Meet South African Blogger: Weird & Liberated

As much as I love writing blog posts for you full of blogging, search engine optimization, and Pinterest tips, it’s also important to me to build a platform that helps other bloggers/digital business owners grow as well. As a blogger, it’s important to always find new ways to be visible online and to find opportunities to be discovered by new readers.

That’s why I decided to start a recurring item on She Can Blog called Meet the Blogger! I will interview bloggers/digital business owners about their blogs/businesses and experiences. Who are these bloggers/entrepreneurs, what type of blog/business do they run, what drives them, how do they drive traffic to their websites and what else can you learn from them?

Featured on this Meet the Blogger:
Weird & Liberated

Weird & Liberated is a South African lifestyle blogger from the small coastal city of East London, South Africa. The blog, Weird & Liberated was created in 2016 and was formerly weird20something but got the new name as a result of a new lease and fresh perspective on life and feeling like she’d finally found herself (the liberated part). She blogs about life, its challenges, and everything in between.

Who are you and what type of blog do you have? 

I’m Weird & Liberated, a SA blogger from the small coastal city of East London, South Africa who enjoys writing, LOVES reading and is all about living a healthy and active lifestyle. 

I have a lifestyle blog where I share my thoughts and feelings, as well as some personal stories about my life and the things that have affected me and shaped me into who I am today.

Why did you start blogging? 

I started blogging because I needed an outlet to express my negative thoughts and feelings during a very difficult time in my life. There was too much going on upstairs and I had to find a way to let it all out. I suppose I could have used a journal but I chose to blog instead.
I wrote a post about it which you can read here: How Weird & Liberated was born

What makes your blog stand out compared to other blogs in your niche? 

I think that my blog is very unique because I write quite a few personal posts and speak about things that I think about or that affect me in the hopes that others will relate. Surely, I’m not the only one who thinks and feels the way I do about the topics I cover.

My topics are also quite random from what I’ve seen covered on other lifestyle blogs and that’s because of the kind of person I am, random. There’s only one me and I have a unique voice. That’s what makes my blog stand out.

There’s only one me and I have a unique voice. That’s what makes my blog stand out.

Weird & Liberated

Which aspects of blogging do you like the most? Which aspects do you dislike?

I think what I like the most about blogging is the freedom to express myself in a way that others relate to and interacting with other members of the blogging community. I love meeting new bloggers and doing blogger interviews such as this one as well as conducting them on my own blog.

Blogging is a great way to express your creativity and I really enjoy being creative. You’d think that blogging is just about writing blog posts but it’s also about creating cool graphics and visuals for your audience to enjoy. 

My favourite aspect would be the actual writing part because that’s something I love to do.

The blogging community itself is just amazing!

The aspect I dislike hmmm… I don’t like how at the moment for me if I decide to take some time off you can see the drastic drop in my blog stats.

Which social media platforms do you use the most to promote your blog posts? And how do you leverage these platforms to attract blog traffic?

The social media platforms I use the most are Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and Mix. Those are the ones I decided to focus on. 

I leverage these platforms to drive traffic by being active on them. I try to post daily (which is a lot of work) and interact with other bloggers as well as promote my blog posts to attract new audiences. The more I engage, the more attention it brings to my social media platforms and thereby attracting people and directing traffic to my blog.
Each time a new post goes live on the blog, I promote it across my social media.

Which strategies do you use to get more eyes on your content?

Cross-promotion of my content across various social media platforms. I don’t have a specific strategy at the moment. Oh, and SEO (I have yet to master SEO though).

Taking part in Twitter RT exchanges is a big help in getting my content seen, I ask my audience to “RT my pinned tweet” and return the favour.

In the past, I have made use of Facebook ads which were a tremendous help in growing my page and following and I hope to start utilizing Facebook ads again real soon.

I’m trying to get back into guest posting and doing more interviews such as this one to create backlinks to my blog and expose my blog to a new audience. By interviewing other creatives on my own blog and accepting guest posts, I gain more exposure when they promote their interview posts to their audience in the hopes that they’ll become part of my audience too.

Which SEO tactic has helped you the most to improve the SEO of your website?

I recently starting using Yoast on my site and it has drastically improved my SEO. I had no idea what I was doing SEO-wise or how to go about optimizing my blog posts for search engines and Yoast helps me with that.

Also read: the best blogs to read and follow in 2023

Any advice you’d like to pass along to beginning bloggers?

Keep going! The more blogging and writing you do, the better you’ll get at it and learn from other bloggers.
There are so many resources available to help you so utilise them! Ask for help from other bloggers when you need it, the blogging community is super supportive and there’s always someone willing to help.

Blog from the heart and be authentic. People gravitate towards authenticity.

Oh, and never be shy about promoting yourself and your blog. Promote your content wherever and whenever you can to find your audience.

Blog from the heart and be authentic. People gravitate towards authenticity.

Weird & Liberated

What’s in store for the rest of 2021? What can readers expect if they start following you?

I’m currently playing around with ideas and planning festive season content. I don’t have a fixed plan as yet, just a huge list of content ideas so I’m busy writing every day.

At the moment I’m busy with Blogtober so you can expect fresh, engaging content daily for the rest of October.
I also do super fun interviews with other creatives in a segment on my blog I call “Creative Corner”.