This featured guest post is an exclusive interview by Amal Rafeeq with Ryan Biddulph the founder of BloggingFromParadise.com
This is the thirty-first edition of the what I learned interview series.
Amal
You’re a blogger for more than 4 years. Being one, do you recommend Blogging as a potential field? Tell us more.
Ryan
I definitely recommend blogging as a potential way to make a living BUT you need to prepare for ups and downs along the way. I’d suggest working a part time job or padding your savings with your full time job to prepare for some lean times and ride out these bumps.
When we’re learning, money usually evades us. We make mistakes, and build our reps, and gain trust slowly but steadily, so money usually flows in slowly. Pro bloggers need to be detached, and not care much about money, to do the things that make you enough money, to where you’d have enough money to quit any other job and blog full time.
As you know, I travel all over the world while earning a full time income through blogging. Yep, we even met in Kerala – while I was quite a sickly dude – yet I was still working, even when I was sick as hell. That’s the type of commitment you need to make, and the uncomfortable feelings you need to deal with if you want to become a professional blogger.
Just fall MORE in love with being free than you FEAR uncomfortable situations, and you’ll succeed.
Amal
You are popular for the way you write more and more articles on your blog without compromising the quality of the content. How do you keep getting fresh ideas to write on?
Ryan
As for ideas, my experience gives me an endless flow of neat, intriguing blog post ideas. I like sitting in quiet. I meditate frequently. After meditating, it seems like I can pick ideas out of thin air but really, I’m just calmly observing life around me. When I spot an experience, and can correlate my experience with some lesson which vibes with my audience, I write.
I believe anybody can record 10 to 20 blog post ideas each day because every person on earth has hundreds of experiences each day to recount. Practice reviewing your day in mind, from the bad traffic, to the helpful person at work, to the annoying professor, to the stray dog you fed in the street, and you’ll never run out of ideas again as you practice linking each experience to your niche.
Amal
You are seen almost on every established blogs as a Guest Blogger. How do you look into Guest Blogging and what all tips can you share with us to do it the right way?
Ryan
Guest blogging is for making friends with other bloggers, and with their audience. I always felt that link building is not the primary objective; adding value to another blogger’s post puts this all into motion.
Give. Receive. If you create an astounding post, and respond to comments, and develop a bond with fellow bloggers and their readers, you’re golden. Smart guest bloggers are generous, foolish guest bloggers are selfish. As with all things in life how you choose to think and feel dictates how much – or little – you’ll succeed with guest posting.
Publish your best content, respond to comments, promote the post aggressively and just try to make friends, to rock out the guest blogging circuit.
Amal
I believe Ghostwriting is your game and you’re earning the major portion of money through it. What are all the things you need to do to land on more deals and how do you pitch people the right way?
Ryan
Ghostwriting is my #1 income stream now because I’ve built a long term relationship with a core group of clients. I love my clients, my clients love me, and we go above and beyond to help each other out. Just recently I recalled an email I sent to a client.
They know I work on a per word rate yet I wanted to explain why I went into a higher word count, and going forward, if I should cut it down.
I want to make things easy for them, and be mindful of their budget. I enjoy making a nice living but know that forming powerful bonds with clients, understanding them, and working with them, means more than money because long term clients and steady pay finds the ghostwriter who goes above and beyond to help their clients.
Know your worth. Charge appropriately. Then detach as much as possible from money outcomes, and just do your best to work with folks, being mindful of their preferences, needs, budgets, etc.
Amal
If someone is starting out as a blogger, what advice will you give that person to go through the right way?
Ryan
Newbie bloggers, I salute you! This is about the best job in the world. I mean, I’m writing these words, staring out the window, on the Pacific Ocean, in Savusavu, Fiji. Not bad, right? New bloggers, do 2 things:
Write out, on a piece of paper, why you want to blog.
Develop a blog around a super focused, narrow niche, to attract readers who are hungry to devour your content, buy your products and hire you for your services.
Blogging is a straightforward gig. Create good content. Connect with bloggers by promoting them, and commenting on their blogs. The challenge is, most people blog to make money, which is the worst mistake on earth. Blog to be free, and to help others become free.
Blog to solve a pressing problem or service. If you make little money, you’ll quit quickly – and most folks do – because your motivator is vanishing, disappearing, not showing up.
If you tie your WHY to something bigger than you, you’ll succeed.
Folks who know me, I’m closing down my old blog at Cash With A True Conscience and opening a new blog at Blogging from Paradise. I’m excited!
Why? My reason why I’m blogging is as strong as ever.
I want to help you retire to a life of island hopping through smart blogging. Just like me.
Amal, we met in India. I recall the experience like it was yesterday. It was SO fun, and my deepest intent is to help you, and anybody on earth, who wants to become a pro, full-time blogger, do the same.
I’d love to meet you in Bali or Fiji. Or if you simply want to blog in paradise in Kerala, I’d live for you to do that. That’s my Why. I mean, I love being free too which is a part of my reason why but now I have a clear target audience and I want them to be as free as me.
I always wanted this with my other blog but now I have a more pure target audience, which should help both parties reach their goals.
Oh yeah, the second thing for newbie bloggers to know: target your audience by drilling down to a super tight niche…..and yep, it HAS TO BE something you’re passionate about.
Otherwise, you’re wasting your time. Go work a job you don’t like, because trust me, blogging will become like a job you hate if you don’t follow your passion.
I chose Blogging from Paradise: How to Retire to a Life of Island Hopping through Smart Blogging, as my topic because I love blogging. Then, I drilled down more. I want readers who wish to retire. Then, I drilled down even more.
I want readers who want to travel from paradise to paradise as they retire through blogging. Super focused niche, which means that readers will have UBER clarity in knowing what I’m about, and will find me with greater ease, subscribe, and become part of our loving, fun, helpful community.
Amal
You quit your job and got into the blogging business some years ago. Do you regret doing that? Tell us about your major achievements in life and what blogging means to you.
Ryan
No regrets whatsoever. I love my life. My major accomplishments include: traveling all over the world for 3 years in a row, being interviewed by brand.com, being asked to speak at prestigious NYU, landing awesome clients, generating 16,000 page visits on a single day with my old blog, and climbing out of a nightmarish hole of financial horrors.
Overall, just being a happy guy, who’s with a beautiful fiancée, and helps people, and street dogs, and street cats, and other animals, and beggars, and bloggers, and my close friends….that’s all that matters to me.
Oh yeah, living for 4 months in our place in Fiji overlooking the Pacific Ocean, with maybe the best view on earth, is a neat accomplishment too.
Actually, I was fired from my job and was happy to be let go because God forced me to let go, so I can grow into the person I am today.
Blogging means freedom. I wake when I want, sleep when I want, and have full creative control over publishing neat content, to change lives, and help others become free.
Amal
What are all the ultimate things you should keep in mind to keep your reputation as a Blogger clean and not damaged? How do you stand out?
Ryan
Remember karma, steer clear of negative folks, surround yourself ONLY with positive, loving, genuine people, meditate, pray, build a gratitude list…..and when a critic, or a nasty person, tries to bait you into a fight, which could hurt your reputation…either ignore them, or kill them with loving kindness.
Remember, their criticism has nothing to do with you. Don’t take it personally. Their hate, or anger, or jealousy, is a projection of how they truly feel about themselves since we’re all One, or connected. Knowing this, treat them with compassion, as they are unhappy souls, and either smile and thank them for their opinion or ignore them all together. These ideas will keep your karma intact and your reputation squeaky clean.
Amal, thanks so much brother! I deeply appreciate this opportunity and am so happy to see you back in the blogging game. Love you man.
Special thanks to Ryan.
Thanks a lot to you Ryan, for giving me this wonderful opportunity to interview you and for giving out all those valuable information. Congrats for what you have achieved and good luck with your life.
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