Health and wellness are popular topics in this day and age, especially because obesity is getting more and more widespread. You are interested in the topic or you have an experience you want to share, and you consider blogging the best way to express yourself. It might be so, but before starting you need to consider all the relevant aspects of health blogging and blogging in general in order to be able to decide whether you can do it and whether it is worth the effort you want and need to put into it.
What is a niche and what are the health blogging niches?
What is a niche? The simplest explanation would be that it is a narrow area of a certain wider topic. A niche is not strictly specified in terms of breadth. Health blogging has numerous niches, in which you can find:
- Weight loss/diet blogs – blogs either giving dieting information or a personal journal of weight loss.
- Healthy living foodie blogs – blogs that are more focused on food, showing pictures or recipes.
- Running blogs – blogs of runners out there blogging their runs, training, and everything related to running.
- Training blogs – blogs about training tend to be more informational blogs teaching you how to train and giving workout advice.
- Fitness professionals – blogs from personal trainers, coaches, etc. who share information and sell their training services.
- Healthy living blogs – blogs that contain information about all aspects of being healthy.
- Others – there are other blogs out there that don’t neatly fall into these niches yet still would be considered health blogs, others that fall into multiple categories, and even more general life blogs with a health/fitness category or slant.
This categorization has been taken from the AMERRYLIFE blog, one of the more successful blogs in its niche, to illustrate a part of the health blogging world through several niches. However, a clear division of niches simply does not exist. They often overlap, some are broader while others are quite narrow and there are no definite rules for determining the niche should stick to. Nevertheless, some guidelines might help with this decision and we will present them to you later on in the text.
Deciding on the type of blog and the tone of writing
Before diving into the challenge of health blogging, many things need to be considered. You primarily need to decide on the direction and the tone of your work.
Why do you want to write a health blog?
Do you have some experience you want to share or you want to allow others to access the knowledge you gained by investigating the topic? One of the reasons for health blogging might just as well be the money. This step is important because it is essential in determining the type of writing to stick to. I’m a regular contributor to several health related blogs and Weight Loss Triumph is the perfect example for this matter. They offer advices on how to lose weight and just like the website mentioned above, they cover health blogging through several niches. You can write a journal, an advice blog or you can offer a mixture of both. You can make a magazine concept out of it, or you can be a motivating force behind the will of those who decided to live a healthy life. But for the sake of design and further blog development, you need to decide in time. Here are the examples of two types of blogs.
A Motivation Blog – Roni’s Weigh
Experience Blog – Ben Does Life
If you look at these two blogs, you’ll see the difference – Ben Does Life is a journal of Ben’s experience, while Roni had an idea to motivate and she thus owns a different website. This is why you need to decide on the concept of your blog before you start creating it.
Do you know how to adapt the tone of writing to the type of blog?
This is an essential skill for a health blog or any other type of blog, for that matter. You need to know when to use a friendly personal tone and when to use a professional tone. But don’t worry; you can develop this skill by practicing and testing different types of writing. It is best to have a pilot blog to practice during a certain period of time and to promote it on social networks to get a sample of readers.
Deciding on the niche
We come back to the potential niches. Once you have decided on the type of blog you want to write, it is time to define the niche. It might happen so that you already know exactly what you want to write about, especially if you want to write some kind of a personal journal. However, it is still recommendable that you define your niche in order to make it easier for yourself to do the keyword research and the topic research on a regular basis when you start writing, since you will have to stay up to date. Let’s go through the process of defining the niche.
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Start from the broader niche and then narrow it down. For example, if you want to write about health but you want to be more specific, you can narrow it down to healthy food, and then maybe vegan food. This is just an example, and this choice often depends on the factors which will follow in this section. Of course, if you already know what you want to write about, just use this scheme to specify it. And who knows, if you investigate a bit, you might figure out how to write about the topic you originally had in mind and to attract a bunch of readers at the same time.
- Investigate the popularity of different niches. You can use a great tool brought to us by Google – Real Time Insights – to see how different topics are searched on the web, and to see which keywords are used to search for them. The keyword search volume and the searchers behavior can tell you what is the niche you should stick to in order to have a wide audience. Here is an example of a blog operating in a niche which is quite specific and very popular, since many parents have kids with food allergies.
- Check for high demand and scarce offer. The more people look for a topic you are planning to write about the better. But if there is a deficit of the sources providing information on the given topic along with that you might hit a jackpot.
Things to bear in mind
Having a professional blog requires the ability to do research, to be a good and a passionate writer with excellent writing and grammar skills, and to have the time for social media promotion and marketing.
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Research – Although I have already mentioned it, I would like to clarify the topic choosing research I mentioned. Once you choose your niche, not everything is done. On the contrary, the real work is just beginning. Every post you write needs to be read. You need to meet the expectations of your audience and provide fresh, up-to-date content and answers to the burning issues of the niche. So I would recommend using feed aggregation web sites, such as Alltop.com, as well as the feed aggregation apps such as Google Reader. You can use Q&A websites, the Google tool I already recommended and social networks to monitor your niche. If anything important comes up, you need to know and have an opinion to express in your health blog.
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Writing – Writing is not easy. Sometimes only spelling dilemmas can be annoying, not to mention all the other stuff you need to pay attention to. Many are unsure of how to address the readers, which register to use, etc. Use the books and the internet to read about writing. Read other blogs. The best writers read all the time. It is not enough just to hope everything will be fine. I hear many bloggers claiming their way is the best while at the same time they pay no attention to their grammar and spelling, and nothing makes me leave a blog as fast as spelling and grammar errors. This way, a blog loses its credibility with the readers, and the credibility is one of the main factors that drive traffic to websites.
- Social Media promotion and marketing – This is an important part of writing a blog, because the first visitors come from social networks. It takes time to rank well in Google, but with the usage of social media, you get visitors which in turn help your blog rank faster in Google. The basic plan of action would be to:
- write great content
- make profiles and pages for your blog on relevant social networks
- post your content
- engage
- help with all the questions related to your niche
- always answer comments and personal messages
No matter how difficult it may be to find time for this, it is really necessary. It is better to focus on two-three networks and really engage than to have a bunch of inactive profiles. Try to present yourself as an authority in the field. The effort you put into all of this will pay off. Don’t forget to create a presence on Google Plus, because it is the most significant social network for rankings.
Conclusion
The path to success is difficult, but if you love what you do and have a good strategy, the effort invested will surely pay off. So start your health blog, listen to advice, learn from your own experience and never give up.
