Looking for Some Motivation to Help Me Past my Doubts
I'm a little frustrated right now. Maybe some of you can relate with this. Why am I frustrated? Well...
Careful What You Watch!
I made the mistake of watching too many youtube videos recently. One was talking about the difference between a professionally written article that will rank versus an amateur article (like I would write). They showed the articles and said the one would never ever rank. It needed to cover the question exhaustively with charts and comparisons of EVERY aspect of the topic. These dudes usually put out some interesting and helpful stuff but now, like I said, I am frustrated.
Truth be told, I already struggle with my writing. I am capable of writing, but I get easily distracted and overwhelmed. I have a hard time focusing in on one specific section and am always thinking about all the sections I want to write all at once. So it takes me quite a while to write a simple article. Now I am feeling like my efforts aren't even going to be worth it.
And I even know there is some truth in what they say. The articles I write now are not that great. I don't even want to cover all aspects of every topic.. As a matter of fact, I want my site to help people PAST all the technical aspects of my niche and focus on the "how-to" by providing simple ways of doing things.
For instance, my niche is helping people with WordPress. If I talk about hosting, I don't want to compare all the top hosting companies. There are tons of people that do that. I just want to mention the one or two best ones for beginners in my opinion and help them mover forward to getting their website installed quickly and onto other things.
This is What I Want to Do - But is It Enough?
I know at this point some of you might be thinking that I should just tell them to join Wealthy Affiliate, LOL. But that is not my niche right now (maybe later if I can prove this thing works). I have only two hosting companies, one domain company, a few specific themes and plugins and some places for more advanced learning that I plan to promote.
But my real heart is to just help people with the things that they get stuck with frequently. How to change the color of something. How to get their header looking right. How to layout their images so they don't look so bad. Stuff like that.
But since I am targeting beginners - maybe intermediate learners, I feel like I need to have the basic getting started information like domain, hosting, first theme choice etc. And like I said, I only think a few companies are even worth talking about. I'm not really making a review site but a how-to site. I imagine I will have some reviews but it isn't my focus, at least not yet.
I feel like I would be doing the people I have in mind to help a disservice if I overwhelm them with too many choices and talk about every detail of everything when they are just getting started. I struggle with what to talk about and what to leave out alot. Do they want to know this? Will this be too much? Is this not enough? Should I mention this extra point?
I'm Struggling with the Doubts
So, I keep trying to tell myself to just finish the articles I am working on (yes I am all over the place, I have a focus problem) and that I can always come back later and make them better. I know the only way to get better is to just put the "not so good" stuff out there for now, and then hopefully in time I will get better. But after seeing that video, I don't know. Do I even want to do this? Is it worth it?
Have any of you struggled with these kinds of thoughts? And did you get past it and get better? And did you ever start ranking with your articles? How did you get past the doubt?
Recent Comments
9
Hey DJ
There are so many voices (opinions) out there on how things should be done.
I found that for every opinion / guru there is another at the opposite end of the spectrum & both are successful at doing what they do.
So it is easy to doubt ourselves, I think most of us do at some point. But it also confirms there is no one way to do this online biz thing.
You're not alone with the writing, on my online travels I have come across many many who have voiced how they struggle with this.
I too am not what is considered a "writer" who can easily compile an article/post. It takes me ages to even write a comment, whereas my daughter can easily have articles flow out of her (not sure where she gets that from).
The thing is writing is one delivery system, there are other ways & they can be combined.
We are all unique but we all have an audience out there that resonates with our uniqueness & how we deliver it.
You've identified a need and an audience through your experience,
"I want my site to help people PAST all the technical aspects of my niche and focus on the "how-to" by providing simple ways of doing things."
I bet many out there want that solution. Many people want to get from A to Z without the noise, because they want results as quickly as possible.
I agree with you when you are confronted with too many choices it's overwhelming & can be paralysing.
So I think stick to your guns. Teaching Wordpress can have so many angles, eg: it can just be generalities or it can have an end goal in mind.
In view of your target audience I think a laser focused end goal in mind could be really useful.
You could start of with creating a complete laser focused A to Z implementation training in bite size chunks.
You focus on one host, one wp theme, one look, for one particular purpose - eg: blogging with a news type feel
Show them what the end result will be. You could also show them how they can make it their own by using different colours / fonts
Many of your bite size chunks you will be able to reuse in creating your next complete A to Z implementation training such as the host, wp admin area, wp theme
but eg the focus is on another look & feel of the same wp theme.
You can keep rinsing & repeating this til you've exhausted the ideas with that theme. Then do same with another theme &/or another host.
By sticking with laser focused end goal that should help you with what to include or not.
It would more than likely also inspire you with different angles that you can add to your growing library of offerings.
Hope this helps :)
Thanks for taking the time to write this comment (especially if you struggle as I do sometimes with taking forever to write stuff lol).
Some of what you said made me realize, perhaps I'm letting others pressure me into feeling like I have to be all things to all people with my niche.
I hope you are right that there are people that would enjoy my style and how I present things etc. Will Google see it that way though? I imagine in time, If I am consistent, probably?
I find your idea of having laser focus end goals fascinating. Not just for posts, but also for future ideas for my own products as well.
Setting up a Restaurant Site is very different from a non-profit site. And knowing that in the back of my mind has made it a little difficult as to what to recommend to people as far as methods, themes, etc. But if I focus on one at a time, as you suggest it would make things easier.
Hmmmm...have some thinking to do. Thanks for thoughts :)
My pleasure DJ. Yes it did take me time to put my thoughts in replying to you that hopefully would make sense, lol.
As Linda says " especially starting out want the information laid out in a way they can easily understand"
I would add to that ... be able to implement as quickly as possible & feel accomplished with the end result without having to think 'ok but how do I do this or that that you did or spoke of'. Hence the laser focused end goal idea. Sure there are other things that they may want to bring into the mix but that's for them to research or look forward to if you choose to cover those aspects as separate tuts.
Anyhows, I'm glad it's given you food for thought & wish you great success. If you want to bounce ideas anytime just pm me :)
I would say that there are ,many who would rather read a down to earth post that helps, rather than all the boring techie stuff they aren't interested in.
Lets face it, starting out we want it simple and straight forward. Something easy to understand and follow.
I leave a blog that is too long and "stuffy". Some of them are more as though they like to prove how clever THEY are rather than speaking to actual people to help.
There is a place for everyone. There is a great need for normal and down to earth help.
Don't give up.
Thanks for the encouragement. I am hoping there are people that want that kind of help, down-to-earth as you said. Its how I would want to be helped. I frequently find that I am not like everyone else sometimes though, so I have to wonder. Thanks for confirming that for me, that there are most likely others out there that don't want the long exhaustive posts. :)
There is room for everyone. Some like the long and boring high tech posts but I suspect many, especially starting out want the information laid out in a way they can easily understand.
To be honest, I still prefer that, even after years online.
always have doubts - so you are prpbablty no different ot most of the rest of us.
as for articles - if you feel you don't cover the topic in depth then narrow the question - go on quora and see what questions are being asked - really narrow down the topic.
these are the ones you will get ranked for inititially and then move onto broader questions.
just looked at quora with wordpress and got 325k questions.....
i am sure i don't need to say that i used site:quora.com wordpress as a search query in google.
you could narrow it down using more words
i tend to set my google as to having 100 results on the page and use seo quake to have a quick look at who is at the top
but you will buid up to creating those articles with graphs etc - if you need to - they maybe too complicated for your audience and confuse them...
or look at them and see if it simplifies the data and then integrate the techniques into your blogging.
we all have our different styles in writing to our audience and it is important to find yours...this makes it a lot easier to create the articles...
try recording your voice into speechnotes.io and see if that is what you are after for your audience - if so maybe that is a timesaver.
but the main thing is not to give up ad create a plan...ok so that is two things....
just like you i add things and get distracted - i am now supposed to be writing an articles about keywords for beginners.....
just popped in for a two second glance and.......uh oh someone needs help...
try having a bin ( blood* important notes) next to you and scribble these ideas down nd get back on with what you are supposed ot be doing....saves losing the idea and the rabbit holes will be there for another day.
take some time to scribble down all of your thoughts of what you want to do - on computer if you can - then you can organise these and find topics to write about...
i wish you well, but take a little time to find your direction - maybe your niche is too wide...
but keep going - that's the only way to move forward....
well i'd better get back on with the article and i hope that you manage to sort it out
phil
Thanks for your thoughts, Phil. I will check out Quora and think about narrowing some things. Also, great idea about the notes next to me to jot down for another time instead of letting myself get totally distracted. :)
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Just be yourself, write and put it out there and see what happens! You'll get better and better the more you do this!
Jeff