Introduction.
1. Are you a fitness freak?
2. You know everything about fitness, but don't know how to share it with the world?
3. Are you trying hard to establish your own brand name in the online fitness business?
4. Are you looking forward to sell your fitness products online(e-commerce)?
5. Do you want to start, develop and make money from your fitness blog business?
If YES is the answer then this article is written for you 
Why should you start a fitness blog?
It depends, for some its passion, for some its reputation and brand building, for some its money and business. In fact all these are interdependent.
Passion brings reputation and brand. Brand brings customers/readers whom are converted into business/money.
So blogging is like a first step into a great online business. You can write kick ass fitness articles in your blog which can bring you readership, this readership can bring you money through different methods. Like,
Using google adsense and other advertising
Using fitness affiliates
Writing and selling your fitness guides
Selling your fitness products
etc
So that's all with the introduction. I've broken this article into 4 steps
Step:1 How to start a fitness blog?
Step:2 How to develop your fitness blog contents?
Step:3 How to promote your fitness blog?
Step:4 How to make money from your fitness blog?
#Step 1: How to start a fitness blog ?
Lets start with the most basic step;about starting your fitness blog. I've written this in a way that you can start the fitness blog without spending much money.
# 1.1: Register a fitness domain.
Domain is the address of your fitness website. Make sure you land a great domain name, a great domain name is always an asset. Its better you register a domain with dot com extension (you can get world wide traffic with .com domains). You can also register country specific domains with extensions like(.in(India), .com.au(Australia)). You can get a better domain name if you go for country specific domain name(more domain names will be available).
Should I go for a country specific domain extension(.in, com.au) or a global domain extension(.com)?
Case 1 : Going for a country specific domain
Well if you are focusing on country specific readers/customers, there is nothing wrong in going for a country specific tld. If you are intending to develop a fitness eCommerce website which has delivery in Australia, you are definitely focusing on Australian customers/readers. So , if you look for a .com.au extension, you can land a better domain.
Just like this(image below), fitnessninja.com is not available while fitnessninja.in is available.
What does this mean? The probability in landing a greater domain is higher if you go for a country specific tld.
Case 2 : Going for a global domain extension(.com)
If you are looking to focus on world wide readers, go for a .com extension. Like, you are planning to make revenue from your fitness blog through google adsense, or planning to sell a fitness eBook world wide.
You can register your domain name from any good domain registrar, Godaddy is used world wide to register domain.
Feel free to read these articles about landing a great domain name, its highly recommended to read these article before reading the rest.
How to select a good domain name for your Business
5 Best domain name suggestion tools
How to register a domain name for your Business
# 1.2: Sign up for a hosting account and host your domain
Secondarily ,you need to host your blog in a server. You need to buy some hosting space in order to host your blog.
You can select various hosting plans based on your requirements. If your budget is good you can for dedicated hosting(much speed and resources) or shared hosting if you have a tight in your budget.
We recommend you the bluehost hosting for your server space . Bluehost is one of the most popular hosting platform used by bloggers world wide. The shared hosting plan(limited resource plan) starts with $3.49 per month and dedicated plan with $149.99 per month. The medivial plan(VPS) starts with $29.99 per month. Have a detailed look at the bluehost plans.
Read ,
Add a domain name to your web hosting account
Change or add Domain Name Servers(DNS)
# 1.3: Install WordPress and a Premium/Free WordPress theme.
Lots of blogging platforms are available online but trust me, no one beats WordPress. You can have my word for that :). With my 10 years of experience and development with WordPress I can definitely say that its the best and powerful blogging/small scale e-commerce platform available now.
Looking forward(to the future), if you are starting product selling, you can always integrate woocommerce(the free e-commerce plugin for WordPress). There are lots of Woocommerce Themes available in themeforest which does have a blog integrated in it(Perfect if you want a blog and a product selling platform along with it ).
When we started our artificial flowers online store I did buy a WordPress Woocommerce premium theme first(which had a blog integrated in it). Without even adding any products into it, I started writing articles related to the niche. Once started receiving descent amount of traffic, I started posting the products and selling it online. What I did first was building audience.
See, if you are only looking forward to start some fitness blog , go for some good looking blogging themes(non woocommerce).
If you want any assistance in installing WordPress, or setting up your website , contact me(I'm happy to help).
Read,
Installing WordPress in Bluehost server
Install WordPress in Dreamhost server
#Step 2: How to develop your fitness blog contents?
There are lots of bloggers all over the world, to be honest, every one of them are not successful. Why does this happen? I'd say mainly because of poor blog content.
Most of the health bloggers doesn't focus on their content,
They don't know what to write.
They don't know how to write.
Being a new blogger and a new blog, the best strategy is to write contents that have less competition.
For instance, lets have a look at the keyword "Weight Loss Tips" , have a google search for the keyword. It brings you the most relevant results. You can see around 85,400,000 results. The results are super relevant even if you go further(going to the other pages).
The logic is really simple, this is a common keyword and lots of established big players blog on this keyword.
health.com (1st result)is one of the most established health website with millions of visitors, have a look at the alexa statics of health.com.
webmd is another big player in the health industry.
So, even if you write a top notch weight loss tips article, what are your chances to get better ranking in google for this particular keyword? I'd say slim to zero.
Instead, check out the case of this keyword "Weight Loss tips for men over 60"
you can see that the total number of results narrowed down nearly to half(44,200,000). Also you can see that the results are good but not the exact thing you were searching for. Another important thing is that these websites were not as popular as the previous ones(for the previous keyword).
What does this mean?
If you write an article for this keyword "Weight Loss tips for men over 60" , you are more prone to get better rankings for your blog post. Or google will find your content important, in between this big players, as they are not providing this specific category content(weight loss tips for men who are above 60 years).
So its very important selecting the right content for your fitness blog. Write low competitive articles first, that would do well for you in google search.
As an example, I am listing 2 articles which I would write if I was starting a fitness blog right now.
Chest workout for skinny guys at home - Lets check out the category breakup. Male Workout>Skinny Guys>Chest Workout>Home. See, basically this article belongs a 3rd sub category of the main category Male work out , which narrow down the competition. There aren't much written good articles in this specific sector , which gives you the leverage.
Workout plans for married couples - Like mentioned above this is also a keyword which is not that competitive.
Like wise you need to research the keywords and build a list of the health/fitness articles you are going to write down in your blog.
You can use Google adwords keyword planner and Long Tail Pro to research low competitive long tail keywords in any niche.
This is how you need to build your blog content, this gives you more visibility and more readers, which means more social shares and more backlinks, and slowly your blog will grow.
#Step 3: How to promote and bring traffic to your fitness blog?
Now lets have a look at how you can promote your fitness blog content and bring traffic into it. There are some promotional strategies which should definitely work for a fitness blog.
Checkout the fitness blog promotion break down.
Social Media Promotion
Youtube Video Promotion
Search Engine traffic and Link Building
Email Marketing
Fitness Infographics
# 3.1: Social Media Promotion
According to the latest statistics, more than 30 percent of a website's referral traffic is been contributed by social media. Which makes social media an undeniable factor when it comes to traffic. Even though google stands as the major traffic source, social media has also made its presence and is growing day by day.
Lets have a look at some major techniques through which you can drive traffic from social media to your fitness website ,
a. Traffic from Facebook and twitter
Facbook and twitter are the most two important sources when it comes to social media traffic. Majority of the social media traffic now a days come from facebook or twitter.
Start a facebook page and get a twitter account in the name of your fitness blog. Setup a profile pic(preferably your logo ) and a cover picture after all you can post interesting updates in through your page.
You can also join fitness related groups in facebook or else you can create one new fitness group and add fitness enthusiasts into it. You can promote your articles through the facebook group, like after writing an awesome article, you can post it over there like this.
Hey guys,
Here I am sharing my latest article about developing better biceps in 4 weeks. Thought it would be a good share for you, please read and give a feedback.
You can also run a health/fitness related contests in your facebook page , this can easily bring up likes and fan ship to your page.
b. Traffic through Facebook advertising
Facebook ads are one of the most inexpensive and fruitful advertising strategy I've came across in my entire career. The benefit is that its really cheap and you can target on audience who are interested in fitness. Facebook ads can bring in genuine readers to your blog. Less money , more output , sounds good right?
c. Getting traffic from other social media(Pinterest,linkedin,Google Plus)
Pinterest,LinkedIn and Google plus collectively forms the other major social media channels. You can add some pins in Pinterest Fitness category. You need to focus on original content and infographics to get repins, this can generate more traffic from pinterest.
Follow and engage with more people through linkedin,twitter,pinterest and google plus, this can give your content more reach. You can also start health related hashtag campaigns in twitter, and this can get more visibility and reach to your posts.
d. Implement Social Share buttons
Social share buttons play a key role in building your social media traffic. Most of the established fitness websites do have social shares set up in their blog, for instance Greatist, a very popular health/fitness blog got 31K social shares to this post through implementing the social sharing buttons.
There are lots of social sharing WordPress plugins, of which I think Shareaholic is the best one. I use shareaholic for this blog.
# 3.2: Youtube Video Promotion
When it comes to fitness, video promotion is one of the best strategy. Videos in fitness/health category are one of the most viewed YouTube video categories. Create a YouTube fitness video channel, post your fitness videos and promote it through various medium.
Some of the most popular Fitness video channels are,
1. Befit
Befit youtube channel was started in 2006 and has more than 1,735,263 subscribers and is one of the most popular fitness video channels. Some of the top fitness trainers Jillian Michaels, Denise Austin, Jane Fonda posts videos in Befit video Channel. Some of the video categories in Befit include Ab Workouts,Cardio Fat-Burn,Yoga,Dance Workouts,Mobile Workouts etc.
2.Blogilates
Blogilates has more than 2,381,866 subscribers. Their videos are mainly about length POP Pilates and fun Bootcamp Sculpting workouts.
3.SparkPeople Videos
With a subscriber count of 56,834,sparkpeople is one of those most known name when it comes to fitness videos. This channel was started in 2006, mainly uploads videos in pregnancy workouts, swimsuit bootcamps etc.
You can use these YouTube videos to build your brand as well as to drive traffic to your blog. Another advantage of YouTube videos are that you can monetize them using google adsense and if you have good viewers you can also join the YouTube partner program, through which you can make much more money and get awesome rewards.
# 3.3 : Search Engine traffic and Link Building
Search Engine traffic is the most reliable and long lasting traffic to your fitness website. You can drive quality visitors to your fitness blog from google.
Well, the search engine ranking depends heavily on lots of factors like your domain age,social shares,content length,loading speed,content quality etc. But the super most important factor is getting BACKLINKS to your fitness blog.
Havent heard about backlinks? Well,its really a simple concept , if I link to your website from my website ,then you got a backlink from me or in other words your site is important and people want to share it with the world. The more the number of backlinks the more you are prone to get better search engine rankings. These are mainly basic things about Seo.
Backlink is really important for the health and growth of any website. And what you need to get is links from related niche(fitness/health that is what count the most).
How can you get related links to your fitness website?
You need to make a list of fitness related websites from which you can get backlinks to your websites, here I am listing for some methods through which you can get related links to your fitness blog.
Method 1: Fitness Forums
Forums are great sources forum link building, even today after all these social media sensations, there are lots of health fitness forums with great amount of traffic and quality discussions. You can find great forums in fitness niche by googling these keywords in google.
"Powered by Phbb" fitness
"Powered by vBulletin" fitness
"Powered by SMF" fitness
"powered by IPB" fitness
"powered by PunBB" fitness
You can replace the keyword fitness with health(if you want), health forums should also stand similar to your niche.
Here is a list of some interesting and reputed fitness forums.
johnstonefitness
Bodybuilding forums
Shapefit forums
Fitnessboard forums
You should be able to filter out the spammy forums(which are very common now a days). These are some of the factors through which I filter out less valued/spammy forums.
Number of online people
Number of threads
Replies to threads
Alexa traffic rank
Quality of threads
Most of the forums doesn't encourage link building. You need to be an active member in a forum first, make your presence, reply to threads, start great threads and after some period (once your newbie status has been changed)you can try building your link. The only rule is not to act spammy. Come up with a thread or something beneficial for the whole community so that the built in link itself will be something worthy for the readers.
One of the common strategies I use is to write an extension to my existing article. For example, if you are trying to build a link to your abs work out article, write something detailed about your abs workout(which is not in your article) and you can place the link somewhere inside the forum thread or comment as a further or detailed reference to your article. The problem is, you need to come up with something new and different(something that can attract the community) or else you'll be kicked out from the forums.
Method 2 : Reddit Fitness category
Reddit is a great source to get good amount of traffic and to build some backlinks, you can promote your fitness posts through reddit in the fitness subreddit. Reddit can drive you great deal of traffic, but you need to be wise while promoting your article through reddit.
Check this article which explains you in detailed about driving traffic from reddit.
Method 3 : Guest Blog on Fitness blogs
Guest blogging is a great way to get traffic as well as backlinks. Now a days, many doesnt encourage guest blogging, but if you article is of supreme quality the bloggers will accept your blog post.
Post an article which the blogger cannot refuse!
You can find related fitness blog by searching this keyword in google,
"inurl:fitness"
This brings in domain names with fitness in their urls. You can also find fitness blogs from fitness directories and through social media. Contact the blog owner and request for a guest blog submission.
Here is a list for health/fitness guest blogging , have a look.
Method 4 : Fitness products testimonials
Another great way to build links to your fitness blog is by giving testimonials to fitness products. Say, you bought a dumbbell or a fitness e-book from someone , you can contact him and give a good testimonial . You can place a link back to your blog as your identity. Genuine testimonials are something product owners welcome all the time, so you are less prone to be rejected.
Method 5: Health directories
After the google update in 2012, its commonly said that the directories wont work anymore. But I believe if you find the right directories , you can still benefit the advantage of directory submission. The advantage of using directories is that , you can get a backlink from an aged domain (which is very much valuable). Most of the popular directories are having great domain age.
Check out 3 good health directories which I've found out for you.
DirectoryWorld Health/fitness category
SoMuch Helth/Fitness category
Blogaroma Fitness/Catgeory
# 3.4: Email Marketing
As soon as you start your blog, signup for an email subscription service like mailchimp or feedburner. Use the Mailchimp for WordPress plugin, this makes your mailchimp integration very easy. You need to collect the emails from the beginning itself. The readers who are willing to give you email are the one's who trust you and your blog, which means an opportunity of returning visitors.
You can market your latest articles and send email updates if you have the list of emails of your readers. Big blogs generate massive amount of traffic through their email subscribers list(well, their list is also big :).)
You can also use this email list to market your own fitness products(if you are planning to start a fitness store later on).
# 3.5: Infographics
Creating a super cool infographic is a great way to promote your fitness blog. Create fitness/health related infographic and you can market it online. First of all, you need to check for a unique infographic that doesn't exist. For instance, "How to get a six pack abs -infographic" is already seen many times. Its better going with something that doesn't exist.
You should bundle your infographic as a blog post which means you need to write a blog post first and embed the infographic about this particular blog post inside the post. This way you will get traffic to your blog , as well as backlinks.
How can you promote your infographics?
You can submit your infographics in infographic directories. Well, there are paid as well as free, here is a list of some websites that accept infographics(FYI, if the infographics doesnt meet their quality its probable to be rejected).
Visualy
Infographicsarchive
Infographicshowcase
DailyInfographic
CoolInfographics
LoveInforgraphics
Another way to promote your infographics is through social media. Promote your infogrpahic through related social media groups and channels.
You can also contact blog owners who share similar contents and request theme to embed your infographic. For instance, if you have created an infographic about abs work out, you can contact similar bloggers who have written abs workout articles.
A sample email template would be,
Hi Craig,
Read your awesome blog post "7 ways to develop better abs". I should say ,you have done a great job with the post. I really want to follow these tips for my ab workout.
Recently, I've developed one ab work out infographic which stands very much closer to your blog post. I think it will be a good additive to your blog post.
Please have a look at the infographic.
[Infographic link]
I would love to hear a feedback from you regarding the infographic :).
Thanks and have a great day,
Linjo Joson
First rule of email outreach requests is DONT PUSH ANYTHING. I havent asked the blog owner to include the infographic, instead I 've suggested him the infographic. If he liked it he'll definitely include it. Dont draft your email like, you are an online marketerer or link builder, it should feel very personal and non profit intentional.
#Step 4 : Making money from your fitness blog.
There are many ways through which you can make money out of your fitness blog . Read my detailed blog post - Six ways to make $5,000 per month from your blog .
Lets have a look at some monetizing methods for your fitness blog/website
# 4.1: Google Adsense
Health/Fitness niche have good cpc(cost per click), which means you can earn more per click. In another words, you'll earn much more for a Fitness/Health website than from a celebrity blog for the same amount of traffic. Regarding this fact, its not at all a bad idea to use Google ads in your fitness blog.
Google adsense is the most favorite blog monetizing method(even though there a lots of other methdos through which you can make much more money). Its simple to integrate, you dont need to turn your readers into customers(to buy some products). Integrating the google adsense javascript code starts showing ads and you'll earn from clicks and visits.
# 4.2 : Selling your fitness e-book
You can start selling your e-book in between your readers. Write something special for your readers, may be something related to work out.
An example book in fitness niche would be "How to get six pack abs in 2 months - ebook".
The selling factor is nothing but the trust of your reader in you. You should be able to convince your readers through your blog posts. The readers should find your articles and e-book worth their time and money. This is why many famous bloggers insist on getting personal with your readers. You need a clean about page in your blog where you should disclose your identity and portfolio.
# 4.3: Starting your own fitness store
Once you reach a descent amount of traffic, you can start selling your fitness products. You can drive your blog readers into your fitness e-commerce store. This is one great revenue model as you have the targeted audience in your hand already(from your blog).
Plan everything from the beginning. Before starting your blog, plan which product you are going to sell(in the future). Say, you are planning to sell protein powders, then protein powder related articles should be your top priority so that you'll be having the right customers(readers) in your hand. The conversion rate will be much higher.
It will be easy to sell something if you have the right customer.
Assume someone coming to your shop and asking for a chocolate, and you saying
"Sorry I don't have chocolates , but would you like some Washing Powder?" .
Awkward! Right?
So its really important to pick the right readers.
# 4.4: Fitness affiliate programs
Many fitness affiliate programs are available, you can use them to earn much more money. Through an affiliate program, the seller gives you commission to their product bought(from your referral link). Amazon offers one of the biggest affiliate programs online.
Some of the most popular affiliates in the fitness niche are,
1. Amazon affiliates
When it comes to affiliates , amazon is always my first choice. You can sell products and ebooks from the fitness category. You can sell Treadmills,Waist Belts,Dumbbells,Fitness trackers etc . In fact the amazon fitness category does have more than 75,000 products. This makes amazon fitness affiliates one of the most favorite affiliate programs. Generally, amazon gives 5-6 percent commission per sale, but it can vary on the basis of your sales volume.
2. Bodybuilding.com affiliates
Bodybuilding.com has a huge visitor status of 1 million unique visits per day. It has an affiliate program that pays you for the traffic you drive to them. You can use their banners, ads, text links etc to drive the traffic. Each ads and banners do have a unique ID , they can track this unique ID and pay you for the amount of traffic you have driven.
New affiliates can earn a 15% commission rate on orders completed by customers that are new to Bodybuilding.com, and a 5% commission rate on orders completed by customers who have shopped with Bodybuilding.com before. With a minimum payout of $25, it makes the payment process friendly for the affiliates.
3. Clickbank Affiliates
Clickbank is a very popular name when it comes to affiliate marketing. You can check out the Health and fitness affiliate programs in clickbank, promote the products and earn commission. If you check this link, you can see an average commission of 30$ per sale.
Select the right kind of affiliate program suitable for your blog, there are also many scams dont fall before them, check reviews in google before using an affiliate program.
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