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How to Overcome Blogger Burnout Now

ByJillian Leslie

In today’s episode of The Blogger Genius Podcast, I’m tackling how to overcome blogger burnout. I share my key insights from talking to many of you about your experience with burnout and share my advice on how to rejuvenate both your passion and profitability.

The Hamster Wheel of Content Creation

Many bloggers find themselves trapped in a relentless cycle of content creation, SEO optimization, keyword research, and posting on social media. This constant push for pageviews, traffic and engagement can lead to a sense of disconnection from your audience and a lack of personal fulfillment.

The need to constantly optimize for search engines can overshadow the original purpose of blogging, and the pressure to produce frequent, high-quality content can be overwhelming.

How to Overcome Blogger Burnout Now | MiloTreeCart

Show Notes:

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Rediscovering Your “Why”

My first piece of advice for crafting a blogger burnout strategy: remember why you started blogging in the first place.

Most bloggers begin with a desire to connect, share, and solve real problems for real people. Taking time to revisit your initial goals and passions can help you reconnect with your audience. Engage with your readers through comments, emails, and social media to understand their needs and interests. Shift your focus from pageviews to providing genuine value and solutions to your audience.

Diversifying Income Streams

While ad revenue and affiliate income can be lucrative, they are often subject to fluctuations in traffic and market changes. Diversifying your income streams can provide more stability and fulfillment.

Introducing Digital Products and Services

Many bloggers I talk to find a renewed excitement and purpose when they introduce selling digital products and services. This approach not only diversifies their income but also fosters deeper connections with their audiences. Digital products and services can provide a more consistent income stream, and creating products that solve specific problems for your audience can be highly rewarding. Plus, selling products and services allows for more personal interactions and relationship-building with your audience.

Case Study: Nell Foster’s Successful Pivot

Nell Foster, a gardening blogger, experienced a significant drop in traffic but successfully pivoted by updating and selling her ebook and now is offering live workshops. She engaged with her audience and found new ways to monetize her expertise.

Be open to pivoting your business model in response to changing circumstances, and regularly interact with your audience to understand their needs and preferences.

Overcoming Self-Doubt and Embracing Growth

Transitioning to selling products and services can be uncomfortable and may trigger feelings of self-doubt or imposter syndrome. So I recommend you begin with a simple product or service to test the waters and build confidence. Ask for feedback from trusted peers or early customers to improve and validate your offerings. View the process as an opportunity for personal and professional growth.

The Power of Human Connection and Community

There is something really important today about human connection and community. Starting a paid membership can be a smart move for bloggers as a way to make a steady income stream, and build a community around you and your brand. Plus, creating products that matter to you and your audience can lead to greater creative satisfaction.

Transitioning to a Customer-Centric Business

As things keep changing and AI becomes more prevalent, my recommendation is to transition from solely focusing on SEO to creating a vibrant, customer-centric business. This shift can lead to you rediscovering joy in your online business journey. Conduct surveys or interviews to identify the specific problems your audience faces, and develop digital products and services that address these pain points. Use email marketing, social media, and other channels to promote your offerings and connect with your audience.

Embrace the Journey

Diversifying your income streams by selling digital products and services can help overcome blogger burnout and lead to a more fulfilling and profitable blogging journey. By focusing on providing value, building connections, and embracing growth, you can create a sustainable and rewarding business. Remember why you started blogging and let that passion guide your decisions. Embrace new opportunities and be willing to pivot when necessary. Prioritize your audience’s needs and build genuine connections.

By following these insights and actionable advice, you can transform your online business and rediscover the joy and fulfillment that comes from serving your audience in a deeper way.

Your Digital Product Strategy

Our goal at MiloTree is to help you find new green shoots in your business. That could be growing an audience with MiloTreeLeads our new product, where you can effortlessly grow your list by offering unlimited freebies and lead magnets, or MiloTreeCart, where you can sell digital products and services, focusing on what you love, creating and connecting without getting bogged down by complicated tech.

Get on a call with me and we can have that personal connection. And chances are, because I am fresh eyes on your business, I can see things that you can’t. And I bet you you will leave the call going, “I hadn’t thought of that.”

If this sounds interesting, go to MiloTree and scroll down. You will see where my calendar is, and just pick a time and we’ll get on a free 20 minute zoom call.

I’m going to be phasing this out as we go to a monthly subscription for MiloTreeCart and MiloTreeLeads. So if this sounds like something you’ve been interested in, but you’ve been putting it off, I recommend you do it now!

Other Related Blogger Genius Podcast episodes You’ll Enjoy:

MiloTreeCart, the Best Tool for Non-Techies to Sell Digital Products

I also want to introduce you to the MiloTreeCart, a tool designed for non-techies to sell digital products easily. It comes with features like fill-in-the-blank sales pages, check-out pages, a sales dashboard, upsells, and customer support. MiloTreeCart is currently available for a lifetime deal of $349 or three easy installments of $116.33.

How to Overcome Blogger Burnout Now | MiloTreeCart

#337: How to Overcome Blogger Burnout Now

Jillian Leslie (00:00:04) – Hello and welcome back to the Blogger Genius podcast. I’m your host, Gillian Leslie, founder of MiloTree, including MiloTreeCart, where you can sell unlimited digital products. MiloTree Pop Up where you can grow your social media followers. And our new product Military Leads, where you can offer unlimited freebies and lead magnets to grow your email list. These are all tools to help you grow your audience and sell to your audience. Today, I’m diving into a topic that many of you have been talking about with me recently, and I’m hearing this not just from those of you who’ve seen your traffic take a hit. I’ve seen this now across the board and it is blogger burnout. It seems to be coming from people feeling like they’re on a hamster wheel of constant content creation. This means things like relentless SEO optimization, keyword research, and churning out blog post after blog post. So I wanted to share how bloggers have told me they found new excitement in their businesses. And that’s by introducing selling digital products and services.

Jillian Leslie (00:01:30) – Something about actually having people to serve can bring back the joy and personal connection missing in the chase for pageviews. So if you found yourself more focused on traffic and users, then the people behind the numbers, this episode is for you. So remember why you started blogging? It was probably to connect, to share, to solve real problems for real people, not just generate clicks. But then we all found out that putting ads on our sites could be really lucrative, so we double down and focus solely on that. And we saw that that worked. And for many of us, it still does. But as we notice now, headwinds like Google algorithm updates and AI and this feeling of being so distant from our people, I want to talk about how transitioning to selling products, or at least starting to offer them, can transform not only your business model, but also reignite that passion for what you do. Many bloggers I’ve spoken with share a common revelation the excitement of gaining their first customer. It’s a game changer because suddenly you’re not just publishing content into the void.

Jillian Leslie (00:02:50) – You’re creating solutions that meet specific needs and then every sale you make gives you the possibility for a personal connection, a problem solved, a relationship started. So many of you had told me how revitalizing it is to just talk to your customers directly, to find out what they’re struggling with. It’s these relationships that not only help you grow your business, but also bring back that joy and fulfillment that drew you to blogging in the first place. This personal element is what many of us crave, and it’s the one thing that remains uniquely yours as we continue to compete with AI. Your personal expertise matters, and connection with your audience also matters. That is something no algorithm can ever replace, so please don’t underestimate it. And watching our traffic and income drop, as many of you have experienced, can be completely demoralizing. I have talked to many of you about this. In fact, in one of my past episodes, I interviewed gardening blogger Nell Foster from Joyous Garden about what it was like for her to lose a bunch of traffic.

Jillian Leslie (00:04:10) – To feel that sting, and then to pivot and reinvest in the book that she had written a while ago, but really updating it and going back to her audience to sell it. And I will add a link in the show notes to that episode, because I just love the way she’s thinking about this, and I love her attitude. So if any of this is resonating with you, and it’s hard every day to sit yourself down and work on your blog and you’re even potentially thinking about quitting, this is the moment to start diversifying your income by selling products and services to your people. Now it takes time to find traction, and that’s why I recommend starting immediately. Remember when one part of your business stops growing, you need to plant new seeds. If you’ve been at this for a long time like we have, you know that this is kind of the nature of being an entrepreneur online. So yes, people love their ad revenue, their affiliate income, but they recognize that things are always in flux and they need different ways to make money.

Jillian Leslie (00:05:25) – Also, when you find these new income streams, you actually start to really notice that you have more creative freedom and more peace of mind. Another thing I constantly hear is selling products like ebooks. Hosting a workshop offering services such as coaching allow you to express your creativity in new ways. This can be a breath of fresh air if you’re feeling stuck producing blog content around low competition keywords that doesn’t inspire you or really have much meaning to you. But when you can start to create your own products that matter, it’s amazing how revitalising that can feel. Multiple people who I interview, who I talked to, host memberships, and they say they get inspired by their communities and they like showing up for them. It gives them a sense of purpose. During the pandemic, I created my own coaching group so I wouldn’t get lonely, and many of the members who were in it and this was like four years ago, are still my good friends. They’ll still email me, check in and ask advice. And as we all know, blogging can be a it’s a solo venture and it can feel somewhat isolating.

Jillian Leslie (00:06:43) – Plus, we’re living in a world that continues to get atomized. So if you are thinking of a digital product that not only can bring you community, but also is a great strategic move for making money. A membership can foster a lot of good feelings, a sense of belonging and recurring revenue. I always say ask yourself, is there a possible membership in my business? Another thing that I hear from so many people is when they venture into selling, which is uncomfortable. It encourages personal and professional growth. I’ve seen this over and over again, so people will get on a call with me and they’ll go, yeah, but I don’t know. I feel really uncomfortable selling my own products, or who am I to charge money for this? Like, I should just give this away for free. Then we have a big conversation about self-worth and testing. And this isn’t personal. And so I convinced them to try it. And as soon as they start getting even their first sale, I see a change in them.

Jillian Leslie (00:07:57) – Like an excitement. They light up. It’s a feeling of validation that bloggers who just create content don’t really get, They start getting excited. They have more and more ideas they want to share with me for other products that they can offer. Remember, virtually no one is good at selling at first. It’s this skill that you learn and you get better and better at it. And I know this firsthand. As I started selling, I don’t know how long ago, but directly talking to people, understanding what their problems were. And at first it felt so awful and awkward and I felt like a total imposter asking for the sale. However, I’ve started to come to really enjoy it because I don’t really think of it as selling. I think of it as problem solving, and I really enjoy getting on calls with so many of you to hear where you’re struggling and to hopefully help. If I get to the end of a call with somebody and they say, wow, you really changed my thinking about that, or you’ve given me so many ideas.

Jillian Leslie (00:09:11) – I feel so good, so energized when I get off that call. So I encourage all of you feeling the strain of burnout to consider this path, not just for the potential income, but for the renewed passion, deeper connection it can bring. Reach out to your customers after you’ve found that, make them feel valued. Watch as both your business and your enthusiasm for blogging grows. You will get so much direction when you start talking to your people. It’s amazing how human connection can make such a difference. So if you’re ready to transition from solely focusing on SEO to creating a vibrant, customer centric business, this is your chance. So start selling products and services that matter to people who care, and I promise you’ll rediscover the joy and the fulfillment in your online business journey.

So our goal at MiloTree is to help you find new green shoots in your business. So that could be growing. An audience with MiloTreeLeads our new product, where you can effortlessly grow your list by offering unlimited freebies and lead magnets, or MiloTreeCart, where you can sell digital products and services, focusing on what you love, creating and connecting without getting bogged down by any kind of complicated tech.

Jillian Leslie (00:10:44) – So get on a call with me and we, you and me, we can have that personal connection. And chances are, because I am fresh eyes on your business, I can see things that you can’t. And I bet you you will leave the call going, I hadn’t thought of that. If this sounds interesting, go to milotree.com, our home page, and scroll down. You will see where my calendar is, and just pick a time and we’ll get on a free 20 minute zoom call. Now I’m going to be phasing this out as we go to a monthly subscription for MiloTreeCart and MiloTreeLeads. So if this sounds like something you’ve been interested in, but you’ve been putting it off, I recommend you do it now. And please remember, the only constant in online business is change. It’s true in life, but it is so true in the world of blogging. If you think this message could help a friend or a fellow blogger, please share this episode. If you’re enjoying the podcast, please leave me a review on iTunes or Spotify or wherever you listen.

Jillian Leslie (00:11:54) – It helps more people find the show. Again. Get on a call with me by going to milotree.com and thank you for tuning in, and I will see you here again next week.

How to Overcome Blogger Burnout Now | MiloTreeCart