How to Start a Health and Fitness Blog (7 Mistakes to Avoid)
Stasia
Want to know how to start or grow a health or fitness blog?
I’m going to show you how.
Specifically, I’m going to show you 7 BIG mistakes you need to avoid. I’ve seen these mistakes time and time again and I want to help you avoid them, so that you can have an easier path to growing your online platform and business.
The reason I can share this with you is because I’ve been blogging for 11 years. 8 of those years were a waste of time because I didn’t know what I was doing.
The last 3 years have been nothing short of a miracle with my personal health blog now getting 600k unique visitors per month (and growing) while converting many of those readers into leads (11% average optin rate) and a high number of them becoming customers.
You can say we’ve “cracked the code” for content marketing and now many health and fitness experts come to me to help them create amazing content that actually makes their business money!
So, why should you develop a blog in the first place – or even a website?
Well, it’s kind of like your online storefront, and if you don’t have one, people can’t find you.
But more importantly, if you just have a website, who cares? The truth is that nobody cares about you or me – people care about themselves, specifically about their own problems.
So if you can create content for your website – to give them a reason to go to your blog – that’s going to help solve their problems, then you become their best friend. (Ok, not quite but it gets them closer to knowing, liking, and trusting you – which is very important for attracting customers).
How to Start a Health and Fitness Blog
With that said, let’s have a look at the 7 time-wasting mistakes you must avoid when it comes to starting a successful health and fitness blog.
1. Don’t Worry About the Tech
The more you worry about the technology, the less you focus on actually creating your content.
Here’s something I want you to think about:
The less you know about the tech, the better off you’re going to be.
If you can, get a web developer or someone else to set up your website and blog. The more you start to fiddle around with the html coding and all that other stuff, the further you’ll end up down a rabbit hole and wasting most of your time on menial tasks that don’t move your business forward.
Your goal as the CEO of your business is to focus on the BIG ROCKS, not the tiny pebbles.
If you can, find somebody else to handle those smaller tech issues. You can find freelancers on Upwork, or other outsourcing sites – and you don’t have to pay an arm and a leg to have somebody manage or set up your website.
If you’re designing the website yourself, another thing you may want to look at are really cool services like PageCloud, Wix, or LeadPages. Now, those don’t necessarily entail having somebody else do the work for you.
That’s you spending the time building the website for yourself but at least they’re super easy to use. And a great place to start if you’re either a rugged individualist or strapped for cash.
Again, if you have no other choice but to do the work yourself, then you may want to look at those options.
However, if you’re serious about the long term success of your business and building a great brand and web presence, then I would strongly recommend getting set up on WordPress (I like the theme from StudioPress).
I’m not going to give you a tutorial on how to set up a wordpress site. That’s not what I do.
I’m here to remind to focus on the bigger picture, the content, your offer, and other important objectives.
Leave the tech to the techies.
Focus on your gift and get it out there.
2. Don’t Try to Reach Everyone
The second big mistake you want to avoid is going broad with who you’re trying to serve. So instead of the smarter “deep and narrow” approach, you’re trying to help everyone.
Good luck with that!
You’re much better off going deep and narrow.
Believe me…I went broad and it’s very tough to compete – basically you’re competing with Dr. Oz, WebMD, and big time general health brands.
What you want to do instead is become an expert in a specific small segment of the wellness industry.
That way, it’s a lot easier to stand out above the noise and become the trusted expert to that audience.
It’s easier to get your articles and blog content ranking in search engines for smaller segments of an audience or smaller segments of this entire wellness space.
As an example, trying to rank in the search results with, “how to lose weight” is far more challenging than ranking a piece of content around, “how to overcome adrenal fatigue,” or something along those lines.
Just check out the competition for these terms…
67,000,000 results (ie. competing web pages) vs. 654,000…
Which one do you think you’ll have an easier time making a dent in?
So…get really specific and go deep on that topic area.
What that’s going to do is let Google know that your website is about a particular topic. If you can stay focused on that topic, you will become – not only in the audience’s or marketplace’s eyes, but also in Google’s eyes – the blog or the website of choice on that specific topic. That’s vital.
3. Don’t Create Boring Content
The third big mistake you want to avoid is putting out bland content.
What I mean by this is you want to exude your passion and your voice. Write what you’re passionate about, but make sure there’s also a need for what you’re passionate about in the marketplace.
I love airplanes and I could sit at the airport and watch planes take off and land all day. It would make me as happy as a pig in you-know-what to do that, but guess what? That’s not the market that I’m in.
If my passion is to write about airplanes, that’s not really going to serve my current health audience that much.
You want to find topics within your narrow deep market that you’re passionate about writing about and that your readers will find helpful.
I believe there is a time and place for what I call “Koolaid” content which is nothing more just sharing your opinions, beliefs, or positions on particular topics. Readers will see that and instantly form their own opinions: “Yeah, I agree with this,” or, “No, I don’t agree with that.”
That’s good because…
You want to POLARIZE people.
It’s very important, but also make sure that there’s a need for what you’re passionate writing about. Cool?
4. Don’t Worry About Perfect Writing
The fourth big mistake is stressing about being a great writer.
Again, this relates back to what I just talked about. You’re better just being able to communicate your passion and enthusiasm for a particular topic.
That’s why I love video.
It’s easier for me to communicate naturally and with passion and enthusiasm than it is for me to do it via writing.
Instead of fussing over sentence structure and tone, focus on your voice and your insights. Focus on your heart, your head, your ideas, your opinions – and don’t worry so much about impressing your grade 12 English teacher.
People will forgive you if you make a spelling mistake (well, actually that might not be true but who cares about those perfectionists).
5. Don’t Skip the Planning and Research
Being completely spontaneous and spur-of-the-moment can be a big mistake.
It’s kind of like, “I have an idea and I’m going to write about it now.”
Amateurs write only when they are inspired. Pros get the work done based on a schedule.
Schedule gives you structure – and when you have a structure, you have freedom. When you have structure you feel less overwhelmed and when you feel less overwhelmed you don’t dread writing or procrastinate about it. Writing becomes just part of the process.
Research the topics that you want to write about and that your audience actually cares about (remember what I said earlier).
To find out what they need help with you can ask them a simple question:
“What’s your #1 challenge with x?”
For instance:
- What’s your #1 challenge when it comes to losing weight?
- What’s the #1 obstacle standing in your way of eating healthy consistently?
- What’s the #1 thing holding you back from working out?
If you’ve got a Facebook page or a Facebook group, ask them questions about their obstacles and issues. Their answers are the fuel for content that actually serves them. What a thought right?
As a smart next step, I would cross reference their answers with some basic keyword research to ensure you’re creating content around keyword phrases that aren’t too competitive and that other people are also searching for.
Google Keyword Planner is a free keyword research tool that you can look at keyword phrases to look at which ones are super competitive. Those are the ones you want to stay away from.
Instead, choose keywords that are less competitive, but still have a decent amount of search. Go after the long-tail keywords.
For instance, don’t go after, “lose weight” or “weight loss.” Instead, focus on, “how do I lose weight after giving birth.”
That’s a long-tail keyword, and that reaches a very motivated person who’s going to want a solution to that specific question.
Here’s an example of a keyword (weight loss) you would NOT want to create content around:
Notice the HIGH competition – that’s an immediate red flag.
So, do your research. Ask your audience what their number one obstacle or challenge is. Then cross reference that with keyword research match in Google keyword planner, looking for terms that have low competition and a relatively high search number. And then, plan your content accordingly.
If you’re publishing one post a week, you can just set up a simple spreadsheet as your content calendar.
Alternatively, you can click here to download my free content calendar and use that. Using a spreadsheet will help give you structure and streamline your planning process so you are working ahead of schedule
In our business, our content is mapped out for the next six to nine months.
That means I don’t have to think about it. I know exactly what’s being published on Dec. 21, March 3, or April 14, etc…
Now, you don’t have to take it to that level, but having a basic structure will give you a plan and focus. And with this structure, you regain your freedom 🙂
6. Don’t Forget to Promote Your Content
This doesn’t pertain only to health and fitness, but to all blogging and content creation in general.
Most bloggers focus more on creating than promoting their content.
But like with anything, promotion – or marketing – really makes the world go round.
Let’s be very honest, first you have to have an amazing product. In this case, the product is your content. The better your content is, the easier the promotion becomes.
It should be obvious that you need to write an amazing, be-all and end-all piece of content that people naturally are like, “Oh my God. This is unbelievable. I’m going to share this on Twitter, Facebook, and everywhere else.”
That’s part of the promotion. That’s passive promotion, though.
What you want to do is reach out to other blogs and influencers and tell them: “We just created this. I would love to have it featured somewhere.” (not in those exact words but you get the idea).
Or you could be a guest on a podcast, and have a link from that podcast’s show notes back to the piece of content. That’s a backlink that Google’s going to see as valuable.
The promotion is massively important.
There are lots of ways to promote your content. We don’t have to get into them here but here’s a quick rundown of a few of them:
- Post your content to Facebook (and boost if possible)
- Reach out to other influencers who may find your content valuable to share with their audience
- Mention your post/content on a podcast interview with a link back to the content
- Create a Youtube video on the same topic and link it back to your original post.
Here are 3 Facebook post variations all leading back to the same blog post.
One of the best you can do for the success of your online business is to start developing relationships with other bloggers and influencers in the wellness space. You may even want to develop your own syndicate, so you can start to share each other’s content and link to it and bring more traffic back to your content that way.
The promotion is important and, yes, it’s a little bit tedious. You could have somebody else do that for you like a virtual assistant but it needs to be done.
After all…
“Build it and they will come”, doesn’t exist online.
7. Don’t Say, ‘Sign Up for My Newsletter’
Please, get this off your website, if it’s currently there. I never want to see this again: ”Sign up for my newsletter.” (And frankly, no one else does either).
Nobody cares about your newsletter. Nobody wants to join your newsletter or be part of your monthly whatever. All they want is a solution to their problem.
So, what should you do instead?
As an example, above I gave you a call to action, which was to click this link below to download your free content calendar template. That’s not, “Sign up for my newsletter.”
Instead, I’m helping you solve a problem you have with a lack of structure or planning when it comes to your content. It’s not your fault if you have that problem, but I can help you solve it.
If you have just one call to action, discover the biggest pain points in your marketplace.
Remember that question I suggested you ask your audience about their biggest challenge?
If you get a consistent answer, maybe the solution to that problem becomes your main opt-in, lead magnet, or whatever you want to call it, on your website.
Mistakes to Avoid with Your Blog
Those are my top seven mistakes to avoid when you’re starting a health and fitness blog.
There are a lot of nuances involved in starting a blog, aren’t there? Tons of nitty-gritty things that I also address in other posts and videos. But the key is to just take one step at a time and don’t get overwhelmed.
To get access to those, check out the YouTube channel, and go through the archives of the Healthpreneur playlist and you’ll see all the other content marketing videos that I’ve created.
They’ll be super helpful for you.
Content Marketing Launchpad
Want help putting together your content marketing plan? I’ve got a simple 2-page worksheet that will help you plan out great content that your audience actually cares about and put you on a path to seeing more results from your awesome content.
You can download the Content Marketing Launchpad right now by clicking the “download now” button below.
The Odd Secret That Helped Elliott Hulse Attract 2M Loyal YouTube Subscribers
Stasia
Are you ready to learn the secrets Elliott Hulse has used to create millions of YouTube subscribers?
In this interview, I interview Elliott about how he got started – and what he’d do differently if he was starting out today.
Elliott is probably one of the most prolific content producers that I know, especially when it comes to video. He has several popular YouTube channels, including Strength Camp and Become The Strongest Version of Yourself.
We are going to talk about all that, and how it’s helped him to develop his online platform.
Early Start on Content Marketing
Yuri: First off, welcome, Elliott. Can you quickly tell us who you are, what you do, and where readers can follow your work?
Elliott: Thank you, Yuri. It’s good to connect with you.
I’m a strength and conditioning coach. I played college football but I studied strength and conditioning.
Then, I was a personal trainer who decided to open my own business. I started training people in the parks in 2007 in what I called “strength camps” – I literally had a gym in my van and I’d dump all that stuff out in the park and train people there.
I eventually ended up in a warehouse and subsequently, over the years, we moved to bigger and bigger places.
As far as online is concerned, right from the beginning, I started publishing my workouts to be purchased online and I used content marketing to get my workout out there.
Yuri: How many YouTube videos do you have?
Elliott: Over 2,000.
Yuri: That’s awesome. I have 800 and people are like, “Wow!” But then I point to you and tell them, “You’ve got to see Elliott, he has thousands!”
When you were training clients in the strength camps, what was the moment or the process that you went through to realize it wasn’t making sense for you any more, and that you were going to spend more of your time on content delivery and offering programs online?
Lead Generation for New Clients
Elliott: When I first left the big box gym where I was training to become an independent trainer, I quickly realized that my lead source tried up.
I’m good at converting leads into sales, but I had no more leads. That’s because when you work at the gym they give you prospects that you can convert into clients.
I had to quickly learn how to market. This is back in 2007. I was broke. I didn’t have money for billboards, I didn’t have money for newspaper ads and things of that nature, the kinds of things you do with traditional brand marketing.
The Internet was just starting to really take off. I was in St. Petersburg, Florida, and at that time there was very little competition for me to rank high in Google.
Really, this was when people just started figuring out that they could search for things on Google.
Knowing that people were going to be looking for personal trainers in St. Petersburg, I created a website to rank for that. I decided to start taking some Internet marketing classes so that I could gather leads from that website, and bring them into my gym and then convert them into clients.
Along the way of learning how to get Internet marketing leads for my gym, I also discovered that I could publish my ideas in a digital format. And the very same way I was getting leads for people in St. Petersburg, I could create e-books or video products and sell what I’m doing at the gym – my workouts – to people all the world.
A light bulb went off and I was like, “This is a more manageable way for me to earn an income.”
Yuri: You’ve got a big family so it’s not like you are a single guy who can work 24 hours a day. I’m sure you love spending time with your kids and your wife and enjoying your family.
As you were starting this online journey was there a fear? Was there an internal dialogue, thinking, ‘Maybe I’m not good enough, maybe I don’t have anything of value to add here?’
Was there ever that internal struggle, and if so, how did you overcome it?
No Choice But to Succeed
Elliott: You hit the nail on the head when you talk about my kids. Yes, there was a fear, but I had no doubt – because my fear was: I have to put food on the table.
I was running on fear and there was a fire under my ass but I couldn’t doubt myself. I had no time for that.
When you are fearful about whether your kids are going to eat, the ego gets very quickly put to the side.
Yuri: It’s the ultimate accountability.
Elliott: Right, it’s about survival. Whatever ill feelings I had – like a poor self-esteem – needed to disappear. I just decided that I was going to do what I had to do, and there was no room for those feelings even if they did creep in.
Video Made it Simple
Yuri: For you, why is content important? Why not just do Google ads or paid traffic? Why did you try choose video and other content as your main way of getting yourself out there?
Elliott: I’ve got to be completely honest: It was easy.
When I created my first online product, I needed to get people to see it. Back then, squeeze pages were brand-new so I was cutting-edge.
I needed people to get to my little page which, back then, was just a little box. Everything above the fold. It was blue, it had some text, very basic. But I needed to drive traffic to that.
When I started making YouTube videos, talking about what I’m doing at the gym, I started getting a lot of clicks to that squeeze page, and then people were converting and then buying.
I quickly realized: Wow, the more I make these videos, the more traffic I drive to this page, the more my business grows.
Yuri: A pretty simple process.
Elliott: It was free. Easy and free, that’s what it was.
Providing Value Beyond the Gym
Yuri: What was the process? I know when some people think about developing videos and blog posts, they wonder how they first can come up with all the ideas and then, second, the actual content.
For you, was there a method to your madness or was it simply, here’s what I’m doing in the gym?
Elliott: Here’s the thing, I was confident that I was doing great work at my gym. Even before there was a YouTube or Internet marketing, while I was consulting with or training clients, I used to think to myself, boy it would be really good to have a camera here so could record this, because this is some good stuff.
I felt like, Man, I’m offering so much value to one person but if I had a camera here recording everything I’m saying, I could provide value to thousands or even millions.
Beyond just knowing that what I’m doing is worth watching, I also knew that I had a very good answers for a lot of people’s questions.
The easiest way to have a consistent source of stimulation for content creation is to simply answer questions.
That’s really how it really steamrolled, how it grew big, because I was just answering questions.
Yuri: Just thinking of objections, again, all of your videos are not professionally produced. For the most part, they are literally shot on a camera sitting on a tripod with your gym in the background.
Elliott: Yeah, the best ones.
Yuri: And most of your videos, at least the one I’ve seen, are more than 10 minutes long.
These are not two minutes of Elliott jumping around. You’re offering in-depth answers. You are a great orator. You speak and give your stance and philosophy on things.
That approach goes against what YouTube says – that the best videos are short and so forth.
Do you think that helps you stand out in this marketplace?
Do What Works for You
Elliott: I have come up with a new term recently: Youtooer.
These are people who just do what they see everybody else doing. For example, one of the things people do now are called jump cuts. So you see other people doing that, and suddenly you think, ‘I need to do that, too.’
But you can create wonderful content without all those edits if you brush up your presentation skills. Be charismatic.
Now I’ve got a whole team of professional cameras and editing guys that do the production for me. I’ve got to tell you, I feel far more disconnected from the work that I’m doing now than I did then when it was just me and it was “showtime.”
When you turn on that camera, it’s a matter of info-taining – giving people the best that you’ve got but doing it in such a way that they want to be engaged with you.
There are a lot of guys who are supersmart – 10 times smarter than me – and they call me out and call me all kinds of names and stuff, because they are jealous because nobody listens to them.
It’s because they’re boring.
Yuri: It’s so true. How many subscribers do you have on YouTube now – like 2 million plus?
Elliott: Yeah, between all the channels, it’s more than 2 million. Really two popular channels.
Yuri: If you haven’t watched Elliott’s videos on YouTube, just type in his name and you’ll see all his different videos and channels.
Just have a look at the way he’s doing things. Not that you have to copy him – just be yourself. Who you are on camera should reflect who you are in person.
That’s good, because everyone has that unique competitive advantage. Just be yourself: No one else can be you.
For people starting out, whether they are writing or doing video, what would be one simple tip you would give to people while they are producing their content?
Giving Away Your Best Stuff
Elliott: Oh man. I’ll share a little story with you. I’m sure you’re familiar with Matt Fury, right? Over the years I have studied Internet marketing, copywriting, and email marketing and Matt Fury was one of the guys I looked up to, early on.
About a year ago, I was able to have a meeting with him. He lives in Tampa. And he yells at me. He’s like, “I don’t get it with you and all the guys using social media now.”
See, he was an email marketer – a true direct response marketer, prior to social media, which has really changed things up in ways that are both good and bad.
He was like, “Why do you give away all your best stuff?” He was upset. “Why are you telling them all this stuff? Give them just enough to whet their palate, have them really questioning, leave them with more questions, leave them wanting a little bit more and then drive them to your offer.”
That makes sense as a marketer and as a business person. You don’t want to give away your best stuff.
I know from personal experience because I like astrology. I thought about this yesterday.
There are these women on YouTube and every month they make videos about what’s going on with Aries, etc., this week and this month.
I watch one woman every month. At the end of every video, she makes an offer. She says if you’d like a private reading, because that’s all the better – it’s an upgrade – go to my website.
I thought to myself, I am never going to hire her for a private reading because every month, I get exactly what I want when I watch her video.
I felt a little bad, but the fact is by giving your best stuff away, you are going to drive a lot of attention to yourself. You’re going to get a lot of people. Especially if your content’s good. A lot of people will be attracted to you.
If I were to do things a little differently now it would be a slight change of focus.
When I started, it was all about the numbers. My number one objective was more views, more subscribers, more views, and more subscribers.
Social Media Is (Probably) Not Your Business
Because, this is where got a little tricky. YouTube became a business, a part of my business, instead of a lead source.
This is where you could get confused and think that social media is a business.
And unless you are getting paid for your content directly, it’s not a business.
I think a lot of people can get confused with content marketing by giving away their best ideas and content and not getting paid for it. Because if you’re giving everything away, you’re also not leaving a true reason for people to click and buy from you.
If I were to give a tip to someone today – someone who isn’t a YouTuber (someone earning money because lots of people like watching them, which is a rare thing) – it’s to leave your viewers wanting a little more.
Show them your best and show them what you are capable of. But if you are a business and you are creating content to sell products or your services, then it is good principle to leave them wanting a little bit more – and having a good call to action so they can be interested in doing business with you.
Yuri: Great advice. This is been really good. Elliott, thanks again so much.
What’s the best website for people to check this stuff out?
Elliott: Since we are talking about YouTube, just go to YouTube and search Elliott Hulse. I have an Elliott Hulse channel, which is me talking about lots of things related to life, and then there’s the strength camp channel, which is where I talk about strength.
Yuri: Yes, with some cool powerlifting and strongman stuff. Very cool.
For everyone reading, I hope you got some great value out of this.
Use Content to Build your Business
Remember, if you’re a health or fitness professional who wants to turn your expertise into a thriving online business, where you can impact more people, make more income and enjoy more freedom, this is for you.
Content is such a great tool and it is the future and I’ll show you exactly how to turn your expertise into a PROFITABLE online business. Just click the “invitation” below to hop on my next Health Content Mastery masterclass….
Importance of Content Marketing: 7 New Reasons Why Content Marketing Is the Future of Online Business
Stasia
So, why is content marketing important?
Chances are if you’re reading this, you’re trying to figure out a way to rise above the noise of all the other fitness, wellness and nutrition businesses online.
If that’s you, what I’m about to share with you is going to make a big difference to your business.
It’s also going to help you have an easier time converting people into loyal fans, subscribers and customers.
We’re going to dive into 7 new reasons content marketing is the future for your online business.
Start Creating Content Now
I’ve had an online business for about 11 years, and I made a lot of mistakes when I first started out.
But one of the things I did right was to create content. Now, I wasn’t very strategic about it. Basically all I did was create a ton of YouTube videos. But now I have more than 800 videos on my channel – which I encourage you to visit – and they focus on fitness, nutrition and health.
That was one of the first things that I did right out of the gate that helped grow my business – publish content that added value to viewers’s lives. Over time, people who viewed my videos may have come back to my website and had an easier time doing business with me.
The videos helped them feel like they knew, liked and trusted me.
That’s just one reason I believe that content is very important.
Click here to download my “secret weapon” to creating awesome content
Importance of Content Marketing
What I’m going to be sharing with you is valid whether you’re going to be doing YouTube videos, writing blog content, podcasting, or offering any other form of free content.
Here’s something to think about: if we look at modern thought leaders – people like Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk – how have they gotten their name out there?
Yes, they wrote books.
But how were they able to write those books?
Well, they created a platform that, initially, was generated by content they put out into the marketplace.
Content has a really important place in your business model. If it doesn’t, then you’re going to fall behind what everyone else is doing.
With that said, let’s jump into the reasons content marketing is a must for your online health and fitness business.
7 Reasons to Start Content Marketing Now
1. You ARE a Thought Leader
The first thing to understand is that as a health and fitness expert, you are essentially a thought leader. You have specific ideas, perspectives, and insights.
You need to be developing content around your uniqueness – if you don’t, then how is anyone going to know what you’re all about?
That’s the number one reason you need to be developing content whether it’s written, video, or audio. It’s crucial.
2. Content Creates Goodwill
Think about each piece of content that serves your audience as a DEPOSIT into the relationship you are building with them. This deposit is known as “goodwill”.
The more goodwill deposits you make, the richer your relationship becomes. And the more goodwill you build up in your marketplace, the more responsive your audience will be when you eventually ask for something (ie. make a withdrawal).
But let’s say someone’s first interaction with you is involves them landing on your website that shouts “Buy now.”
They are going to think, “Who are you? I’m not going to buy this because I have no idea what this is or who this person is.”
It’s like jumping into bed with someone without ever going on a date. Sure it can happen, but the chances are pretty low.
But what if – instead of continually asking people to buy your products or services – you’re actually providing them with great value and content?
Over time, you’re shifting the relationship to being somebody who’s adding value to their lives instead of always asking for a sale.
How do you do this? Think about the most common questions in your niche.
What problems are people dealing with? How can you answer those questions or solve those problems in a blog post or on video?
Doing so will position you as an expert and a sought-after thought leader in your specific niche.
Now, when I talk about niche within the wellness industry, I’m saying that because obviously it’s a pretty big space. Narrowing your niche is vital. Go deep and narrow.
Here are some examples of some small, targeted niches:
- Maybe you’re the person who helps soon-to-be brides get in great shape for their wedding, or
- Maybe you get moms who just gave birth get rid of the baby weight.
- Maybe you’re the go-to recipe creator for baked goods that only use with stevia.
Solving problems for that specific market creates massive goodwill.
3. The Right Content Generates Word of Mouth
Content, assuming that it’s amazing content, is the best way to generate word of mouth through sharing on social media.
And as we know, in today’s online world, social media runs the game.
If you’re providing content that is valuable to other people, they will want to share it with others who may also find it valuable as well.
So, when you’re writing content or creating videos, think about whether it is valuable in a sense where people think: “Wow, this is amazing. I need to share this.”
If you create high-quality content that serves your audience, then it’s going to spread almost without your control, which is pretty cool.
4. Content Attracts the Right People
Your content will serve to both repel and attract the right people into your business.
Now, let’s look at the first part. It repels people from doing business with you. That’s actually a good thing.
Let me use video as an example. Video is beautiful because, in a split second, you’re making judgments. Now there’s nothing wrong with that – this is the way we operate as human beings.
Maybe, for instance, you watch one of my videos and think: “I don’t like the way this guy looks. Why doesn’t he have any hair?”
The story behind that (if you don’t already know) is on my website.
Or maybe you don’t like my voice. Maybe you don’t like the way I dress. Whatever it is, those are simple prejudgments that are going to repel you from my content.
But perhaps you like what I’m talking about, and it attracts you to want to go deeper and learn more.
When you publish content, the people who see it will make judgments, not only about you but the content itself.
Am I brash, or do I know what I’m talking about? Am I giving you new insights and perspectives that you may not have thought about before?
These are things that are going to help attract the right people.
Do you have a specific position and stance on something that is going to infuriate some people, while other will people agree with you and want to be a part of your community?
It’s really important in your content to be able to take a stance, a position.
This goes back to the first point we talked about: Thought leaders need to share their thoughts.
When you share your thoughts, your perspectives, your insights, you naturally are going to repel some people and attract others. That’s just the way it is and that’s great. That’s what you want.
You’re not the one size fits all solution for everybody. That’s the last thing you want to be.
5. It Helps People Do Business With You…With Less Resistance
We’re not massive, popular brands that people already know, like Apple or Coca-Cola.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t build a great brand. The way to do that is to add massive value into the marketplace in somewhat of a consistent fashion.
Over time, you develop a deeper relationship with your audience because you’ve educated them and moved them closer to their goals. Thus, content (done right) is, essentially, marketing. Education is marketing, teaching is selling. That’s the way I see it.
Over time, people start to drink your Kool-Aid. As you build that relationship, even virtually, the barrier to resistance of doing business with you becomes a lot lower. It’s a little more likely they will become your customer.
This happens because as your audience consumes your content they begin to know, like, and trust you. You develop what I call your “KLT score“, which is imperative to build up before anyone will ever do business with you.
So, it’s not about putting billboards on the side of highways or expecting people to just land on your website and buy your products or services.
It doesn’t matter how cool your offerings are. Nobody cares if you’ve got the latest diet or helping them get into shape.
Why? Because they’ve seen it a hundred times. You need to provide content in a way that actually speaks to their problems and helps solve them.
6. It Helps People Find You
When it comes to online traffic, Google values the user experience above all else. And when people are on Google searching around, guess what they’re looking for?
Some type of content (or solution) to their query (or problem). If that’s what you give them, then you’re in luck.
Google is committed to ranking websites based on whether other people are deeming the websites as helpful or not based on what people are looking for.
If you’re doing a search for how to lose weight and you have a website that talks about computers, guess what? Your website is not going to rank for how to lose weight. Duh, right?
However, if you’re providing amazing content on how to lose weight, and people are loving it and sharing it and linking to it, that is going to tell Google that you’ve got a great piece of content on your site – and as a result, you will rank higher in the search results over time.
It’s kind of like going to a restaurant with nobody inside, and the maitre d’ is outside on the streets begging you to come in. Would you want to eat there? I sure wouldn’t!
I’m sure you’ve been to or strolled right by these restaurants, especially if you’ve traveled to Europe.
Contrast that to the restaurant that you can’t even get into because it’s so busy and it has reservations booked up for the next 3 months. Everybody wants to be in that restaurant.
That’s a vote of confidence. And that’s how Google sees your content.
Google is looking at votes in confidence to your website, by the quality of your content and peoples’ willingness to share it. That goes back to the fact that people are actually talking about it and sharing it.
Good luck for that to happen if your website is nothing more than a glorified sales pitch for your product or service.
You’ve got to be a value adder.
7. Evergreen Content Lasts Forever
If your content is evergreen – it will last forever. That’s assuming you’re not jumping on the latest news-jacking stuff.
Don’t create content about what’s happening in the news – that’s a blip on the radar.
Instead, create content around problems that are pervasive, that people will always have into the future. Here are some evergreen examples in the fitness and wellness spheres:
- How to lose weight
- How to have more energy
- How to gain muscle
When it comes to your own niche, you know your stuff. If you’re creating content around those themes, that is evergreen content that people will be searching for for years to come.
If you publish content around those problems, you are giving them answers. That’s the name of the game. And the more you help them, the more they’ll trust you. And the more they trust you, the more they hang on to your every word and recommendation.
That’s INFLUENCE!
Whether you’re sharing your expertise via video or written content, it doesn’t really matter. The key is that you’re expressing your thoughts and solving peoples’ problems.
(NOTE: Feel free to share the following infographic on your site or elsewhere as long as you link back to this page).
Here’s What To Do Next…
As you can see, creating excellent content is a huge part of building your online health and fitness business. And if you’re not using it in a strategic way, then you will sadly be surpassed by other healthpreneurs who are.
It’s the ultimate way to build trust and authority in the marketplace so if you aren’t developing content to attract and engage potential customers, what exactly are you doing?
If you need help coming up with more topic ideas to help your content above the noise, then I’d suggest downloading a copy of my 2-page Content Marketing Launchpad by clicking on the banner below…
How Jon Goodman Grew The Personal Trainer Development Center From Idea to Industry Hub
Stasia
If you’re a personal trainer or fitness professional spending much time online, chances are you’ve heard of Jon Goodman.
He is the founder of the Personal Trainer Development Center and he also just launched a major online training certification.
And he has done it all through consistency, collaboration, and keeping true to his message.
In this post, I talk to Jon about how he went from a personal trainer trading time for money to operating a major industry hub.
Creating The Personal Trainer Development Center
Yuri: Jon, let’s talk about about how you built your business and the role that content has played in it, along with some insights that I think can help entrepreneurs.
But first, it would be great if you would outline for us a little about your business: what your business is, what it does, and who it helps.
Jon: I own a business called Personal Trainer Development Center. It helps fitness professionals make a little bit more money and work a little bit smarter.
We focus more on the business aspect of fitness, versus actually teaching people how to bench press or work out.
And we’re content-based – we’ve been a collaborative blog since 2011.
Yuri: Why did you decide to go into the B2B (business-to-business) space, teaching other fitness professionals how to become more proficient at their jobs, as opposed to going the route of helping people lose weight?
Jon: Good question. I was a trainer for about eight years. I really didn’t know even what the B2B space was when I started the Personal Trainer Development Center. But starting it was kind of one of those things that just felt right at the time.
I was 24 years old and looking for a way to make a little bit more money as a trainer, because trainers often reach a point where they’re looking to bounce off night and day, and trading time for money.
For some reason the idea struck me to write a book for trainers. At that point, I was mentoring trainers and stuff like that, but the decision to write the book kind of came out of nowhere.
That book was probably the fifth project I had taken on; the first four had failed – earlier, I’d operated a smoothie joint and pursued other weird stuff like that.
The book seemed like the right thing. At that point, I didn’t even know what content was; I didn’t even know what a blog was or do any research. I just kind of wrote the book and then thought, “I need a way to get people to know about my book.”
And the next thought was: “I’ll make a website! That’s how you get people to know about stuff.”
I realized pretty quickly I didn’t know very much, but a lot of other people know a lot about a little bit. It just made sense to me to get those other people involved in my thing.
It turned collaborative pretty early on, and it kind of grew from there.
Collaborating for Quality Content
Yuri: You chose to go more of the publishing route with your Web site.
You write some awesome stuff, and you have other contributors writing as well. Why did you decide to go that route?
A lot of entrepreneurs are like, “I can’t come up with all this content. I don’t want to have to write every single day. How do I keep things organized?”
Why did you decide to go that route?
Jon: It was a combination of me saying, “I only know so much. There are other people who know awesome stuff. Why not just get them to share it and give them a platform to do it?”
I recognized a lot of people had individual blogs and had good pieces of information for trainers, but there wasn’t one central point to share it all in one place.
The other piece of the puzzle is that the best way to grow a community is to get as many people as possible involved in – and let them benefit from – that community.
Creating the PTDC as a place where everybody wins – the reader wins, I win, and the contributor wins – by being a part of it kind of just evolved naturally, but now, knowing what I know, I wouldn’t do it any other way.
Yuri: What did life look like before you started this business, and how has it changed as a result of this business?
Jon: Life has gone in a direction I’d never anticipated or even hoped for. This was not part of a master plan.
I went to University of Western Ontario, where I earned kinesiology degree, working as a personal trainer from my second year on. And I worked at the university gym years before I started training full-time.
I was a trainer for about nine years. Like a lot of trainers, at about 24 or 25 years old, I was full with clients.
And I was managing trainers and helping to hire trainers and other similar tasks, as well.
That meant I was working from 6 or 7 a.m. until 9:30 p.m, basically without really a break. Or if there was a break, it was to knock back a blended chicken-and-broccoli drink – which is disgusting.
Cut forward to now: I’ve spent the past four winters away and I’m about to go away on my fifth winter.
I’m also married now and I’m going to have kids pretty soon.
I have built the life I always knew I wanted, but I didn’t know how I was going to get it. Where I’m still able to work with and help people, and spread fitness and health and nutrition but kind of in a different way, where I can dictate my lifestyle.
I’m not reactive; I’m much more proactive.
Yuri: That’s a beautiful thing to have. If you guys can see behind us, this is a lake that’s frozen in the winter. Jon, you’re out of here at wintertime, which is amazing.
Jon: I’m wearing long pants right now and it’s getting cold, so I’m getting out of here soon.
Still Serving, But in a Different Way
Yuri: And that’s not something you can do if you’re training clients 10 to 12 hours a day.
We come from very similar backgrounds from that perspective. I’m sure if you’re watching this, if you’re a trainer, if you’re a clinician, if you’re working one-on-one with people, that’s the biggest dilemma: You want to serve, but you’re limited by the number of hours you can work, and you just don’t have the freedom.
Jon: And don’t get me wrong. I miss training clients. I wish that I could still do it for five to ten hours a week, but it’s just not the kind of job you can do for five or ten hours a week.
It’s not fair to the clients. I wouldn’t do a good job, and I haven’t evolved in the way that I have in the business sense in my fitness knowledge. I would be behind now if I were to do it.
But I do miss it; it’s not like I stepped away from it because I knew that I didn’t want to do it; that was never the intent.
Yuri: Looking back, what was a failure or obstacle you had starting your website, starting to develop some of the content, maybe something you were apprehensive about?
What was that and how did you overcome that?
Jon: It was consistency. Consistency and reliability of content is, for me, still the most important thing.
Since March 2011, we have published an article on the PTDC every Tuesday and Thursday at 8 p.m.
Back then, when I didn’t have a ton of content and was writing most of it myself, it was harder to acquire it. I put such immense pressure on myself, even though there were 20 readers, to get something out at that time.
I guess always I knew that if you can create this kind of pattern that people look forward to, even before people are there, then it’s just going to work for you in the future. There was a ton of pressure back then, but it forced me to plan and strategize my content acquisition and publishing and editing a lot better.
Content Publishing Process
Yuri: That’s great info for some of our readers who might be running their own show because they’re a one-person team.
For you, what does the content side of your blog look like? You’re not the one, I’m assuming, editing and looking at every single article coming in. Who are the key people involved, and is this something you can do as an individual starting off?
Jon: To preface what I’m about to say, I did this by myself for four years. We have a much more thorough process now. We have two categories of content; we call it long-term and short-term gain.
Short-term gain, we’re basically not doing anything with search engine optimization (SEO); we’re basically trying to get a lot of views in a short amount of time.
What we do pretty much there is syndicate. We’ll find a fantastic piece of content somewhere else. I have enough relationships in the industry where I can use, with permission and at my discretion, thousands of articles and videos, just repost them.
I give the author $100 when we use it.
That piece of content then goes to the person who oversees my content. That person takes the content and gives it direction, gets it new images or whatever it needs, reformats it, and gives it a new title, and then publishes it.
Then we have somebody who’s in charge of content strategy, who gets that content out.
That’s short-term.
Long-term is a little bit different. We aim for two long-term pieces of content a month and that’s SEO-driven.
We have an SEO team who looks for opportunities within our target demographic, depending on what we want to accomplish.
They give us an opportunity – a keyword or something like that – and we have a pool of writers who then go out and write a very thorough objective piece on that topic based on our instructions that have to do with SEO.
The SEO team then comes in and does what it needs to do with it in terms of making sure the keywords and related issues are in place.
We publish it to the blog, and then once it’s published, the SEO team works to get links back.
We’ve got people on our team, blogger accounts, and stuff like that – places like Huffington Entrepreneur – so if we need links back to content with specific anchor text, we can usually get it pretty quickly.
The process, more or less, is: the content comes in according to the content calendar, so that we’re usually two to three months ahead; and then we have an art director who helps with the imagery; and we have a formatter who takes the Google doc and puts it on the Web.
Understanding Your Mission
Yuri: Excellent. So, consistency was the big fear; you overcame that initially by yourself, having to use that to strategize and think a little bit further ahead.
That’s a big thing. I know that we’ve had a lot of questions about that. People fearing not being consistent, not being good enough with their content.
As you can tell, Jon’s done an amazing job. The PTDC gets hundreds of thousands of visitors a month, which is amazing.
What is one thing that you think has helped separate or elevate your blog and your content above everything else and really stand out in this marketplace?
Jon: I think it was an ardent focus on our positioning, on what we’re trying to accomplish, and on who we are and who we’re not.
We are a blog, a community, of fitness professionals, generally for professionals with one-plus years of experience.
We don’t talk about what exercise to do; we talk about how to get you to want to do the exercise, the differentiating.
Basically, what the PTDC is, is a collection of the best information for trainers on the Internet. That’s it; I don’t care where the information comes from.
As a result, we’re the place that publishes all of our competitors. I don’t care if somebody who’s a “competitor” of ours, if that even really exists – I don’t really care about that. If a competitor writes or does something really good, we’re going to feature it because it’s really good.
It’s just been this insane focus on that message and not constantly expanding our line.
To take it to another industry, we’re not trying to come out with a new Coke every two years.
It’s basically saying: “This is what we’re doing. We’re better than anybody else. We’re going to be the White Castle burger. We’re not going to try to come up with new stuff all the time. We know what we do, we know why people like us, and we’re just going to do it better and better and bigger and bigger over time.”
The Importance of Planning
Yuri: Nice. I’ve got one more question for you. Knowing what you know now, if you were to start things over again, would you do anything differently? If so, what would that be?
Jon: Oh, man. I think the only thing I would probably start differently is, I wouldn’t start a blog without about eight weeks of content ready to go, and I’d aim to always be two months ahead.
The reason for that is quite simply that a piece of content doesn’t go unless you promote it, especially when you’re newer.
If you’re two months ahead, what that allows you to do is know you have content ready to be published.
Every time I post something, I have time to promote it. I can go out and find other networks that are going to be interested in this piece of content and give it to them.
It allows me to spend time traveling and meeting people and shaking hands, supporting other people.
I can spend time researching how to write better headlines, how to format my content better, how to create a better user interface on my site, all of those things that matter at the beginning.
Content Provides Expert Status
Yuri: I was lying. I actually have one more question, which I should have actually asked near the get-go.
For you, why do you believe that sharing your content, whether it’s your own or the people you’re syndicating and publishing, is so important for your business and for your brand – as opposed to other business models that people have access to with their online business?
Jon: It creates expert status. I’m also a written-word guy, first and foremost, which is funny that we’re doing video here.
There’s something magical, something special that happens with the written word, even in print. That’s why I have paperback books and a textbook. I put stuff in print; I put it on people’s shelves because there’s something that happens in terms of longevity.
I play the long game.
Videos come and go, SnapChats come and go. There aren’t many movies that people cherish, that people look at and revisit and pass on to others.
Yuri: Oh, like Zoolander and a couple of those classics.
Jon: There are some, but not anywhere close to with books.
When you write, when you put words on a piece of paper, when you even put words on a website, that works for you for years to come. It creates an expert status for the person in charge of that network.
The craziest thing about that is that you don’t even have to be the one who writes it. You just have to be the one who is kind of the expert in charge of choosing and curating it.
Yuri: Thank you so much Jon for spending time with us answering questions.
