Each week we feature an interview with a member of the Superstar Blogging community. These interviews highlight the ups and downs faced on the road to success, illuminating helpful tips and tricks along the way. If you want to get inspired to succeed, then consider these interviews must-read material! This week we are featuring Theresa from Happy Free Lifestyle!
Tell us about yourself, Theresa!
I’m an 80’s music lovin’, Old Fashioned drinkin’, web-designin’, freedom livin’ travel junkie who likes to zap the light back into people after being worn down from the 9-5 world. I like to help people rejuvenate their mind, body and soul through travel and wellness tips. And I like to help people avoid web designers that take advantage of newbies by overcharging and under-delivering on their promises of making a site where visitors will be more engaged and take action.
How did you get started traveling? What inspired your wanderlust?
My dad was a big influencing factor. Ever since I can remember, he’d take us traveling somewhere during the summer break to see something new so I believe because of this, I’ve always had a curious mind and be fascinated with traveling and seeing new cultures.
What are some of your favourite places you’ve been to?
There are way too many. Off of the top of my head , I would say Porto – There’s something magical about the city that’s put a spell on me. I’m headed back there in a week’s time to live for 2 months or maybe longer.
Japan – It’s a country I could visit again and again. One highlight was my first time living on my own and the taste of independence. Being able to explore and see a country on my own and weave myself in and out of being a part of Japanese society was a lot of fun for me as a foreigner because I looked Japanese.
Namibia – The landscape of Namibia is nothing I have ever seen. A highlight was sand-duning along the Skeleton coast
Turkey – I love how it’s where East meets west, and the influences you can feel from Europe/Asia and a bit of the Middle East.
Let’s talk about your blog. How long have you been blogging?
I started travel blogging about four months ago but I’ve had a personal development blog for about two years. I decided to move into the travel blogging sphere as I feel it is easier for me to create and spin off new content then personal development. I thought why not try merging the wellbeing aspect and travel together.
What struggles have you had during your blogging career? How have you overcome them?
- Managing my time and mastering my productivity. Developing a routine to create and work on my blog and also guest blog on other sites that generates more traffic.
- Finding my voice and creating my own uniqueness. I’ve been told countless times to just be myself. And I find it gets easier when I blog consistently and do it vs. blogging in spurts.
- Networking, how to market myself? – besides guest blogging, I struggle with this and in creating social presence and finding ways to market myself.
I don’t think I have overcome them, I believe I need a mentor and coach because I overthink things and get caught up with information overload. I used to sign up for everything and was a part of Jon Morrow’s Serious blogger program. I also followed Pat Flynn and they are all a wealth of resources.
How are you finding social media? Which platform is getting you the best engagement?
This is something I’m not sure with yet. Instagram is still fairly new to me as I just signed up last year. Recently I joined two engagement pod groups so this has really helped to generate more follows and engagement from new followers. In the past I would say Facebook worked best for me.
What goals have you set for yourself this year, when it comes to blogging? How do you plan on reaching them?
1. Get laser focused on my niche and create wellness/travel content for those needing a mental break from the 9-5.
2. Come up with a new piece of content for my landing page.
3. Increase traffic and gain followers that are engaged organically
4. Build my list to 1000 people
Craft out time, start writing guest posts; find ways to collaborate with other blogger and other people in the wellness fields, and network.
What is one thing you wish you knew before you started blogging?
Building a decent blog via WordPress is easier than you think and you don’t need to pay someone thousands and thousands of dollars to build your website. I was naïve and was bright eyed and bushy tail when I first started on my personal development blog. I paid someone an exorbitant amount of money to build my personal development site that included SEO services that would supposedly optimize my website.
The truth is SEO takes time and when you are just starting out, you can build yourself a decent website using wordpress and slowly build on it. There are things you can do to help increase your SEO. However, for anyone to who says they know SEO and how to optimize things and generate huge amount of traffic to your site, you better do a reference check on them and contact previous people they have worked with and get them to provide data to show what they have done.
Also, it’s normal for things to change, as you learn and grow your blog, so know what it is you want your site to do. Start with a great simple foundational that caters to what you want it to do now and have an idea of what you want to grow it and slowly build and add on to it.
What post of yours has the most traffic/engagement? Why do you think that is?
Good question. For Happy Free Life Style, I’m not sure yet because it is still new. For my old blog, the posts that had the most engagement were topics that were specifically niched or things that readers can easily take action on, like list type posts.
We all know blogging is a struggle. Why do you keep at it?
I enjoy sharing stories because you never know how your story can help or have an impact on someone. Plus it’s therapeutic for me too! And it’s a way for me to document my experiences and travel memories.
What apps do you use that make your blogging easier?
Recently, I started Planoly for Instagram. It helps me visualize exactly how to set up my feed and lets me see which photos look best beside one another, which is helpful.
What are some of your fav travel blogs?
The Planet D, Be My Travel Muse, Adventurous Kate, and Nomadic Matt are some of my favorites!
What one piece of advice you’d give to a fellow blogger?
You got to know your why. WHY are you doing this? What does it give you? What do you want to get out of it? Because those days when you are feeling lazy and unmotivated you need to revisit those reasons.
And find a mentor or tribe that you resonate with to bounce ideas off of to help guide you.
Tell us about your blog and where we can find you on social media!
My website is Happy Free Lifestyle. You can find me on Instagram, and Facebook, too!