All my advice assumes that, like me, the time you have for working on your website is scarce. This means you must be efficient.
If you look hard enough, there will be areas of your life where you can “find” time to devote to writing and publishing posts, and to promoting your VPN affiliate site instead.
For example, stop habits like mindlessly swiping through time-wasting apps, browsing brain candy websites or flipping through online newspapers and magazines. I used to waste lots of time this way.
The truth is that these activities are just a distraction. In most cases, the information you glean or the relaxation you derive is lost soon afterwards and provides no real benefit in any event, especially if reading or watching "fluffy" materials.
Instead, I suggest better using that time to write, plan or even just to think about your website. It is better to think about your goals, how to pursue them, what's going well, what you could improve, etc.
As much as possible, write down these thoughts or at least your conclusions whether on your tablet or smart phone or even on a small pad of paper you carry around with you.
Even if you don't record these thoughts, your time is better spent dwelling on your website and how to further improve it rather than on cotton candy, pseudo-infotainment.
Productive but easy things you can do for your website include:
- check figures in Google Analytics, Google Search Console or the dashboards of your VPN affiliate programs to identify any issues, opportunities or trends
- scroll through your Posts Master List and try filling in any easy missing steps such as optimizing an image or adding a better meta description
- search, find and add to Evernote articles that relate to an upcoming topic you want to write about
- check out some competitors and update your Competitor Analysis research
Your website could bring so many possibilities and a better future for you. No cat video will ever accomplish this (unless, of course, your website is about how to watch cat videos with a VPN). 🙂
Staying Motivated
You will reach a stage, in fact many times, when you absolutely hate your website.
As a solo, VPN blogger, doing everything solo can be especially tough because not only are you writing posts but you are publishing them, doing the business side, and trying to keep up with plugins, search engine optimization (SEO), Google Analytics, Google Search Console, optimizing content with Yoast and Screaming Frog, and other endless tasks to attract visitors to your website.
All I can tell you is be prepared to hate your website as it will happen, and it may happen often.
What worked for me was to just grind on: maintaining a list of things to do and just getting things done one at a time when I could as best I could. This worked for me even though it was sometimes through gritted teeth when I could not stand the project any longer.
Also, always keep in mind how great it is not to have a boss, managers, subordinates etc. Being a digital nomad VPN blogger is a lonely job, but it can also be extremely satisfying and independent.
Don't give up!