Tips for Becoming an Unstoppable Blogger in 2020

Posted on December 28, 2019 by suzie81speaks

I usually love the feeling that accompanies a new year. I start a new Bullet Journal, map out my plans and goals and work out the direction that I want to take the blog over the next twelve months.

2020 marks the seventh (!) year of Suzie Speaks. Those who have followed the blog for a long time will already know the story – I started blogging as an outlet when I was struggling in my teaching job, then quit my job to blog full-time as my numbers grew, and then started my own Social Media Management business to supplement my blog income. It’s been a crazy rollercoaster of amazing experiences, travel, networking and online (and sometimes, in person) friendships with people from all over the world that have become very important to me, with plenty of ups and downs and more than a few lessons learned. Continue reading →

Creating a Manual Pinning Strategy on Pinterest

Posted on September 8, 2019 by suzie81speaks

Disclosure: some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission should you click through and make a purchase.

One of my big blogging regrets is the number of years that I avoided using Pinterest to help bring referrals to my posts. Pinterest is my favourite part of my daily checklist and is now the primary resource of traffic referrals, bringing in tens of thousands of views with minimal effort. I’ve even been able to expand this further and incorporate it into my Social Media Management Services – growing and developing the Pinterest accounts of others.

This is nothing in comparison to Pinterest Queen Elena Peters, who has harnessed the power of Pinterest to gain over 100,000 views a month, grow her followers in her first year alone on Pinterest from 0 to 12,000 (she now has over 23,000) and increasing her impressions to almost 3 million a month. In her first year she was able to reach one million total views on her blog and quit her job to blog full-time, continuing to earn a steady income from ads due to the high volume of traffic that Pinterest sends her every single month!

I’ve learned a lot from both her blog and in discussions with her about what she does, and now she can help you too! Continue reading →

Creating a Social Media Strategy and Checklist for Your Blog

Posted on November 18, 2018 by suzie81speaks

One of my biggest blogging regrets (and I’ve said this many times), is the amount of time that I completely ignored my social in the first few years of publishing my posts. My social media accounts are now responsible for about 75% of my daily traffic, have introduced me to thousands of bloggers all over the world and enabled me to build up my own little business within the blogging community.

Social media is by far the most powerful tool we have as bloggers at our disposal, and developing a strategy that utilises it effectively can potentially take a blog to the next level, often with minimum effort, with the added bonus being that most things are completely free! And once everything is set up, it’s fairly quick and easy to update!

But where to start? Most of us already have a social media account for connecting with family and friends, whether it be Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Snapchat and/or Instagram to name but a few, but even the suggestion of using these as a promotional tool sends many bloggers into a confusing spiral. Continue reading →

Boost Your Blog and Social Media with my Management Services and Advertising Opportunities!!

Posted on November 15, 2018 by suzie81speaks

Want to boost your blog, engagement, subscribers and stats for 2019? I offer lots of different opportunities for fellow bloggers and authors to gain that extra promotion as we are preparing for the start of the new blogging year.

Social Media Management – Pinterest, Twitter and Facebook
Blog of the Day opportunities
Hour Blog Consultation Slots
Canva images for your blog posts – created for any area of social media

Stats

At the time of publishing, Suzie Speaks has received over 1,000,000 views. Here are my readership stats:

WordPress: 11,000 +
Twitter: 8,900
Facebook: 800 +
Pinterest: 9200 +

Of all of the blogging regrets that I have, my lack of knowledge when developing my blog and hesitation when setting up my social media accounts are the biggest. Why? Continue reading →

Boost Your Blog and Social Media Using My Management Services!

Posted on January 29, 2018 by suzie81speaks

Of all of the blogging regrets that I have, my lack of knowledge when developing my blog and hesitation when setting up my social media accounts are the biggest. Why?

Because my social media is now responsible for HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of referrals of my total views.

The problem with social media is that, during the initial set-up in particular, it’s incredibly time consuming, even when using schedulers. Posting a blog post now doesn’t just involve pressing the publish button – I think about keywords, create a pinnable image for Pinterest and then pin it, tweet it using specific hashtags, stumble it, share it on Flipboard and then share it again into specific Facebook groups. I then use my BoardBooster Pinterest scheduler to incorporate my latest post. How, when and where I share it will depend on the specific day and time so that they get the maximum audience. Continue reading →

How to Create, Join and Use Pinterest Group Boards

Posted on September 16, 2017 by suzie81speaks

Pinterest, despite all of the updates and changes that have been made over the last 9 months, is still a primary source of traffic to my blog. I took my time to join and develop my boards (and I wish I’d have done it sooner) but it remains my favourite way to share my posts and to access interesting posts that cover posts of lots of different topics.

One of the easiest ways of boosting my traffic has been the creation of my own board and joining those created by others.

Essentially, a blogging group board is like an ongoing link-up and sharing opportunity (and those of you who follow the blog regularly will know how much I like I good party). It works in the same way as all the other boards, but instead of just the creator sharing their pins, others are allowed to join the board and pin their own posts and posts from others that they have enjoyed. The more members and followers a board has, the more likely the pin will be seen and repinned elsewhere.

Each board is different, usually with specific rules depending on the creators preferences. Some are a free-for-all, ie. you can pin as many posts as you like, while some only allow one pin a day. Others ask that you share someone else’s post along with your own. Some are focused solely on a theme – blogging tips, DIY, recipes, crafts, beauty. Some have no theme at all, as long as they are blog posts. Continue reading →

Boost Your Twitter and Pinterest Stats with my Social Media Management

Posted on August 8, 2017 by suzie81speaks

Of all of the blogging regrets that I have, my hesitation when setting up my social media accounts is the biggest. Why?

Because my social media is now responsible for HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of referrals of my total views.

Oh Pinterest, What Have You Done?

Posted on March 23, 2017 by suzie81speaks

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Last year, I was finally convinced to start taking Pinterest seriously, not only as a fantastic resource but as an easy and successful way to promote my blog posts to a new audience. It was initially a massive learning curve and it seemed to take forever to set up – rich pins, vertical images, SEO friendly descriptions, group boards, BoardBooster… There were a number of times when I wanted to delete my account and throw my laptop against the wall, but through the support and patience of my bloggy friend, I finally had an account that I was proud of.

And low and behold, the views started coming in. It was small at first – around April of last year I was receiving a few hundred views a month, but by September they had skyrocketed to the point where I was getting close to 20,000 for the month. Not bad for a newbie. Continue reading →

How to Simplify and Authentically Grow Your Blog Without Spending Money

Posted on February 16, 2017 by suzie81speaks

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Blogging is now a viable career option and there are endless examples of bloggers who have monetised their site to the point where they can quit their 9-5 job and live the dream.

Consequently, the bloggosphere (blogisphere? blogosphere? There really should be some clarification on this) is filled with ‘Earning Reports’ (which I often ignore), along with a bajillion things that we should all be doing to optimise our traffic and increase engagement to our sites. I apparently need an email list, in which I should offer incentives. I should be part of an Instagram pod or tailwind tribe. I should be self-hosted and have a professionally designed site, I should have paid advertising across all of my social media. I should be building up my social media accounts by following and then unfollowing people.

Nonsense.

No wonder so many bloggers are feeling overwhelmed or disappointed with the fact that they haven’t been able to quit their job after blogging for two months. There’s so much conflicting information that many feel the need to do everything because they have seen that it works for someone else. Continue reading →

Suzie Speaks: Social Media Manager!

Posted on February 2, 2017 by suzie81speaks

I can’t believe that it’s the start of February already! And what a month it has been!

No two days have been the same – I’ve been doing some supply teaching and freelance music on certain days, blogging on others. My niece – Baby Squidge – arrived and I’ve been up north a few times to bask in all of her squidgy glory. My new Facebook group has gone from strength to strength, becoming an amazing group of people that I’m immensely proud of… Continue reading →