Are you thinking of creating a home fitness and wellness blog? It is a great and brilliant move that can propel your personal business or gym studio to higher heights. In fact, it gives you a competitive edge against other physical-wellness trainers who have no online presence.
WordPress has been a preferred means of starting a blog due to its powerful content management tools. However, with so much functionality to enjoy, a newcomer may find it less intuitive when creating a website and may opt for a fitness app instead. You need to think about the themes, plugins, enhanced security, and much more.
With that said, we took it upon ourselves to compile a comprehensive step-by-step guide to get you started with your WordPress home fitness blog.
Before You Start
Starting the blog itself is only half the battle. Before you jump to buying web hosting and looking for WordPress plugins, try to consider what kind of content you’ll be covering on your home fitness blog. To help you start, we’ve prepared some home fitness blog tips.
- Think of What the Reader Came to Your Post For
So your blog is up and running, and you’re launching your first home workout split article. Keep in mind that a lot of readers might already know a bit about fitness, and are coming to improve on their knowledge, that means that three long winded paragraphs of introduction might not be the best way of starting your blog.
Considered immediately showing your visitors what your article is about, by placing the workout splits, sets and reps at the very top, just after the introduction. Use ordered lists to make the content as easy to see and glance at as possible. Keep in mind, that a lot of people may be working out while having your page open.
This applies to recipes and other types of content as well. While it may seem counterintuitive, and you may feel like that way people will spend less time on your article, you can be sure that by creating a great user experience you’ll keep them coming back.
- Use Captivating Visuals
When trying a new exercise for the first time it can be hard to get the form down from just a written description, that’s why you should definitely add visuals that show how home fitness exercises are performed. We recommend using .gif or .jpeg images, as they take the least time to load, as they’re better compressed. For additional speed improvements you can use a plugin like Smush to further optimize image size.
- Show Your Credibility
If you want to build your authority in a field, you’ll have to let visitors in on your routine. Don’t forget to write the occasional blog post about what you’re doing to improve your own body. Share recipes you use yourself, update your audience about how your cut or bulk is going, and share with them what you learned through the process.
- Offer Your Services Smart
Looking to do more than just write articles or workout splits? Offer your services as a remote personal trainer or set up custom nutrition plans for your visitors. Let them know that they can get in touch with you anytime, and be sure to make the process as easy as possible. Add a contact plugin, like Contact Form 7.
How to Start a Home Fitness Blog
- Choose a Blog Name
- Focus on the length and spelling. Select a straightforward name since it is something that people need to remember when typing in your web address. Make it short — up to three words — without any special characters.
- Put down different options on paper. A sure-fire way of creating a unique website name is to brainstorm on paper. Jot down any ideas that come to your mind, and try to find synonyms and other variations that suit your site.
- Select a WordPress Hosting
Before you start blogging, you need to find a web hosting service that will let you publish your blog on the internet.
There is a large pool of hosting companies with varied service plans and prices. As such, you need to be careful before settling down with one. Review their plans thoroughly, read their refund policies, and see what people say about the company.
To help you make an informed decision, here are several things you should consider when choosing a web hosting company:
- Resources — if you’re just starting out, you might not need a lot of storage space and bandwidth. Nonetheless, ensure that the company offers scalable plans to accommodate your blog’s growth.
- Technical support — pick a web hosting provider with a fast and reliable customer crew. It’s also important to check whether they provide 24/7 support.
- Additional features — look for plans with bonuses on their plans, like a free domain, an SSL certificate, and regular backups. This way, you can have everything you need in one go.
- User-friendly control panel — an intuitive control panel makes it easier for you to manage your blog.
- Register a Domain Name
Your domain name should be the same as your blog name, helping your target audience to find you.
As a rule of thumb, always go for .com domains. According to a study, .com URLs are 33% more memorable than other TLDs, and people are 3.8 times more likely to assume that a link will end with .com. Remember what we talked about in the first section, make sure your domain name reflects the type of fitness blog you’re running. A great example is therunexperience.com which makes clear what the blog is about – running.
If your desired .com domain is taken, then you can go for other popular options like .org, .net, or .co. Alternatively, you can go for ccTLDs if your blog is targeted for a particular country, like co.uk, com.au, or .com.sg.
- Set Up WordPress
Once you have found a web hosting provider, the next thing to do is to install WordPress and configure the settings for your blog.
Depending on your web host, the installation procedure may vary. That said, most providers have a one-click install that can get WordPress ready within minutes.
Once the software is installed, you can open your WordPress dashboard by visiting yourdomain.com/wp-admin
- Choose a WordPress Theme for Your Blog
Many new bloggers waste a lot of time trying to find the perfect theme for their websites. However, this won’t happen to you if you come prepared.
For starters, write a list of features you want from your theme. For a home fitness blog, you might want to have a portfolio page, photo galleries, or even an online store.
Browse through the WordPress theme directory, or opt for premium WordPress themes from ThemeREX sources if you want to have something sleek and more modern.
- Install Appropriate Plugins
The best thing about WordPress is its plugins, the extensions that can add more features to your blog. Whatever you need, there’s a plugin for that.
From your WordPress dashboard, head over to Plugins > Add New. Enter the keyword into the search bar, click Install, then Activate.
You should consider embedding a Google Maps iframe for a gym you’re working as a trainer at or any other relevant plugins that can help you highlight your credibility or boost your business.
If you’re running a nutrition blog, add schema markup for recipes, that will highlight your post in a special way on Google’s search engine results pages.
Additionally, there are so many plugins you can choose from the WordPress plugin directory that will be helpful for marketing and growing your site. Some popular options include Yoast SEO, Akismet (spam protection), and Jetpack (security and performance optimizations).
Wrapping Up
That’s it! Your blog is now ready for content production. Aim to publish once a week to build traffic and audience, and make sure to deliver high-quality content. The process may be daunting at first, but once you embark on the practical aspect of starting a WordPress home fitness blog, you’ll notice the process is quite manageable.