Personal Training Blog Content

So you've decided to take action and build a blog for your personal training business (congratulations); but now comes the tricky part, you need to fill it with content!

Before you get started on your blog, you should attempt to have a basic goal and direction; define your niche and decide what outcome you're seeking?

If you're building it for your personal training business then you shouldn't stray from that topic. Much like my business is fitness is about helping personal trainers build their fitness businesses; if I started writing about my weekend or the golf scores, not only would search engines have a tough time figuring out where to categorize my blog, you would probably lose interest (besides, I'm terrible at golf).

Ask yourself these questions:

Why are you making a personal training blog?

To make money from?
To help potential clients find you?
To use as an information portal for your existing clients?

What do you want to achieve with your blog?

More clients?
Establish yourself as an authority within your location and/or niche?
To become a full time blogger?

How much time to you have to invest in your blog?

Is this something you are going to build and leave?
Are you going to be updating it regularly?

In blogging circles they say that 'content is king' and for the most part that's true. Today I'm going to talk about some of the articles or posts that you should have on your site as a bare minimum, regardless of what outcome you're seeking.

What Should I Call My Blog?

That's entirely up to you, again it may come down to the goals you have set for it. If for example it is purely for client information and generation, then you might consider having your location and or specialty in the name. You may decide that you're building your blog to create an authority site on a particular health and fitness subject, therefore you may use your own name, or you may simply name it after your personal training business for branding purposes.

How Long Should Posts Be?

As a basic rule, your posts should range between 250-500 words. 250 as a minimum for search engines and to show you know at least a little bit about the topic, 500 because most people get bored with much more.

Don't feel compelled to stick to these figures; sometimes you have to just keep writing and sometimes a certain topic just isn't that interesting, but it's the general consensus for most articles length. If you do want to write a huge expose or something super long, consider breaking it down into a series of posts, or as a part 1 / part 2 type article.

What Types Of Articles Should I Write About?

There are several categories that you must have on your personal training blog regardless of what outcome you're seeking:

You're Location And Contact Details: VERY important if you want people to find you.
An 'About Me' Page: Where you have come from/why you became a personal trainer.
Client Testimonials: Social proof is priceless. You can set up a separate page for these or incorporate them into a signature, or even have them in a sidebar.
Useful Information/Hints And Tips: Give away some knowledge, show the world you know what you're talking about.
Your Personal Training Specialities: What people can expect if they hire you.
Updates And Events: What you're up to, goals and plans for your fitness business and clients.

How Often Should I Post Articles?

Again, this comes down to your goal. The more frequent you post, the more successful your blog will be as an overall. Ideally, you should be posting minimum 3-4 times per week consistently. If you're not the writing type and that seems quite daunting, make sure you study up on your search engine optimization, to make sure that every post you write counts.

Just like there are always new gyms and personal trainers popping up around you, there are tons of blogs in your niche created every day, so it's wise to spend some time considering the following:

Be specific with your niche: The narrower and more targeted your blog is, the more likely you are to be found when people are searching a particular resource or service.
Be prepared for no one to find your blog on Google or anywhere for a long time: This could be months depending on how you structure your blog and write your articles. My suggestion is to have your blog on business cards from the start and hand them out vigorously.
It is a LOT of work to create a blog: Content is by far the most important aspect, however there are so many other factors that can influence your blogging success.
Read all you can on related subjects: Read up on SEO, read up on 'how to blog' type websites, the trick with blogging is to outlast your competitors; so many people go hard for 3 months and then quit. If you battle on and be consistent, you will make it.
Start Today: Blogs are not only ranked on content and links and a host of other things, but the age of the site is also a determining factor. Do something today to start your blog, even if it's something simple like buying your domain name.

If you have any other tips and advice for personal training blog content, please leave a comment below!

Ben

Personal Training Blog Content

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