the city, by the city, by New York. And I'm like, no, no.

Ryan (00:49:00): Once I do that, either I'll halo drop off the plane and die. If you know, I hate it the first hour, I was like, Oh, I really love this. So it's like these type of supposed alleged quantum leaps, it's just making fun, freeing, but sometimes really uncomfortable decisions. And it will lead you place. Some of the stuff you'll, wouldn't have even dreamed up, it'll be even crazier and more fun and freeing than your dreams. I never would have thought in 40 billion years that I'd be doing what I'm doing right now. And that I'd have these skills and I'd be able to talk to you about something called professional blogging for an hour or however much my pie hole allows us, my yapping. So it's like, it's crazy, man. It really is. But when you really get in it with the right intent and you're doing things from your heart, you'll understand that you'll get out of blogging, what you put into it. And that's what gives you that patience. And that's what helps you understand. Oh yeah. When Ryan says there is no shortcuts, there's really not. And then that will help you put in the time, over years to do it the right way. Then you have lasting success, which beats every is that passive element to what you're doing. Sweet.

Nick (00:50:01): Okay. I got two more question for you. Awesome. One. I would regret not asking you and I'm sure anybody listening would not be happy if I didn't ask, how are you monetizing your blog?

Ryan (00:50:12): Sure. Number one. And this was the one of the most painful lessons for me to learn. You make money by earning trust and you earn trust by helping people. So that's one thing, guys. I just want to sear onto your mind. The income streams that I'll discuss now are receiving channels. They allow you to receive the money that you earned energetically work perspective by helping people for free to gain their trust and credibility. So number one, the best way to monetize your blog is to be really generous and learn your stuff and become really skilled. Because then from there, when you open these receiving channels, AKA income streams, people see your blog. They're like they know their stuff. I buy his eBook, I'll buy his course. I want sponsored post on his blog. I want to advertise on his blog. So that's number one. As far as actual income streams, I wrote and self published over 120 bite sized eBooks for Amazon Kindle.

Ryan (00:51:10): I converted a number of those 2030 in audio book by acx.com. I converted probably 20 to paperback. So it was the three, some streams right there. Then I capitalized on that by leveraging myself. Whenever I promote something through my blog, through Amazon, I'm also an associate. So that's their affiliate problem program. Not a problem. Sorry, Amazon. It's not a problem at all. Uh, I leveraged through that as well. So I'm earning two cuts whenever I promote some blog. So that's a fourth income stream. I created two courses, one through Selz and one through Teachable.

Nick (00:51:46): What was the first one?

Ryan (00:51:48): Uh, Selz. Oh, the first courses. You mean one through Selz, The 11 Fundamentals of Successful Blogging Audio Course I created and published that on Selz.com. That's actually an Aussie company, an Australian company. That's a pretty cool digital storefront. Then I created How To Get Featured on World Famous Blogs and I published that on teachable. So that's technically two income streams. I also sell, sponsored posts on my blog. Some advertising, I charge for guest posts unless people generously and genuinely build a relationship with me. Most folks don't. So they have to pay if it's a quality piece of content that aligns with my audience. So those are more income streams, various consulting streams. I coach blogging wise, I've consulted through other streams. I still do a wee bit of freelance writing, not too, too much. I'm trying to think of what else so used to be. I did some paid tweeting in the past. Those opportunities haven't really been as abundant. So that's pretty much it for now. I'm probably forgetting a couple income streams, but really, Nick it's the money's in the free content. It's like so difficult. Those are just receiving channels because of course you have to publish premium courses and eBooks.

Ryan (00:53:10): They have to be helpful, but when you create free content for years or even just months, and you really put the time and energy in, you're going to be publishing really helpful products because you'll have owned your skills through honing your skills. You know what I mean? So it's like when you really focused the free stuff, then when you have to put together a course, you're like, Oh, it's all up here. I have to format it a certain way or ditto for eBooks. It's like you're writing thousands of words every day or a thousand words every day for six months comfortable listen that. But then you develop this writing skill. So people trust you and they trust your content and they see you as being credible. Then you can just sit down, write a five thousand five thousand six thousand word ebook, put it in Kindle short rates category from 30 to 45 minutes, charge, whatever.

Ryan (00:53:53): And you have an income stream right there. So it's more about creating the free content. Then when you add streams to these different channels, you're going to prosper for them more freely because you developed your skills both through your free content. Then when you create premium stuff, your income channels, it's going to be fairly easy to create them. You'll just have to learn how to format them properly. But the content ideas for the premium content, there'll be up in your noodle and they'll be in your cyber fingers or through your voice. If you're doing an audio, of course, through the skills you develop through persistent practice.

Nick (00:54:23): Really, you hit the nail on the head. I mean the more value you can bring in the more trust and credibility you're building through your free content and your generosity, all that it's I think it's just going to pay back in dividends on the backend. Everything else that you're doing, people are going to want to give you money for your paid content.

Ryan (00:54:40): Big time, big time I think bbout Gary Vaynerchuk. And he actually grew up in, I never knew this until a couple of years ago and never met the guy and maybe chatted once or twice online. But he grew up in the town over from in New Jersey, right? Till later I'm like, Oh my goodness. It was like so cool. But I think at him kind of modeling what I do after him, where he's like I was online for a number of years sent or just putting in the time. I think even recently in counts, content is like bite size sentences. Sometimes I know for awhile he was publishing 60 pieces of content a day through these short, you know, a, a one line update on Twitter three or four times a day. That's four pieces of content. So it's not 60 blog posts a day or videos, but he just has such an abundant mindset to generous mindset.

Ryan (00:55:22): He's had that and he's embodied it for so many years. It's about paying dividends. He's worth $150 to $200 million. It's like when you see someone who's worth that much and they're that happy and he's just become so much more being a compassionate dude and heartfelt it's like you said, putting in that time where it pays such immense return, but you just got to get out of the employee mindset. Most of us we're conditioning up work, get paid work, get paid every Thursday work and that's all well and good, but blogging is a business it's so different. Payday comes. It will keep building, it'll be lasting. It will become even more passive, but you really got to work for free to pay your online tuition or earn your stripes to gain credibility. Then from there, the more time and energy you put in and generous service over the long haul, that's getting prosper too.

Nick (00:56:08): Excellent. Okay. What are some final tips you would leave with any aspiring or new bloggers out there,

Ryan (00:56:16): Follow your passion, you know, pick a niche that where there's a problem that you see that's pressing that you want to solve, but have fun doing it because the payday is not coming for a while. You've got to practice a long time. So this way, when you see the work as the reward and the profits to like a bonus or an extra cherry on top icing on the cake, you'll see the journey through invest in premium resources and follow blogs from pro bloggers. You know, people who know blogging tips, these people teach you how to blog the right way from the day you buy the course and you start following their blogs. You'll avoid having all types of blogging issues and struggles for years and years and years on end create helpful content through your blog solve reader's problem. You know, you want to stick to your one niche, build genuine friendships with top bloggers in your niche comment, genuinely on their blogs.

Ryan (00:57:12): After reading their posts, promote them on your blog, promote them through Twitter and Facebook. Of course your handles. This will help you gain their trust. And as you're creating helpful content regularly, these folks are more likely to endorse you to retweet your stuff. Maybe if you mentioned on your, on their blog, I should say, which helps expand your reach, which helps you gain more traffic in more clout and then monetize from multiple streams of income. Start from day one, if you want, but just understand that the money really is in the free service and the skills you developed. Then from there, the income streams are just receiving channels, the channels through which you receive money that you aligned with, that you accumulated through the free content you put out there, which increased your skills, exposure, and credibility. So those are just a few basics. The stick with most of all, guys on this journey, evolve your mental muscle meditate and do Kriya yoga, Yin yoga, because you're going to be facing a lot of fears along the way, which you have to face to feel and release to see that everything's happening for you, not to you and to shed those energetic anchors that really holds so many bloggers back and you'll shine brighter and brighter.

Ryan (00:58:32): Understand that takes a lot of time, but doing it the right way for a sustained period of time will give you freedoms that you never even dreamed for yourself and for your family, whoever else you're taking this journey with

Nick (00:58:44): Very well said, man, finally, where can people find you online? Where would you like people to go to, I guess, reach out to you if they have questions or you mentioned some of your courses and eBooks, what links or social media outlets would you like people to reach out to you?

Ryan (00:58:59): Sure. Sure. BloggingFromParadise.com is my site. I have my courses up top link. You can find my courses there. I also have my eBooks link, or if you're on your phone, squiggly lines on the side, a little straight lines, when you'll see the menu drop, if you want to reach out to me, the best site would be Twitter. Send me a DM there. Email you'll find that under my "About" page but you know, Nick

Ryan (00:59:22): With my posturing ways and keeping things very passive, I don't even actually have a contact page. I get spammed so much. I make people dig a bit. I want to be very picky with who reaches out to me. That's called having posture. And it was a little uncomfortable do for awhile, but my email, you can find it at the bottom of my, About Me page or about blog the best way is really Twitter. Other than that, check out my blog and join my videos, courses, eBooks, audio books, and, um, yeah, send me a tweet or DM me. I think anybody gets set up. So ask questions, get to know me chat. I think people let you know too. I'm pretty, I'm pretty approachable guy, very engaging. I'm not always able to respond to emails or tweets or whatever right away, because I'm traveling a lot again these days, but I will do it and I appreciate everybody reaches out to me.

Nick (01:00:07): Awesome, man. Well safe travels and thank you for coming on the show. It was a pleasure having you here.

Ryan (01:00:13): Thank you so much, Nick. Really appreciate it, buddy. Thanks so much for having me.

Nick (01:00:16): Okay. That's it for the interview with Ryan Biddulph, Ryan had a lot of great advice and brought up a lot of good points. I think many people including myself get into blogging because it seems like it's going to be an easy route, but it rarely is the easiest way to go. Just like any other business or career you need to put in the work in the hours to develop your craft. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, please go over to iTunes and leave a review. I would be extremely grateful. I don't think we had a single review left last week. So this week I'm going to start doing something different.

Nick (01:00:46): I want to challenge you guys to help spread the word and try to get more podcast reviews on iTunes for the Nine-Five Podcast. Each week I'll kind of come in with an update and let everyone know how many reviews were left in the previous week. And I want to see if we can beat that previous week's number the following week. So this week should be a pretty easy one because we only need one review to beat last week. So head over to iTunes and leave a review for the Nine-Five Podcast. As always, you can find the transcript and links to everything discussed in this episode over on the show notes, and you can find the show notes over on my website and that's NineFivePodcasts.com/episode8. And just remember Nine-Five is all spelled out N I N E F I V E podcast.com/episode8 and that 8 is the number 8.

Nick (01:01:39): Alright, guys, go leave a review on iTunes. I look forward to reading them and hopefully reporting back to you next week with a higher number. So thanks for tuning in guys. You're awesome. And I will catch you guys next week, episode number nine. We're so close to number 10. That's so cool. So thank you guys. See you next week.

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Hosts & Guests

Host – Nick Nalbach

Guest – Ryan Biddulph

Show Notes

“Blogging is the easiest thing in the world.”

“If you want to unlock the secrets to financial freedom, become a blogger.”

“Here are 5 easy tips to help you make 6 figures as a blogger…”

Any of these sound familiar?

 

Many “professional” bloggers will try to sell you on these fallacies and tell that all it takes is a domain name and hosting for you to live the life of island hopping and financial freedom you can only dream of.

Sorry to burst your bubble, guys. This just isn’t’ true.

You can take it from me. Embarrassingly, I too believed that blogging was that simple and one of the main reasons I started blogging in the first place. I thought I could “game the system” and rise the ranks of the successful bloggers out there. If that was true, I would already be there. Spoiler alert: I’m not.

If me telling you this isn’t enough to persuade you, take it from this week’s guest, Ryan Biddulph, who has been blogging for just over a decade! Ryan runs a very successful blog, Blogging From Paradise, where he helps fellow bloggers and entrepreneurs build the mindset around what it truly takes to become a successful blogger. And not to spoil the fun for you, but it didn’t happen overnight for him either.

 

It All Starts with Mindset

 

Blogging is just like any other profession. In the episode, Ryan draws the comparison to someone wanting to become a doctor. If you want to become a doctor, you can’t go into it thinking that you are just going to skip medical school and instantly become a doctor. There are necessary hours REQUIRED to become a professional in this space. Why should blogging be any different?

Ryan has spent the better part of a decade (and over 15,000 hours!) blogging. That doesn’t mean it has always been easy. It is something that he has continued to work on over the course of those 15,000 hours. And according to Ryan, it all starts with your mindset.

Through various forms of yoga and meditation, Ryan continues to work on and develop his mindset – “most of our problems stem from our fears.” We need to be able to face these fears in order to overcome them. Everyone is on their own journey, and it is up to each individual to meditate and reflect on that fact.

 

Tips for Blogging Better

 

The tips Ryan discusses in this episode are not your common responses. Many responses you hear when it comes to blogging better relate to keyword research, competitor analysis, SEO. When used correctly, these strategies and tactics CAN help, but without the foundation that Ryan talks about, these strategies will do nothing but waste your time.

Here are a few of the tips that Ryan mentions in the episode:

  • Writing quality content
  • Networking and building genuine relationships
  • Staying consistent – “you can’t hit publish on your blog post and disappear for 6 months.”
  • Network with other bloggers – for every blog post Ryan writes, he will comment on about 10 other blogs (again, genuine comments)
  • Focus on answering ONE question with your post as opposed to answering several questions in one

These tips may not be new to you and they certainly aren’t sexy, which is why I think these real answers tend to get dismissed. The truth of the matter is that running a business or being a successful blogger isn’t sexy. You may get caught up in the glam and the beautiful images you see on Instagram, but what you don’t see is the work that goes on behind the scenes.

You need to stop loving the idea of the destination and start falling in love with the process – I talk about this one a lot!

 

Common Mistakes Bloggers Make

 

Sometimes the best way to learn and grow is not by looking at how others have succeeded but instead look at their failures.

Here are some common mistakes that Ryan has seen in the blogging space:

  • Blog posts are too thin (not enough content)
  • Creating bloated blog posts – being successful isn’t about word counts
  • Relying on Google Ad Sense for income
  • Only having 1 income stream
  • Not listening or following the advice listed above – like I said earlier, there is no shortcut. Trust me, I’ve tried a lot of them!

When it comes down to it, you can be successful in the blogging space. Blogging is definitely not dead, and people are making a real living from it.

The reality that many people need to face is that it is not all glam, and just like any other profession, you are going to struggle and fail. And just like any other job or career, you need to stick with it, stay consistent, and stay persistent.

Links & Resources

Note: Some of the links listed below may be affiliate links. This means I will receive a small commission (at no extra cost to you) if you choose to purchase through them.

Thank You!

I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Nine-Five Podcast. As always, I want to thank you for listening! Your continued support of the show is what makes it all worth it.

 

Don’t forget about our goal! We want to try to get more iTunes reviews than last week.

If you enjoyed this episode, please head over to iTunes and leave a review. Your reviews are what help get this podcast in front of more people!

 

Before you go,

What are your burning blog questions? If you have any questions for Ryan or myself, leave them below and we will do our best to answer as many as we can!

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"The value you provide to others directly correlates to your success. The more value you provide, the more successful you become. Focus on the value!"

- Nick Nalbach

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I am an entrepreneur and adventure enthusiast, looking to break free from the Nine-Five grind. I'll show you what has worked and is currently working for me, as well as what hasn't worked so well.

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