How Fitness Creators Can Build an Audience Beyond Social Media

So you’ve built an army of devoted followers as a fitness influencer. Congratulations!

Now, you’re at the mercy of an algorithm. Whatever platform you’re on could decide to ban your content with no explanation or be regulated out of existence with a stroke of the president’s pen. 

It’s time you drove your social media traffic somewhere you can keep it! As boring and unsexy as it may seem, blogging is still the number one channel to help you build and keep a fanbase. 

Companies that blog produce an average of 67% more leads monthly than companies that don’t and see 13 times more ROI over time. There’s no question that blogging works. But with so much noise out there, how do you build an effective blog that cuts through? 

Setting Up Your Blogging Platform

As someone starting a blog, you have a few different options:

1. Build a blog from scratch, hosting your own site through a service like Bluehost and using Wordpress to build it (not recommended if you’re not tech-savvy, although it’s easier than ever).

2. Build your blog on a personal, pay-per-month site like Squarespace. 

3. Host your blog on a third-party site (the most user-friendly). 

Why listen to me?

I’ve been in the blogging world for the past five years, doing everything from ghost-writing for companies to writing on Medium (and actually making money there). You can connect with me on LinkedIn here.

Selecting a Blogging Platform

If you choose to set up your blog on a third-party site, there are a few market-leading options you can use that will make the process easy! Here are my top three, with pros and cons: 

1. Medium

   Medium is a platform where anyone can create an account and be paid for their work. Anyone can join and start writing for free and then join Medium’s partner program if they want to put their stories behind a paywall.

2. Substack
   Just as simple and easy to use as Medium, Substack offers a no-nonsense text editor that even a monkey could figure out, a basic publication page, and a place to put your email list. It’s free to use until you monetize your blog/newsletter. Then, it costs 10% of whatever you earn.

3. beehiiv
   beehiiv is a newsletter and blogging platform built by creators for creators. It offers a lot more features than the two options above and is designed to be user-friendly, and it grows as you do. It combines the blogging platform of Medium and the newsletter features of Substack into one place, making it easier to grow a following.

Choosing the Right Domain Name

Your domain name should be memorable, easy to spell, and reflective of your content and brand. 

Choosing the right domain name requires some thought. Don't just name it the first thing that pops into your head! Here are a few steps that will make this process easier for you: 

1. Brainstorm Keywords: Consider your fitness blog's primary focus and come up with relevant keywords. What short, memorable words capture the essence of what you're trying to do? 

2. Break Down Your Concept: Let's say your blog is focused on getting people as fit as the horse-riding, 120-pound, bow-drawing Mongol warriors. Think of two words that reflect your program and smash them together, like MongolStrong or MongolFit. 

3. Keep It Simple: A domain name that is too long or complicated can be difficult for readers to remember. Aim for something short, catchy, and easy to spell.

4. Check Availability: Once you have a few ideas, check if the domain names are available. 

5. Buy Your Domain: If you plan to host your blog on your own site, you’ll need to buy a domain name. You can use GoDaddy to buy and register your domain. 

Crafting Your First Fitness Blog Post

Your first blog post sets the tone for your blog. I'd recommend starting with a "start here" post (make sure you pin it to the top of your page and regularly update it) that explains: 

• Who your page is for 

• Why readers should trust you 

• How your blog will help readers achieve their goals

Make a solid first impression. Introduce yourself and share your fitness journey. Explain why you're passionate about fitness and what readers can expect from your blog. 

Deliver immediate value to your readers. Include practical tips or a workout routine they can implement immediately, like a beginner-friendly workout plan or nutrition advice. 

Ensure that your content is well-structured, easy to read, and visually appealing. Use high-quality images or videos to enrich your post and maintain reader interest. Lastly, conclude with a call to action, urging readers to share their thoughts in the comments or share your post on social media.

Writing Your First Post: Brainstorming Topics

Start by identifying your target audience and their interests. Are you targeting beginners seeking basic fitness advice, or are you looking to coach more advanced athletes seeking to take themselves to the edge of their capacity?

Providing valuable, actionable content will help establish your credibility and attract readers to your blog. Don't try to be everything to everyone. 

In the beginning, the more niche you can be, the better. Think about how your life experience coincides with what you teach and use that to create the perfect offering for a small group of people. 

For example, imagine you're a lawyer who can only work out in five-minute blocks whenever you can squeeze it in throughout the day. Imagine you found a blog about splitting macro workouts into smaller micro workouts that anyone can do in business casual clothing. 

How excited would you be? That's the power of speaking directly to a small niche instead of trying to give everyone general fitness advice. 

Creating Engaging Headlines

A compelling headline should be clear and concise and promise a benefit to the reader. Tools like CoSchedule's Headline Analyzer can help you craft effective headlines that will command attention and drive traffic to your blog. 

Use numbers and power words to make your headlines more appealing. For example: 

• 10 Proven Tips To Fight Off “Desk Belly” 

• How To Maintain Muscle Mass in a Desk Job

Ensure that your headline accurately reflects your post's content, so your readers will return for more. A headline is a promise that the content will deliver. If you always keep that promise, you'll always have readers. 

Engaging With Your Readers Through Comments

Encourage readers to leave comments by asking questions at the end of your posts. For example, "What do you do to fight off 'desk belly’? Share your secrets below."

Make sure to get involved from time to time. Responding to comments shows that you value your readers' input and encourages them to interact more. 

Don't be afraid to court a little controversy. Always be polite and thoughtful in your arguments, but don't be scared to push back if someone exhibits harmful behavior. An argument in the comments does wonders for engagement. 

Growing Your Audience as a Novice Fitness Blogger

There are three steps to growing any creative venture online: 

1. Define your target audience. Understand their needs, preferences, and challenges. 

2. Create valuable, high-quality content tailored to your readers’ interests. 

3. Show up consistently. Regular posting helps keep your audience engaged and returning for more. 

4. Actively promote your blog and engage with your readers. 

Leveraging Social Media for Growth

Social media can be a powerful tool for growing a creative enterprise online, but it's better to take a "max out" approach than an "all in" approach. 

It's far better to max out one channel than to constantly repurpose content and post it across all channels. Social media algorithms value engagement, so show up on one platform as much as possible! 

Do you want to make instructional videos? Consider a video-heavy platform like TikTok. Do you want to target working professionals? Consider marketing yourself on LinkedIn. 

Whatever platform you choose, remember: 

1. Create Shareable Content: Post snippets of your blog posts, workout videos, fitness tips, and motivational quotes. Make your content visually appealing with software like Canva to encourage people to share it. 

2. Engage With Your Audience: Respond to comments on your content, participate in discussions, and join relevant fitness groups. 

3. Use Hashtags and Trends: Use popular fitness hashtags to reach a broader audience. Participate in trending challenges to boost your content's exposure. 

4. Collaborate With Influencers: Partnering with fitness influencers can introduce your blog to their followers, expanding your reach.

It's important to remember that social media is secondary to your blog and newsletter. Your blog is your audience's home. You have complete control over your content, so use the techniques mentioned above to drive traffic back to your blog and maintain a strong online presence. 

Utilizing SEO To Increase Visibility

If you've chosen to create your own WordPress blog or host your blog on beehiiv, learning enough to be dangerous about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is essential for increasing your blog's visibility and attracting organic traffic. 

Understanding SEO Basics

Here are some best practices to help you nail SEO: 

1. Keyword Research: Identify keywords and phrases your target audience is searching for. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, or SEMrush to find relevant keywords with high search volume and low competition. Incorporate these keywords (naturally, without stuffing) into your blog posts, titles, meta descriptions, and URLs. 

2. High-Quality Content: Create informative, engaging, and valuable content. Try to be unique. Search engines love content that answers users' questions thoroughly. Make sure your posts are well-structured with clear headings, subheadings, and bullet points to enhance readability. Write long-form content where you can; it tends to rank better.

3. On-Page SEO: Use your primary keyword in the title, headers, meta description, and first 100 words of your content. Add alt text with relevant keywords to your images and ensure that your URLs are clean and descriptive. 

4. Internal and External Linking: Use internal links (links to other pages on your site) to connect related posts within your blog. This tactic helps readers discover more of your content and improves site navigation. External links (links to sites that are not yours) to reputable sources (think .gov and .org) can enhance your blog's credibility with SERPs.

5. Mobile Optimization: Ensure that your blog is mobile-friendly. Google uses mobile-first indexing, meaning that it uses the mobile version of your site for ranking and indexing. Most people will be browsing on mobile devices anyway, so this is critical. 

6. Page Speed: Fast-loading pages are crucial for both user experience and SEO. People hate websites that don't load. Tools like PageSpeed Insights can help you identify and fix issues that are slowing down your site.

Developing a Consistent Fitness-Blogging Routine

None of what we’ve talked about matters if you don’t consistently show up. You can use the best tools, create the perfect color scheme for your blog, know all of the best keywords, have the perfect SEO strategy, and it will all mean nothing if you don’t continue to fill it with high-quality writing.

“Writing is the art of applying the ass to the seat.”

― Dorothy Parker

Tips for Consistent Content Creation

If you've done enough work on yourself to become a trustworthy fitness coach, you know the power of showing up daily. Building an online presence is like building a muscle. Nothing happens if no effort is put in, but if you show up repeatedly and do the heavy lifting, the muscle grows! 

Creating consistent content is critical to maintaining and growing your blog's audience. 

Here are some tips to help you stay on track:

1. Set Realistic Goals: Determine how many posts you can realistically publish each week or month and work from there. It's better to start small and increase your output over time as you become more comfortable.

2. Develop a Routine: Establish a writing routine that fits your schedule. Whether you dedicate an hour each morning or set aside a whole day each week, consistency in your writing time will help you stay on track. Remember that just one half hour, one morning a week, is not nothing (if you use the time well). 

3. Batch Content: Instead of writing one post at a time, try batch-creating content. Spend a few days writing multiple posts and schedule them in advance. The best part about batching is that it compounds. Let's say you write three posts on each writing day, but only publish two per week. After a month of this schedule, you'll be two weeks ahead! 

4. Use Tools and Templates: Templates for blog posts, graphics, and social media can save time and make it easier to stay consistent. If you use SEMrush (mentioned above), you can create content briefs with relevant headers that give you a roadmap to stick to. Tools like Trello or Asana can help you organize your ideas and track your progress. 

5. Stay Inspired: Inspiration can strike at any time, so having a way to record your good ideas will do wonders. Keep a list of potential blog topics. Max out the notes app on your phone with inspirational quotes and snippets of ideas that come to you. 

Planning Your Content Calendar

Deadlines can help you stay accountable. If you struggle with them, put some skin in the game! Tell a friend that you'll donate money to a political candidate who you despise if you miss a deadline and have them check on you on the day of the deadline to make sure you did the work. 

Here's how to create and maintain a content calendar:

1. Choose a Format: Decide whether you want a digital or physical calendar. Digital tools like Google Calendar, Trello, or CoSchedule are popular choices for content creators. Personally, I handwrite everything in a planner. The format is up to you! 

2. Outline Key Dates: Mark important dates on your calendar, like holidays, fitness events, or any significant dates relevant to your audience. Focus on national days that are especially relevant to your audience, like big marathons, National Gym Day, or New Year's. 

3. Set Themes and Topics: Assign themes or topics each month or week. For example, you could focus on "Keeping Your Resolution Promises" in January and "Healthy Eating 101" in February. Taking this approach will help you keep the content ideas flowing! 

4. Schedule Regular Posts: Decide on the frequency of your posts and themes for each one. For example, you might post workout tips on Mondays, nutrition advice on Wednesdays, and motivational content on Fridays. The world is your oyster! Don't be afraid to experiment to see what your audience best responds to. 

5. Track Performance and Take Notes: Use tools like Google Analytics to monitor the performance of your posts. Look at the ones that are performing the best and see if you can find common themes! 

Finding Your Blogging Voice

Your voice sets you apart from other creators and helps build a connection with your audience. Don't try to be someone else; you'll eventually be at odds with yourself. 

Be authentic. Write in a way that feels natural to you. Authenticity resonates with readers and helps build trust. Nothing is more "cringey" than a creator who imitates others and panders to their audience.

Read other fitness blogs, books, and articles to see different writing styles and voices. Don't be afraid to experiment with different styles and tones. Listen to your audience's feedback, but adjust only what feels authentic to you. 

Measuring Success and Scaling Your Fitness Blog

It's critical to perpetually experiment, measure the experiment's success, and then experiment again. There are many ways to grow a blog, but you will only know what works best for you and your audience if you test.

In today's world, everything you do on a blog or website is tracked, and you have easy access to it! However, tracking tools can be challenging to use.

If you've chosen to host your blog and build it from scratch, you'll likely use Google Analytics to measure the success of your campaigns. GA4, the most recent version, gives you an incredible amount of insight but is not user-friendly.

If you've chosen to host your blog on beehiiv, you'll have access to 3D analytics, a comprehensive, easy-to-use platform that will show you exactly what's working in your blogging efforts. 

Tracking Your Blog's Performance

Tracking your blog's performance can be tricky. There are a lot of data points to consider! Some of the most important key performance indicators (KPIs) to keep an eye on include:

• Page Views: The number of times your blog pages are viewed – pay particular attention to repeated views, which mean that someone loves what they're reading so much that they're coming back for more!

• Unique Visitors: The number of unique, individual users visiting your blog – this metric shows you your "reach."

• Bounce Rate: The percentage of visitors who leave your site after viewing only one page – a high bounce rate usually means that your content or user experience needs improvement. Maybe your page loads too slowly, or your writing confuses the reader.

• Average Time on Page: How long visitors spend on your blog posts – longer times mean that readers are finding your content engaging.

• Conversion Rate: The percentage of visitors who take a desired action – this could be subscribing to your newsletter, purchasing a product, or filling out a form. You can decide what counts as a "conversion" and set your site accordingly! 

Monetizing Your Fitness Blog

Once your fitness blog is up and running and you've found a bit of traction, monetizing is the natural next step! There are several ways to accomplish this, including:

• Affiliate Marketing: Promote fitness products relevant to your audience and fitness style to earn a commission on any sales generated through your affiliate links.

• Sponsored Posts: Collaborate with your favorite brands to create content that promotes their products.

• Ad Revenue: Use platforms like Google AdSense to display ads on your blog. You earn money based on the number of impressions or clicks on the ads Google places on your site (only applicable if you've built and are hosting your site).

• Selling Digital Products: Create and sell eBooks, workout plans, meal plans, or online courses. Platforms like Teachable, Gumroad, and Sellfy offer courses and tools to help you create, market, and sell digital products. They want you to succeed — the better you do, the more money they make!

• Membership or Subscription: Offer exclusive content, personalized coaching, or other premium services to subscribers who pay a monthly or yearly fee.

• Merchandising: Design and sell your own line of fitness wear, equipment, or accessories.

Expanding Your Content Beyond Blogging

Now that you've created all of this great, in-depth content, why not repurpose some of it? You can play with whatever format you want, and your audience will thank you for it — not everyone wants to read long blog posts. Embedding a video explainer into your posts can work wonders! 

If there's a concept you've focused on and hammered home a million times, you could turn it into a motivational speech! You won't need to edit all of this content yourself, either; you can quickly and cheaply hire video editors on Upwork.

The sky's the limit to what you can do here. Getting your message out has never been easier or cheaper. 

Incorporating Multimedia Content

1. Videos: Creating video content is a powerful way to engage with your audience. You can produce workout tutorials, fitness challenges, Q&A sessions, or motivational talks. According to a study by Wyzowl, 87% of marketers say that video has increased traffic to their website, and 80% say that video has directly increased sales​.

   Video content is especially popular in the fitness world because it can make complex exercises easier to understand through visual demonstration.

2. Podcasts: Starting a podcast is easier than you might think and offers a more convenient way to reach your audience. Podcasts are a great way to connect with your audience during their commutes or workouts! 75% of the U.S. population is now familiar with podcasting, and 55% have listened to a podcast​​.

3. Infographics: Infographics can simplify complex information for your audience. Use infographics to illustrate workout routines, summarize nutritional information, or highlight fitness statistics with a sweet-looking graph.
   Tools like Canva and Piktochart offer templates to create infographics that don't look like they were made by a toddler (which I am eternally thankful for). Infographics are shared three times more than any other type of content on social media.

4. Live Streams: Hosting live workout sessions, Q&A sessions, or fitness challenges can foster community with your audience. Live streaming allows you to engage with your audience directly, answer their questions on the spot, and receive immediate feedback that you can use for future content!

5. E-Books and Guides: Re-use your old content by creating comprehensive e-books or guides on specific topics of your expertise! You can offer them as free downloads to build your email list or sell them as digital products. 

Where To Go From Here

beehiiv is, bar none, the best place on the internet for fitness creators to host their blogs. If you’re ready to have some permanency with your social media audience, look no further. We’ve built a platform for fitness creators so powerful that Arnold Schwarzenegger himself hosts his weekly newsletter here. 

beehiiv doesn’t cost a thing until you’ve built a list of more than 2500 subscribers. If you’re ready to take the plunge as a fitness blogger, beehiiv is ready for you!