How To Start A Fitness Blog In 2021 – The Complete Guide

This guide to starting a fitness blog for beginners will show you how to avoid costly mistakes, how to set up a traffic-generating website, how to find topics to write about, and how to dominate your fitness niche.

Starting a fitness blog is easy. It’s easy because the tools at your disposal for creating a fitness-related blog are not expensive or difficult to use. But I’m not trying to create unrealistic expectations. If you want to start a fitness blog in 2021, there are tons of resources to help you do so. It’s as easy as clicking a few buttons. The technology available for building blogs has both come a long way in only a handful of years. But this low barrier to entry means you have more competition.

Starting a blog is easy. Growing a blog is hard.

It’s easy to get going but hard to get traction. Unless, of course, you have a blueprint for how to start a fitness blog.

This guide is for fitness bloggers with the following criteria

• Your blog isn’t just a personal diary where you write about random fitness topics.
• You want to get traffic to your website.
• You want to build an audience.

Ultimately, your goal is to build a successful fitness blog. Here’s how to do it.

First Steps

1. Find a niche you’re comfortable writing about and you have experience in. If you’ve worked in the fitness industry, consider yourself qualified.
2. Find a brand name and domain name that’s catchy but isn’t too specific or hard to spell.
3. Register your website, add social media accounts, research and write low competition articles.

Finding A Niche

This will sound contradictory, but here goes: don’t just start a fitness blog! Find your niche within the health and fitness industry. Otherwise, you’ll be competing with the big players in the space unless you’ve got a lot of money to throw into your website, you’ll struggle to get any traffic.

It’s important to focus on a niche that isn’t dominated by one player or saturated with lots of competitors. The “lose weight” niche is a good example of a topic to avoid. But you can still pick a sub-niche that isn’t yet targeted by other blogs.

What kind of topic are you interested in? Fitness for beginners, personal trainer advice, outdoor circuit training, vegetarian fitness, personal fitness, keto diet blogging, fitness for working mums. Once you have a few ideas, it’s time to check how easy or hard it would be to break into that niche.

Two methods for deciding on a niche for your blog:

1. Choose a broad niche but write in one category at a time: a long-term approach
2. Choose a narrow niche and write in all categories of that niche: the short-to-mid term approach

Both ways have advantages and disadvantages. I can’t tell you which to choose but think about your long-term goals.

Keywords

In the marketing and SEO world, a keyword refers to a search term in Google. Keywords are topics, words, or phrases that someone types into the search engine.

Keywords like “vegan recipes” get thousands of searches a month. (Recipe posts are very popular. Recipe with fitness topics is a great content marketing niche) Keywords like “best vegan recipes for kids” get fewer searches, but are easier to rank high on Google for.

When we say that a website or blog post ranks for a keyword, we mean that it appears in Google searches. To “rank high” means that the post appears near the top of the results. Website URLs that appear near the top of the search results are more likely to get clicked.

The closer to position 1 on Google’s search your post appears, the more clicks you will get. More clicks equal more eyeballs. If people read your content, Google’s algorithm takes note and your website builds authority. This is the concept of organic traffic.

And choose a domain name and a brand name that fits in with these goals. Check domain availability with NameCheap or buy a domain name that already has links and authority from Domain Coasters. An established domain will help you rank faster on Google.

If you choose option 1, the next step is to map out categories and sub-categories in that niche.

With option 2, the first thing to do is find your overall blog niche.

Here are a few low competition ideas

working mom fitness blog
mommy fitness blog
yoga fitness blog
postpartum fitness blog
aero fitness blog
travel and fitness blog
over 50 fitness blog
pregnancy fitness
london fitness blog
college fitness blog
fitness instructor vs personal trainer

Let’s take the “mommy fitness blog” niche. Blog ideas for this niche:

• How to stay fit with young children at home
• CrossFit for working moms
• Healthy meal plans for small families
• Successful fitness blogs in the Mom Fitness Niche are:

This is an easy niche to break into with plenty of topics to write about like

• postnatal workout
• weight loss for moms
• best protein bars for women
• fit family

Creative Fitness Blog Names

It’s important to keep in mind that you can have a niche blog with a broad name. This is what I’d recommend for anyone that would like to expand their blog into other areas later on. If you create a blog called Keto Mums, then you won’t be able to expand into the vegan niche. But if you call your blog Food Mums, you can expand without it looking weird.

Your blog name doesn’t have to be the same as the domain. It’s so difficult these days to find a decent dot com so it pays not to be too choosy. If your business takes off and the money rolls in, you can rebrand and buy a premium domain name.

If you’re still not sure what kind of angle you want to take, start asking friends and family for input. You can sometimes find inspiration in the least expected places.

But remember, potentially successful fitness content ideas are a dime a dozen. What matters is execution. And here’s how to make it happen.

Building A Solid Blog Platform

1. Use a solid foundation: get reliable web hosting.

2. Use a blogging platform like WordPress. In fact, just use WordPress and forget the rest.

3. Install a WordPress Theme that doesn’t slow your website down.

4. Before you start a blog, create categories for your blog topics and map out the content plan

5. Do keyword research to find ideas for posts

6. Write well-formatted, grammar-checked content that is better than the competition.

A Word On Website Design

Don’t go crazy with your website’s design when you’re a beginner. The most important things to have are a fast website that’s easy to read and looks professional.

• Get a professional Premium WordPress theme (hire a developer to make your blog fast and to add everything you need to get going).
• Use only two fonts to make things appear consistent
• Stick to 3-5 brand colors to improve branding between pages.
• Use lots of white space.
• Create your own logo.
• It’s easy to do with the right tools or service.

When you’re ready to level up your content and branding, head over the 99 designs and take your pick of dozens of designs created just for you, for a superb price.

I’ve seen people struggle with the logo and colors of their website for years while their competitors left them far behind with simple, SEO-optimized websites.

Writing For Fitness

Writing for a health and fitness blog is similar to other niches but there are a few differences that can have a huge impact. It’s important to understand the pitfalls and potential issues you might experience on your blogging journey.

Google appears to look unfavorably on fitness & health websites written by non-professionals

If you’re not qualified you could risk a manual penalty. Google wants to see people with authority and trust writing in the health niche.

Get some form of qualification to prove that you know what you’re talking about.

Avoid topics like the usual spammy pills and miracles “cures” that plague the interwebs. Anything that cannot be substantiated should be avoided.

Google puts health websites in the Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) category. Anything to do with health or personal finance should be treated carefully.

And finally, write well! The better Google’s AI becomes at understanding language, the more it will reward relevant, spell-checked, grammatically correct writing. Use writing editing software to improve your content.

Finding Topics To Write About

This is the part I like most about blogging. The nerdy strategizing, researching, and planning is something I enjoy. You’ll succeed if you also enjoy this process (although hating this part does not automatically mean you’ll fail)

After you’ve created the categories that will define your blog (for now), pick one and research topics within that category.

Keyword research is a huge area and too in-depth to cover comprehensively here. But here’s a guide to keyword research to get you started.

But before diving in, I always suggest to the beginner WordPress user or fitness blogger that they get quick wins right at the beginning. Getting small amounts of traffic from multiple posts right away will help more than waiting 6 months for a post on a highly competitive topic to deliver. Write on topics that will get you results quicker. Avoid focusing on the keyword “men’s fitness” if you’re new to blogging.

How To Produce Quality Blog Content

Don’t blog every day unless you can produce the best content on the topics you’re writing about. In 2019 it takes a lot of work to get posts on the first page of Google. Competition is too strong. There’s no room for also-rans. If you’re churning out content for content’s sake, expect to fail.

Take your time. Do proper research. Write the best article on the Internet on the topic you’ve chosen. Write fewer posts but better content. That’s the best advice I can give.

Here’s a quick primer on how to analyze a topic and write the best post on the topic. This works for me 90% of the time. I’m giving you the secret for free (albeit a summarised version)

Search in Google for your topic and look at the results.

If you see lots of posts from websites like yours, take it as a good sign.

A mixture of YouTube videos, blogs, and Wikipedia-type entries is also a good sign.

Ten YouTube videos in a row might mean that Google gives higher importance to video-only results for this query.

See how successful websites have organised their website structure.

Here’s how to see what categories of posts any website is using.

After the URL add the following /sitemap_index.xml

If that doesn’t work try /sitemap.xml

The actual URL depends on the plugins, blog themes, and blogging platform. The first URL mentioned above is for WordPress websites running the Yoast SEO plugin. WordPress runs nearly 30% of the internet’s websites and Yoast is the most popular plugin. You have a good chance of hitting the target with that.

This brings up a list of sitemaps on the site (posts, pages, authors)

Look for the Category Sitemap in the list and click on it. Voila! Now you have a list of categories to examine and add to your list.

Perform Keyword Research

You will need a keyword tool of these if you’re serious about blogging. Keysearch is the most versatile tool and has some nice exporting features. SE Ranking has a decent keyword tool for organic and paid ad keywords. SE Ranking also offers keyword SERP tracking and competitor analysis tools (for checking what keywords your competition ranks for – a great way to get ideas) as part of all packages so it’s worth checking out.

A new product worth checking out is WriterZen. Created as a content writing platform, WriterZen really shines is in the keyword research features. It’s beautifully laid out and easy for beginners to navigate.

Here’s a quick guide to finding great keywords with Keysearch:

Open the Keyword Research tab (default) and pop in your search term.

The term I’ve chosen is “how to paleo”

The actual wording doesn’t have to be “correct” English as we’re just looking for ideas.

“How to paleo”, for example, is a common search term with 210 searches a month. But it’s not an easy phrase to target. As a beginning fitness blogger, you’ll want to look for easier search terms.

Look for long-tail keywords: phrases made up of several (usually 3 or more) words that are only searched for a few times a month. The key is that they are not competitive, meaning few high domain authority websites have produced high-quality content on this topic.

Using the Filter option, put 3 in the first Number of Words box and click Filter.

This narrows down our list of keywords from over 600 to around 250.

Let’s say we don’t want to write about cakes or “easy meals”. Add these terms to the Negative Words box.

Click Filter

Keywords with a lot of searches a month are generally hard to rank for. So let’s narrow down the results further by adding 10 and 300 to the Volume boxes. This will return results that have search volumes per month of between ten and three hundred.

We’re left with 150 search terms and now we can select all the terms and click Bulk Check. Give Keysearch a few minutes to return a list of great keywords related to paleo.

If nutrition is one of your fields of expertise, then “paleo coconut milk recipes”, for example, is a good keyword to write about.

There’s a lot more to keyword research. But this is enough to get you going.

Pay attention to SEO and blog post best practices

Everyone has their own opinions on this, but here’s what works for me (almost every time)

Let’s take a post called “start a fitness blog” as an example. Perfect!

• Use the target phrase in the title or headline. ClickFlow can help you test different headlines until you find the the one that drives the most traffic.
• Keep the URL short but containing at least part of the keyword
• Make sure the meta description is compelling. The meta description does not affect SEO (Google ignores it) but it influences people into clicking. This is super important.
• Only use H2 headings in the post. Try to write without using h3s as it will help you structure the post better. But you can use them if it’s logical and adds to the content. Forget about everything else.
• H2 headings should contain important keywords that relate to the main topic.
• Use short paragraphs and space your text out.
• Use images to break up the text and make sure they are relevant. Stock images should be a last resort. If you can afford it, have a designer create unique images. Better still, create your own custom graphics using software like Canva, or PhotoShop.
• Make sure the images you upload have descriptive titles as filenames. No IMG_2873.jpg please! Reduce the file size to below 300kb. Don’t upload 6MB files unless you want to get no traffic.
• Add ALT tag descriptions to every image on the post. Make sure they are descriptive of the image. Don’t stuff the ALT tags with keywords. Add a descriptive title and description.

Monetize Your Blog

If monetization is not a goal of your blog, then you can skip the rest of this article. Some people have high moralistic codes about monetizing blogs, seeing monetization as a sell-out. But most of us can’t afford the luxury of producing something that gives value, with no reward, for years.

Receiving compensation for your work is a good thing. It keeps you motivated to create more. The people that read your website, and by extension, help to pay for it, get value. If you deliver value, your readers are happy. You’re happy. The world is a better place. Forget about the grumblers! You can generate passive income by monetizing your blog right from the beginning. It just takes time to reach a level where you can safely quit your job.

Let me show you how making money from your fitness blog helps you and helps your readers at the same time.

Affiliate links

There is a stigma around the idea of monetizing your blog with affiliate referrals. It doesn’t help when news items like the one about Instagram influencers promoting products they don’t use in order to get affiliate commissions make people trust bloggers less.

However, people are more aware of affiliate deals now. And there’s nothing wrong with affiliate marketing. In everyday life, when you mention a product to someone you’re acting as an affiliate. You just don’t get receive a commission for the referral.

On the internet, it’s true that there are plenty of people promoting products they don’t use. But you don’t have to be like them. Show how much you care about the product or service and show how you use it.

Popular affiliate networks, databases, and programs:

Amazon Associates – The biggest affiliate program of all. Low commissions but a good conversion rate and a great way to generate passive income.

CJ.com – One of the oldest affiliate portals. Not the best for conversions.

ShareASale – One of the easiest to use and the best overall, in my opinion

Clickbank – has lots of shady products but there are a few gems. It can take time to find a product you would have no problems promoting.

Awin – Affiliate Window is another long-standing Affiliate portal.

Ads

If you’re okay with the thoughts of putting ads in front of readers, this method of monetisation can be lucrative. But putting ads on your site has disadvantages.

Stay away from ad networks like Google Adsense right at the beginning as they slow down your site (ad technology increases the server overhead on your website) and offer little in return. Unless your website receives 20,000 hits a month or more, ad networks will not help.

Once you start getting traffic, look at MediaVine, reckoned to be the best ad network for bloggers. You’ll need 50,000 sessions of visitor traffic a month to qualify fr the network so if you’re not quite there yet, give Ezoic a try.

Offering banner space to advertisers on your sidebar or in your content is a much better way of controlling ads and getting better returns for new fitness bloggers.

Selling products

Writing ebooks and selling them online is a popular way of generating income from your knowledge. Ebooks are still popular, despite the fact that every man and his dog has one. And people still buy downloadable PDFs, as long as they offer value above and beyond what they can get for free. If you can package your knowledge in an ebook that is convenient and useful to your readers, they might just pay for it.

Many bloggers repurpose content from their website into ebook form. Use Designrr or Canva to rapidly create ebooks from blog posts or Word documents.

Courses

One of the hottest topics in 2022 is online courses. Everyone seems to be getting on the course bandwagon. Why? Because it’s profitable and can fit nicely into your blog’s overall vision. Blogging is a great way to build an audience and get “free” traffic. Selling access to courses on your website is a great way to monetize these channels.

I’d recommend building the blog and inspiring your audience long before launching a course. It’s harder to sell to people that don’t know you. You can always use paid advertising but this will be expensive.

There are several ways to create a course but in the health & fitness niche but it should be highly visual. Unlike, techies who can get away with doing screencasts of their computers and product videos, health & fitness bloggers will need to be on camera. Or at least have a real person on camera. Your audience will want how-to guides, demonstrations, and advice from real people.

Teachable is one the best platforms for creating an online course and incorporating it into your blog. But there are other options for selling courses and digital products.

If you’ve got a bigger product to sell, such as an expensive course, a training session, or a book, you might need to warm up potential buyers before selling to them. That’s where funnels come in.

Funnels

If it sounds like some kind of cloak-and-daggers, smoke-and-mirrors marketing tactic, don’t worry. It’s a simple concept (often made obtuse by people that want your money).

A funnel for your blog, business, or service is just like a funnel in real life. Lots of stuff goes in the top and small amounts of stuff come out the bottom.

You filter out the people you don’t want in the funnel and what you’re left with, right at the bottom, is a group of people that will buy your stuff or do something else you really want them to do (nothing unsavory here please).

An example of a sales funnel:

1. Organic Traffic: A Blog post brings people to your website from Google
2. Lead magnet opt-in: Inside the blog post, offer an ebook, free download, or something that people will give their email address for.
3. Segmenting the list: Add the people that opted into your mailing list to a list of potential leads. Your email marketing software should be able to do this. If not, change provider.
4. Send email sequences to your email list: Create an email sequence to send to subscribers. This sequence could include introductions to other blog posts on your site or emails with tips or stories that they would find interesting.
5. Find the buyers: The people that have read all of your emails and interacted with your links are warm leads. Segment them into a list and target them with offers that they might be interested in.

If you want to get started with a fully functional Funnel software but don’t want to spend a fortune on monthly fees, try Systeme. If you’ve been around the marketing world for any length of time, you might have come across ClickFunnels. (Noticed the ads following you around?). ClickFunnels is expensive and bloated. And most of the money you spend on it goes towards Facebook Ads to get more people signed up. Systems is free for up to 1000 contacts and features a fully-fledged email marketing tool, landing pages, membership site, sales funnel builder, and more. A sweet deal for bloggers, in my opinion.

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