How to Start a Fitness Blog: No More Excuses

If you’re involved in the business of fitness, it’s probably crossed your mind to start a fitness blog. Whether you're a gym owner or personal trainer, it can be a great way to share your knowledge, experience, and advice with a wide audience! 

A blog is a versatile tool. You can use it to grow different aspects of your business — from more leads to creating brand authority — depending on how you execute the project. 

Does that sound overwhelming? It doesn’t have to! Here are six simple steps you can follow to get your blog off the ground and into the world.

The Benefits of Running a Fitness Blog

Even though it’s only one communication channel, a blog can help your business in a variety of ways, including:

• Increased reach: By creating a fitness blog, you can connect with a wider audience. In fact, experts say that having a blog on your website gives you a 434% higher chance of ranking higher on search engine listings, enabling more people to find your business.
• Improved credibility: Having a fitness blog can help establish you as an expert in the fitness industry. Sharing valuable content can help to demonstrate your knowledge and make you more credible in the eyes of potential employers, clients, and customers.
• Potential income: With dedication and hard work, a fitness blog can serve as an additional income stream. You can monetize your blog by offering products or services related to fitness such as ebooks, online courses, coaching programs, and more.
• An outlet for creativity: Running a fitness blog can also be a great way to express yourself and exercise your creativity. You can share stories that inspire you, take on topics you are passionate about, and develop a unique voice.

Six Steps to Starting a Business Blog

1. Solidify Your Goal

Before you start a blog, you should have a clear understanding of why you’re starting the blog. 

Do you want to help people reach their fitness goals? Do you want to educate people about health and wellness? Do you want to share your personal fitness journey? Do you want to sell fitness products and services? This claritin can focus your content, making it easier for you to decide what topic and post ideas to prioritize. 

Now decide how you’ll measure the success of your blog? Do you want to reach a certain number of readers, or make a certain amount of money through advertising and promotions? Do you want to be recognized as a leader in your fitness space? Whatever your aim, defining your key performance indicators and tracking of your progress will help gauge how effectively the blog is contributing to your business goals.

2. Find a Niche

Once you’ve solidified your goal, you’ll need to find a niche for your blog. In marketing-speak terms, a niche is a specific target audience that has unique needs, wants, and preferences. Niches are often defined by demographic characteristics such as age or income, lifestyle factors such as interests or values, or specific interests or occupations.

By focusing on a small, well-defined group, businesses are able to create products and services that are tailored to the needs of that group, which helps them position themselves to be more successful in their given market.

Gearing your blog towards a particular wellness niche will allow you to focus on a specific topic and reach a specific audience. It will also help you stand out from other fitness blogs and be seen as an expert in your field.

When thinking through your niche, think about what you know and enjoy about fitness. Do you have a background in nutrition? Are you an experienced marathon runner? Do you specialize in weightlifting? Are you passionate about yoga? Whatever your focus, make sure it’s something you know and love. This will make writing easier and more enjoyable, and you’ll be more likely to create content that resonates with your audience.

Don’t forget the importance of research. Check out other blogs in the same niche, read books and articles, and listen to podcasts on your topics. This will help you get to know your niche better and get a feel for what kind of content will be unique and interesting.

3. Choose a Name

Once you’ve chosen your niche, you’ll need to take additional steps to stand out from the crowd. You’ll want to create a memorable brand for your blog, and this will start with the name of your blog. The name is especially important because it will be the first impression your readers get — a casual browser might choose to click on your content based on your blog’s name alone.

While there’s a lot of room for creativity here, blog names should follow some basic ground rules. A good fitness blog name should be:

• Memorable: A catchy, amusing, fun, or informative name will help readers remember your blog more easily.
• Short and sweet: A name that is too long will be difficult to include in search engine listings without getting cut off and will be harder to remember.
• Easy to spell: Easy spelling will make your blog easy to find in search engines.
• Related to your niche: Your audience should be able to get a good idea of the content of your blog just from reading the name.
• Unique: There shouldn’t be any other blogs with your same name. Do a quick online search to check if the name has already been taken, including checking the potential social media handles.

Thinking about what sets your content apart from other fitness bloggers in your niche can help you think of a name. Do you specialize in certain types of workouts? Do you have a unique approach to fitness? Whatever your unique traits may be, use them to come up with a creative name that reflects your blog’s mission and values.

4. Pick a Platform

When you’ve nailed down some of the specifics of what your blog will be, you’ll need to pick a platform you will use to post it. Due to the wealth of blogging platforms available, you have more than a few options. Each has its own pros and cons, so you’ll want to do your research and find the one that works best for your needs.

Some of the most popular blogging platforms include:

• WordPress: This platform is one of the most popular blogging platforms and integrates well with many websites. It’s free and easy to use, and it offers plenty of features and customization options to give your blog a unique look and feel.
• Blogger: This platform is user-friendly, but does not include as many features as WordPress. This is a good option for blogging beginners who want to get their blog up and running quickly.
• Squarespace: This platform is a great choice for those who want to create an entire beautiful, professional-looking website to host their blog. It’s easy to use and offers plenty of customization options, but you can’t access it for free.
• Medium: This platform is a good choice for those who want to focus on writing rather than design. It’s free, and it offers an easy-to-use interface and plenty of features.

Once you’ve made your selection, follow that platform’s process to set up your blog. This will involve creating an account, choosing designs and layouts, and setting up the necessary pages.

If you want your own website to host your blog, you’ll need to pick a blogging platform that integrates well with your existing website. You may also post your blog directly on your website without going through a platform, although this may be more difficult without web design expertise.

5. Develop a Strategy

Once you’ve defined your niche and picked a platform, you’ll need to decide on how you’ll operate your blog. You’ll need to plan the type of content you are going to post and how often, as well as how you’ll produce and promote said content and how you’ll engage with readers.

If you plan to do all the writing yourself, you’ll need to schedule production time accordingly. Alternatively, you can hire a ghostwriter or invite guest bloggers to provide the amount of content you want. Each of these strategies have their own pros and cons (like budget, relationship development, and reach), so you will have to pick a strategy that best suits your resources.

As you create a promotion strategy, you’ll need to think about how you’ll get the word out about your blog. You might post on social media, use email marketing, or boost your SEO to draw internet traffic to your blog. You could also consider guest posting on other blogs. Deliberately devising a promotion strategy will help you reach a wider audience and gather readers.

Finally, you’ll need to create an engagement strategy for interacting with readers. Depending on your platform, you might have the option of responding to reader comments on posts. You could also create a forum for discussions on posted topics, host giveaways, or encourage readers to request blog topics. Whatever form engagement takes, it can go a long way toward building relationships with readers and creating a loyal audience.

As you create your strategy, think about your niche and your goals. Keeping your purpose in mind will help you create consistent, high-quality content.

6. Start Writing

Now that you’ve got the basics down, you can start creating the articles that fit your niche. Whatever you do the writing or hire a writer, make sure the posts are engaging, informative, and helpful. This means posting well-researched, well-written, and original articles that are easy to read and understand. 

As your blog progresses, you may want to start experimenting with different types of content such as interviews, videos, and podcasts. This variety could help you reach a wider audience and keep readers engaged.

Most importantly, you must remember to be consistent. Posting regularly is crucial if you want to build a loyal audience and become a successful fitness blogger. Make certain to stick to your schedule and share content on a regular basis so that your readers stay consistent, too.

Growing Your Business Footprint

Starting a fitness blog doesn’t have to be daunting. It can be a great way to share your knowledge and experience with the world, and reach new customers. After all, wellness is better when it’s shared! 

Let Wellhub help you share your passion for fitness. Connect with us today to talk about how we can partner to get new clients through your doors!