My Five Day Twitter Starter Kit is Live!

Posted on November 7, 2016 by suzie81speaks

I didn’t sleep much last night. Those of you who read the blog regularly will know that I have been creating my first ever course for Twitter and today is the launch, so last night felt not-so dissimilar to Christmas Eve when I was young.

And here it is! My Five-Day Twitter Starter Kit, available for the BARGAIN price of just $30 (which is a 50% discount) until 31st January!

In this easy, step-by-step course, you can learn how to:

set up an effective profile,
use hashtags (complete with a comprehensive list of useful hashtags)
retweet accounts (complete with a comprehensive list of useful accounts)
participate in chats and link-ups (complete with a full list of daily chats and link-ups)
increase your engagement not only on your Twitter account, but to your blog too!

Continue reading →

Halloween Blog Party – Meet and Greet!

Posted on October 30, 2016 by suzie81speaks

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I haven’t hosted a blog party since February and with Halloween just around the corner I thought it would be a brilliant opportunity to create a space for the blogging community to share a few links from their blog and potentially meet new people. I always have a great time, with hundreds of links being shared, and it means that I get the chance to find new blogs to follow and catch up on some posts that I may have missed.

Welcome to my Halloween Blog Party!

For those of you who have never participated in a blog party before, here are the rules:

1. Choose your favourite post from your own blog. The subject of the post can be anything you like – blogging, food, parenting, life, travel, thoughts, photography… Note: This should be only one post at a time or it will get sent straight to the ‘spam’ folder but please don’t share more than three overall – spend the time visiting other bloggers instead. Continue reading →

Blog of the Day: The Phil Factor!

Posted on October 10, 2016 by suzie81speaks

Meet Phil!

A regular on Suzie Speaks and one of my oldest (not in age, rather in terms of the length of time I’ve known him) bloggy friends, The Phil Factor is one of my favourite blogs. With hundreds of hilarious and thought-provoking posts, Phil shares his ideas and musings on current events, his daily life, Top Tens of his favourite things and, of course, his campaign to become president and/or sexiest man alive. And judging from his most recent clown pic, the Sexiest Man Alive award must be just moments away!

He’s rather more modest on his About Page: Continue reading →

Back to Basics – Getting Back to Blogging

Posted on October 3, 2016 by suzie81speaks

I woke up this morning and felt that sense of relief that I didn’t have to be somewhere. I’ve spent the last three weeks doing supply work at my former school, and while I have been surprised how much I enjoyed it, it has served as a reminder why I don’t do this full-time anymore.

The mindset is a funny thing – I had almost two months of uninterrupted blog time before my contract started, and I spent most of it thinking I’ll do it tomorrow whenever any major writing tasks presented themselves. However, when sitting at a desk in my temporary classroom all I wanted to do was get on the blog, posting my usual nonsensical ramblings and reading about what everybody else had been up to.

I suppose that when something is a daily part of life it becomes easily taken for granted, only for its importance to be realised once it is taken away, even if it’s just for a little while.

I’ve lost my way a little bit in the online world. It became about alt words, key words, SEO. The correct title, the correct image. Stats, stats and more stats have obsessively taken over at times to the point where they became more important than content and conversations. And I’ve missed those conversations. Granted, I’m more than proud of everything that I have created and achieved, but I’ve decided that October (or should it be ‘Blog-tober‘ – see what I stole there?) would be a brilliant opportunity to return back to the reason why I actually started writing in the first place: writing for me. Of course, I enjoy doing the wide and varied activities that the blog affords, (which I’ll participate in as they present themselves), and I’ll continue to share posts and blogs that I like to read, but I’m determined that the next few weeks will be devoted to getting back to basics. Write, post, repeat. Continue reading →

Want to be Featured on Suzie Speaks?

Posted on October 1, 2016 by suzie81speaks

Want to have your blog featured on Suzie Speaks? I’m running opportunities for bloggers to receive promotion throughout October in the form of sponsored posts, culminating in a massive Blog Party for Halloween.

With nearly 17,000 monthly readers (plus several thousand followers on Pinterest) and just a few hundred views away from 650,000, this could be a fantastic opportunity for both new and established bloggers to be introduced to a whole new audience!

BLOG OF THE DAY

This is available to anyone and everyone and there is a single sponsored space for one blogger every day. There are two price options available: Continue reading →

What I’ve Learned About Blogging

Posted on August 10, 2016 by suzie81speaks

I’ve been spending some time revisiting, editing and deleting old blog posts and I discovered a number of articles that have been lost in the hundreds (about 750 at this present moment) that I have generated over the last three-and-a-half years.

I created this one about blogging regrets based on what I have learned and suggested ‘Do’s’ and ‘Don’ts’ to consider after the first year and much of what I wrote then still remains the same. I’ve decided that it is worth sharing again, so I’ve updated it and added further information and links to useful posts.

What I would do differently

1. I would decide on a name that I was happy with at the very beginning. In my excitement about the prospect of starting the blog, I hastily chose the name ‘Suzie81’ – my name and the year that I was born. After a while I became really dissatisfied with my choice – it had no real reference to any of the content in the blog – but by this point my readers knew me by this name. When I later purchased my domain name, there were very few options that I could use and I ended up changing it to ‘Suzie Speaks’ to avoid as little confusion as possible. Continue reading →

How to Build Your Tribe: The Power of a Blogging Community

Posted on July 23, 2016 by suzie81speaks

I’ve made no secret of the fact that blogging has changed my life beyond all recognition – my initial post was published without any expectation and my journey over the last three years has been so amazing that I have to stop and pinch myself every so often to check that it actually happened.

I’ve documented my blogging process on many occasions, creating a number of advice posts based upon what has or hasn’t worked for me. It’s hard-work and can be a time-consuming and often lonely business, with countless hours easily being spent just on the writing, publishing and promoting of a single post, and I’m beyond proud of everything that this little space of the internet has achieved. However, none of this would have been possible without the support from the community, and, above all, my tribe.

Actually, if I’m being honest, I’m not a fan of the word ‘tribe.’ It sounds cliquey, which is one of the things that I dislike most within the blogging world, but it is inevitable that you will naturally gravitate towards certain individuals online in the same way that friendships are formed in real life. So, for the sake of this post, I’ll stick to using the terminology, just for now… Continue reading →

Blogging Talk

Posted on July 12, 2016 by suzie81speaks

Those of you who follow the blog regularly will know how I feel about speaking in public, particularly when it is to a crowd of adults that I’ve never met before. So, when I was asked to speak about blogging to an audience of local businesswomen and entrepreneurs at an event with the Stilettos Network, I couldn’t shake the nauseated feeling that appeared at the pit of my stomach. It’s the usual insecurity that I’ve talked about on so many occasions, the tiny little voice that overpowers any rational thought in my mind. The one that, despite my inner confidence of all things blogging, will convince me in advance that my opinions are irrelevant and ultimately I will be laughed out of the room.

Still, it was an incredible opportunity and a rare chance to talk about blogging and how it has influenced and changed my life all evening with people who actually wanted to listen – I’m very lucky to have support from my family and friends, but there is only so much that can be said before that familiar glazed expression creeps across the eyes of those that I am jabbering at.

I was blessed to be talking alongside Justice Williams, MBE, and Jodie Cook – both highly successful women in their own right, and I was grateful that I would be speaking last as it gave me the opportunity to take some notes on how both of them presented themselves. I loved listening to their stories and how relaxed they were as they were speaking, and I was so inspired that, when it was my turn, I decided to go for it and see what would happen. Continue reading →

How to Increase Your Twitter Traffic With #SundayBlogShare

Posted on July 10, 2016 by suzie81speaks

In November 2014 I started a hashtag – #SundayBlogShare – that allowed bloggers to share their links and meet new people. It was not a new idea, I had been participating in similar link ups hosted by other bloggers throughout the year, but I found it to be really useful when networking and getting my posts out to a wider audience.

Over the last year it has become one of the biggest blog-sharing link ups of the weekend on Twitter (to my knowledge anyway), with hundreds of bloggers around the world sharing thousands of links each Sunday, and it now trends on a weekly basis.

I’m still in awe of how much it has grown, and I’ve been lucky to have found wonderful new blogs that I follow on a regular basis.

Want to join #SundayBlogShare? The instructions and guidelines are simple:

Tweet your blog links using the hashtag #SundayBlogShare and enjoy! If you include my Twitter handles (@suzie81blog or @SundayBlogShare) in your post I can retweet it for you too, although please note I reserve the right not to and won’t be able to do every single one. Your posts can cover any topic and you don’t have to follow my blog or any associated social media accounts. Continue reading →

How Blogging Has Changed My Life

Posted on May 18, 2016 by suzie81speaks

By 2014, I don’t feel arrogant by stating that I had achieved every goal that I had set myself. I had a well-paid job, a home, a relationship, good friends and three cats that had been with me for years. From an outsider’s perspective, things seemed set.

However, I was struggling both physically and mentally. I couldn’t cope with my workload, my family relationships were strained (and in some cases, non-existent), The Bloke had lost both his father and best friend to cancer within five months of each other, my beloved cat died, we had moved house twice in six months because we were duped by a charlatan landlady and I had been hospitalised for nearly a week after ignoring a kidney infection. I was comfort eating to try and make myself feel better, and I was bloated, lethargic and had gained even more weight than I had over the previous few years. I didn’t want to go anywhere, do anything or see anyone. I existed from day to day, praying for the weekends and the holidays.

I had started the blog the year before. Things had been tough, and as I had taken to writing angry words in notebook after notebook, only to then store them in a cupboard afterwards, The Bloke suggested that I start writing online. Admittedly, I knew nothing about blogging, but within the week of creating my very first account I was hooked, churning out post after post of nonsensical rubbish that had been floating around my mind for a long time (most of which I have now deleted). I gained new followers, and started to build a community. I was extremely paranoid about people within my real life discovering what I was writing, so I kept information about myself to a minimum, but I started to feel safe in the anonymity that the computer screen provided, and enjoyed the feedback and interaction that I received from people taking the time to leave comments on my posts. Continue reading →