Blog of the Day: Ashley Rader and Blog Genesis

Posted on April 7, 2017 by suzie81speaks

Do you need help with growing your blog? Social media, affiliate or content marketing? What about web development?

Meet Ashley Rader, the creator of Blog Genesis. She’s living my blogging dream –

Building blogs and websites, and growing them into successful businesses has afforded me a freedom and flexibility that I never dreamed would have been possible. I work from home and I get to be around for my kids – able to attend school functions and sporting games and dance recitals and all of those special moments – moments that I know will be gone all too soon.

Creating her first website back in 2004, Ashley developed her SEO skills to grow her website to spot #3 on Google for an extremely competitive search phrase – and with that, came her first million dollar year. Fast forward a few years and she came to the painful realization that she had put all of her traffic and marketing “eggs” into the SEO basket. When Google made some changes to their ranking algorithm, she lost almost all of her rankings – and with it, all of her traffic – and income. Continue reading →

Oh Pinterest, What Have You Done?

Posted on March 23, 2017 by suzie81speaks

104

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 Recycle Old Blog Content

Posted on March 15, 2017 by suzie81speaks

120

Last week I decided to go through my old blog posts, which had quite a negative impact on my general confidence about my content and I had a little meltdown on the blog. After receiving lots of good advice from the blogging community I decided to ignore my initial knee-jerk intention to delete hundreds of posts that I considered to be inferior and instead spend a bit of time recycling some of my earliest articles.

There were a number of reasons for this:

1. My blog is nearly four years old, and I have a much bigger audience than when these posts were originally published. I wanted to reach my newer audience who would not have seen them.

2. My writing style has changed and my earlier offerings aren’t consistent with the quality (at least, in my opinion) that I produce now.

3. My lifestyle has changed for the better. The negative tone of some of the posts are no longer relevant to my general mindset. Continue reading →

Blog of the Day: Unfold and Begin

Posted on March 15, 2017 by suzie81speaks

Meet Jenny!

Jenny is the creator of Unfold and Begin, a lifestyle blog. Her About page is one of the funniest I have read…

My name is Jennifer Koshak. I’m a post 50 baby boomer, willing to enjoy chocolate, practice some yoga, have some fun and explore new places and new things in my next 50 years.

Some random things about me:

I met my husband on eHarmony. Yes, it really works.
I started my first blog 4 years ago, wrote a couple of posts and then freaked that people might actually read it. So I deleted the whole thing. (I’m trying to move past that fear of sharing myself!)
My favorite color is yellow, but it looks awful on me, so I painted my living room a sunset yellow instead.
I’m allergic to cats, which means I only have two.
My husband is a chef and a chocolatier. This can be dangerous, but so, so delicious!
I’m a Yoga Teacher who feels that laughter is a necessity of life. I’ve been known to quote Mel Brooks movies in class—-the concept of Be Here Now can totally be found in Spaceballs!

Continue reading →

Want to Build Your Twitter Following? Join my Twitter Link-Up!

Posted on February 18, 2017 by suzie81speaks

At the start of 2017 I created a Facebook group – ‘Big Up Your Blog.’ I’m a member of several Facebook groups, but I find that there aren’t very many opportunities for people to actually connect and share their blog and social media accounts, so I started a ‘Social Saturday’ every week where participants could share their social media links, grow their following and connect with lots of other bloggers. Continue reading →

How to Simplify and Authentically Grow Your Blog Without Spending Money

Posted on February 16, 2017 by suzie81speaks

343

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 →

Set Your Blog for Success in 2017!

Posted on January 6, 2017 by suzie81speaks

Do you want to increase engagement and traffic to your blog? Increase your following? Build your social media profiles?

Elena and I have teamed up to bring you a MASSIVE set of unbelievable offers that could help you boost your blog in 2017, with two advertising packages and an amazing course bundle that will help you to boost your Pinterest and Twitter following and engagement. Continue reading →

Big Up Your Blog – My Facebook Group Launch!

Posted on January 1, 2017 by suzie81speaks

I’ve been looking forward to today…

I am officially launching my Facebook page – BIG UP YOUR BLOG – and anyone who who has a blog is welcome to join!

As with many things, I only realised the power of Facebook groups a few months ago. I’d been a member of one or two for about a year, only really participating in one, and then after some inspiration I joined a few more, and then a few more, and BOOM! My connections increased massively. I’m still only in less than ten, but I decided to start my own as I have found that there are a number of groups that prevent bloggers from sharing their own links and social media accounts with each other, which almost defeats the idea of being in a group to begin with.

However, instead of it being a constant free-for-all, which usually only attracts link droppers and no interaction, I have decided to set out a weekly schedule that will help to target blog interaction and social media growth. For now, I have kept it small and simple. Continue reading →