not confident playing ruy lopez

@1

"I have been playing ruy lopez for a while now." ++ Good

"I am not confident playing it." ++ Confidence comes from accumulating experience.

"the main plan is to conquer the centre with c3 and d4" ++ Yes

"followed by knight manoeuver to kingside" ++ Yes.

"Once I have completed these steps, I dont know what to do."
++ You often get an attack. Once the center is secure you have more pieces on the king's side.

How to attack?

I play Ruy Lopez too, I win because my opponents mess up (they try to attack when they can't, or they play Bc5 and my c3+d4 are pushing the bishop and knights with tempo), but if it was all book until the end of the opening, I tend to agree - I have no idea what to do, so let's see Kasparov - Karpov, maybe we'll get something.

From the video you can learn one manuver as an attacker:

A zerba on f5 is wonderful, especially with a queen. by moving the donkey to h2 you also make room for your queen to join the slumber party.

Generally, if you can put a queen on h3, that's a wonderful attacker, normally along with g2-g4, g4-g5 and hilarity ensues.

That's generally my strategy too. I try to continue to make active moves and look for tactics. And of course, I try to avoid blundering.

That goes a long way for me.

@3

Study some games of Tal, Fischer, Kasparov with it.

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1070679

Review numerous games played in this opening to gain insight into what you should be doing.

There is no 1 plan for white vs all black RL defenses.

It sounds like you are asking about white's play vs the classical closed Morphy defense. For that specific one, very generally, you want to have slight pressure and increase it slowly rather than go for checkmate. General plans ideas include:

after black plays b5 and before he/she connects rooks you play a4. Then you get to decide wh3n to play axb5. Usually you can win the a file this way.

The central tension: usually you get to decide how and when to release it by

1. Playing d4-d5. Stronger if it forces the knight on c6 offside and when the light sq bishop is on b7. Then you play g2-g4 Ng3-f5 Kh2 Rg1 and build up to a king side attack.

2. (Rauzer's plan) Playing dxc5 and then playing to bring knights to f5 and d5 attackig the light squares. Black tries to cover these & play c5-c4 and plant a knight on d3. You have to combine advancing your plan and preventing her/his plan. This often works better when you black has a bishop on d7 not b7-- as one example of when.

3. Often late in the game the center comes apart and suddenly your light sq bishop on c2 is free. At that point you need to play like Morphy and go for checkmate.

Those are the kind of things I think about playing the RL vs Morphy defense. -- Bill

Spanish is awesome. Just keeping practicing it, you'll find all it's fun. 🙂