Ready to start, open and run a wellness blog? This article will run you through the process of starting out a successful Health blog using WordPress. This tutorial not only discusses how you can build the site, but also shares practical guidelines in running it as a successful entity.

The following are important factors to put into consideration before setting out to launching.

• Passion

First off, ensure that your passion for this chosen niche is your certified drive into starting out a blog in the first instance.This factor is peculiarly paramount because you’ll come to realize later that passion is the only thing that’ll ensure you keep going amidst odds. So hold this one thought in check before anything else.

• Resources

Ensure you have enough means to begin your blog with, debunking general myths that you need quite a lot of funds to build a blog; you certainly don’t. For your benefit, I’ll state out an estimated budget breakdown for building your blog from scratch.

• Domain and hosting (bluehost) – $59.40 ($4.95 for 12 months)
• WordPress Themes Template (You can get them at Mythemeshop) – $35 ( One time fee)
• Plugins: Essential plugins like OptinMonster cost about $49/year and that’s clearly optional.

So in total you need to have an approximate of about $162 – $211, depending on added features like plugins which you may or may not integrate at the start up level.

• Dedicated team

Deciding to start off a blog in this chosen niche is enough proof that you already know quite a lot in this area, but you see, the Health and Wellness industry as proved over time to be ever developing in terms of research, information and new methodologies.

So to keep up with the ever broadening pace of the industry, you might as well need to carry along a couple specialized professionals in your field. Not to worry, you don’t need to hire professionals or anything in that order, simply start with close associates, colleagues and people you know could contribute considerably to your blog.

Now with all that in place you are almost all set to get in gear your career in this interesting niche. The following steps are meant to guide you thoroughly into the procedures needed to get your blog rolling.

Step 1

Website Set Up

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Domain and Hosting

You have to think of a name for your site. Now this part could be a bit tricky, but hold still and give it some deep thought, you can’t afford to miss is here. A few tips to help;

1. Let it be short and catchy.
2. Something easy to keep in memory would do.
3. Let it be closely associated with your niche. The reason for this is so anyone who comes across it could easily associate it to what your blog is about. For example, healthinsights.com would be more advisable than insights.com. Just something that pinpoints exactly what you do and what your blog is about.

Registering a domain is quite easy with bluehost, all you need do is create a Bluehost Hosting Account.Once logged in, you have two options to register a domain; from the register sub-tab or from the domains page. For clarity sake and ease of access it’s advised to register directly through the domains page.

The procedures are as follows;

• After creating your Bluehost Hosting Account , log in to your Bluehost Control Panel
• Click the Domains tab.
• Input in your desired domain name in the search box.
• Click the get started button.
• Add the domain to your cart by clicking the green cart button
• Click next and afterwards review the registration settings and click add to cart.
• Apply payment details, and checkout.

Hosting with Bluehost is a good choice, for one, it comes with a free domain, but then you’ll need to begin by selecting a suitable plan based on your budget, the intentions for your blog and the features you want to have in place.

Find below, selected plans and pricing which Bluehost offers its users along with their given features.

 

After your selection, you’ll be directed to the next page where you’ll have to register your domain or select a new one. As stated earlier, Bluehost offers a free domain along with hosting so there’s no need to get a domain from anywhere else.

 

The next phase involves your data entry; contact details, personal information and payment details. After successful payment and checkout, your all set, the system will ask for a password with which you’ll use to login into your site, which wraps up the domain and hosting phase.

Step 1 (1)

Choosing a WordPress theme

Next in line is the theme set up, which is optional as you can either make use of downloadable themes or simply just skip this phase and deal with it later.

You have tons of options when it comes to WordPress themes. You can find an array of lovely themes in the health and wellness niche through the following platforms:

• Mythemeshop
• StudioPress
• Themeforest

Below are some WordPress health and wellness blog themes as found on Mythemeshop

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Step 1 (2)

WordPress Installation

Now it’s time to set up WordPress on your server and configure your WordPress settings. The installation process happens briskly with Bluehost, so no fears, you absolutely do not need a developer or professional on this one. All you need do is accept the permissions and the WordPress installation software runs automatically.

Install recommended plugins: Now, there is no certain way of predicting exactly which plugins you will need during your work. But there are some which are essentially recommended for beginner bloggers in the health niche. Here are my top three plugins to use when starting out a health blog:

• SEO by Yoast

Believe me when I say this plugin is a must have for any WordPress blogger not just those in the health niche but any at all. It’s quite easy to maneuver. You can easily get stuff work by following the provided documentation. This plugin offers you with the ability to implement essential keyword optimization throughout all the content on your site with step-by-step simplicity and reliability. Reviews from users have also added that it could as well help improve blog rankings over a short period of time. Did I also mention it’s free? Yeah so no need to over ride this bad boy based on your paycheck. It should be be the first on you list when going plugin hunting.

• WordPress Health Tracker

This plugin enables users and page visitors track their health progress, diet, exercise and vitals through interactive charts.

How this works is simply through the seamless process of entering exercise, diet, and vitals data for each day and watch as the interactive charts and reports are built, showcasing health trends over time.

• OptinMonster

Email marketing has been proven to be very effective in generating leads. This plugin is actually quite seamless and built with such capability as to reduce the complexities involved in building a subscription list.

OptinMonster is a useful tool in creating, accepting and collating new email subscriptions. As a health blogger, you are certain to need this tool at every point, to grow your list and to ensure the dissemination of updates, building a team of dedicated followers.

Step 1 (3)

Page Setup

Here you’ll learn how to set up the outlook of your page, create a main menu and install Widgets. To appropriately navigate and gain control of your site you need to properly harness these WordPress widgets which come with the themes.

These widgets could be anywhere within the header, footer and elsewhere depending on the particular theme design and structure. You can arrange these widgets to your taste on the Theme Customizer or Appearance > Widgets in the WordPress admin control panel.

Your WordPress theme by default are designated with widgets but you can install new ones from plugins based on your needs. The video below explains the procedures to setting up a page.

Step 2

Curating Content

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With curating the content for your health blog in mind, you’ll also need to select a particular area to focus on. The following are a couple wellness specific niches to select from;

• Weight Loss/Diet

Contents under this niche will focus on offering expert advice on weight loss and appropriate diets to aid them. You could also provide content with personal experiences from self or clients to make it easily resonate with. Whichever way, all your doing is mapped around providing content for your audiences to help them actualize their diet needs or achieve their weight loss goals.

• Fitness

Contents under this category will focus on the area of fitness, exercise, routines and training’s for particular goals and the likes.

• Food

The focus here, will be on recipes, health benefits of meals, meal plans, procedures, healthy culinary options, and so on.

• Healthy living/Lifestyle

Contents under this category will contain all aspects of associated healthy living and lifestyle choices. You might also include beauty related articles or health means to beauty. And health related choices for different ages and gender.

• Others 

There are other health related content themes not listed here. It’s your choice to stay creative exploring greatly on the world of health. Categories here aren’t meant to limit you but to give you an idea on just a few of the choices you have when curating the content for your blog.

Note: The above categories are prone to overlap but regardless, deciding to focus your content to something peculiarly distinct will help significantly in keeping you grounded in your niche. The industry is quite broad and competitive but its best to be known for one thing. It’ll help you in getting a dedicated audience and also help you work out better in giving your all and improving and providing relevant content in the area you are most vast in.

Also ensure to use original images along with your content. You can purchase stock photos or utilize Pinterest.

Step 3

Going Live

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Now you have an idea of contents required for your blog, you’ll need to develop a scheduling strategy for publishing.

This is where your dedicated team comes in to play; sync minds with them, categorize and schedule your contents and also ensure to have ready archives to draw from regularly. The key is to never run out of content. Keep things original, unique and creative.

Step 4

Promotion

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You’ll need to develop a strategy for taking your blog to the frontiers of your target audience. No dilly dallying in this area, you have to give it your best here, because how well you get by at this point will largely determine the success of your blog.

Here are some tips to help promote your blog;

Develop a media presence for your site

To begin, try on at least three of the most relevant social platforms for a start; i’m certain quite a number of your targeted audience makes use of at least one of these under listed platforms on a daily, they are absolutely free and easy to run. They include; Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Creating business profiles and accounts on each of these platforms should take roughly about ten minutes. What to do with them – share your links to your blog posts on them and also integrate social media buttons to the side bar or footer on your site using the Social media icon widget. Also engage your audience on each of these platforms for optimum lead and share updates about your blog, offers and new content and features. The video below explains how you can embed this social media icon on your blog page.

Set up Google analytics

It’s best to know how your audience interacts with your site for many reasons, one of which is to determine the best route amongst others with which to create avenue for more leads to your site. Google analytics helps to answer the question of who, what, how and when people find and visit your site.

When you get a glimpse of this, it better helps to understand your needs and helps you direct your promotional effect to workable progress. Setting up Google analytics for your site is free. All you need do is sign up for a Google analytics account and install it on your WordPress using MonsterInsights which is the most popular Google Analytics plugin for WordPress.

Use Quora

Quora is a great way to publicize your blog either directly or indirectly. It’s a forum based platform with millions of users and professionals in various niches offering expert advice on various topics.

You can utilize this to your advantage by answering directed questions in your niche and also by adding links to your blog to attract new users. To use Quora, create a professional profile and include details of your site, also participate regularly on forums and engage with users in your related niche.

Use SEO

SEO is seen to be a great tool for marketing initiatives. By directing content peculiarly to people interested in what you do, your blog is more likely to scale amidst competitive reliance with SEO.

SEO makes it possible for your blog to establish a selling path if highly ranked. Moreover it’s more effective than paid ads. It’ll help greatly for you to learn the intricacies of search engine optimization because it has been proven to help reduce the cost per lead while simultaneously attracting higher quality engagement.

All these are very achievable, but first you have to lay out a solid groundwork in committing yourself to learning SEO marketing in actualizing the success of your blog. Below are six major steps and guideline.

• First things first, you need to run a website audit and ensure your blog is easy to navigate. Ensure no failing links exists, check the images, check through the content as well, and ensure the relevancy of the keywords you are using.
• Second, optimize your site for speed and create unique URL’s relevant to the topic. Create unique and relevant meta descriptions and tags for each page, it’ll help boost your sites search engine click-through rates.
• The third step to using SEO is to constantly evaluate your site for performance. Use these to give you a glimpse of how well your site is doing and what methods are working and what’s not.
• The fourth step is to do a keyword research. Think of your targeted audience, what words and phrases will they have probably searched in order to discover your content? So give this some deep thought before rambling up your site content with unnecessary keywords.
• The fifth step is blogging regularly. This is a very effective way of reaching a new audience and expanding your brand largely to frontiers. It might take a lot from you but it’s definitely worth the effort.
• Lastly, use social shares to your advantage. This is a clever way of increasing traffic to your site. Once you begin developing keyword-rich content on your site, distribute to Facebook and Twitter as well as LinkedIn. You can also include links to your profile and content through guest posts of blogs related to your niche. What’s important is focusing on creating genuine, original and very succinct content that people will love to engage in. When this is in place, it’s easier to get more likes, shares, comments and engagements, which all contributes to the leveling up of your SEO ranking.