So you’re ready to get nutty with nutrition? Sorry, I mean, you’re feeling nutritious and ambitious?
Puns aside, you’re here to start a nutrition blog. It’s pretty obvious because, y’know, you searched for how to start one specifically.
So let’s not beat around the bush. In this guide, a blogging pro (me) will teach you how to start a nutrition blog that gets traffic, makes money, and creates healthy lifestyles.
Let’s strap in and get started.
1. Find Your Niche
First thing first: find your niche. This is an important step that’s often overlooked (tragically).
A niche is a specific area of focus. Maybe it’s plant-based nutrition, sports nutrition, or keto dieting. Find a topic within the nutrition realm that you’re both passionate and knowledgeable about.
It can help if you start with a few topics, then narrow them down to the one that you feel most confident researching and writing about.
How to find your niche
You can find your niche by:
- Thinking about your work experience
- Reading up on nutrition topics
- Brainstorming interests, hobbies, and passions
- Considering nutrition topics people are passionate about
The good news is you don’t have to rush into it.
While you’re obviously going to operate within nutrition, finding your specific niche can wait until you’re done setting up your blog.
2. Choose Your Domain Name
Your domain name is the URL someone types into their browser to visit your blog. It should both be memorable and include relevant keywords to your blog topic.
Some people opt for something like “janesnutritionblog.com,”, which is simple and to the point.
But I recommend including some keyword relevance—when possible. So something like “Jane’sNutritionGuidance.com” can be more effective.
Consider making your real name your domain name
Making your domain name your actual name is especially helpful if you want to start a personal brand.
Suppose you’re a fitness coach who wants to start a blog. Using your name as the blog title is a great way to start local marketing and build your personal brand.
Buy your domain from Namecheap
There are a lot of domain registrars out there, and honestly, most of them are about the same.
But I’m going with Namecheap for this guide.
Why? Because it has great customer service and it’s my registrar of choice.
Plus, Namecheap is one of the few registrars that offer free Whois privacy, which keeps your contact information hidden from the public.
3. Choose a Blogging Platform
Once you have your domain, you need a blogging platform.
The most popular blogging platform for nutrition bloggers is WordPress.org, also known as self-hosted WordPress. This platform offers the most control, flexibility, and functionality for your blog.
You can choose another platform, but you’ll face severe limitations in your functionality.
Against the advice of professionals, I started my blog on Wix but realized that it wasn’t meant for blogging at all.
4. Find a Fast & Reliable Host
Now that you have your domain and blogging platform, you need a webspace to store it. That’s where web hosting comes in.
Web hosts are the companies that store all the files related to your blog. They’re also the ones who ensure your blog is always online and running as fast as possible.
For my followers, I recommend Cloudways, Rocket, or Kinsta (I use Cloudways). All of these are top choices, but I can attest to Cloudways’ great service, ultra-fast speeds, and incredible reliability from personal experience.
If you decide to go with Cloudways, I recommend getting the $10/month 1GB plan on Digital Ocean.
Once you’ve paid your hosting fee, you’ll receive an email with your hosting details. You’ll also be given a unique URL to access your Cloudways dashboard. Click that URL, and follow the setup instructions.
5. Design & Personalize Your Site
Now it’s time to make your nutrition blog look awesome.
Thankfully, WordPress comes with an extensive library of premium and free themes. This means you don’t have to be an expert programmer or web designer to make your blog look professional.
Head over to the WordPress theme library and browse the available themes. You’re looking for something simple, modern, and compatible with your specific niche.
Consider Astra for your theme
Astra is one of the most popular WordPress themes due to its functionality, speed, ease of use, and flexibility.
For nutrition blogs, I recommend the Pro version of Astra which has more features and tools to customize your blog. Once you’ve installed and activated your theme, you can customize it to fit your blog and personal style.
6. Install Crucial Plugins
Now that you have your blog’s foundation, it’s time to install a few plugins.
Plugins are tools that give your blog more features. You can use them to add contact forms, create a search engine-friendly blog, and even start a newsletter.
Here are the ones I use:
WPRocket
WPRocket both caches your page and minifies its code to deliver content as quickly as possible. This is probably the WordPress community’s favorite plugin, as it simplified a once-difficult process more than you can imagine.
Rank Math
RankMath is an SEO plugin that simplifies on-page optimization and helps with common SEO tasks. It will also generate your XML sitemap, which search engines use to navigate your site like a map.
Lastly, you can use it to configure your URL structure. This is crucial for optimizing both user and search-engine experience.
ConvertKit
ConvertKit is your all-in-one email marketing solution. Use it to capture email addresses, automate personalized emails, and create automated lead magnets.
ShortPixel
ShortPixel is a plugin that compresses and optimizes your images. This dramatically reduces their file size, which in turn speeds up your page load speed.
7. Create Cornerstone Pages
After configuring your blog’s setup, you need to create the basic pages. These are the pages visitors see and use to understand what your blog is about and what it offers.
Create a “Home” page
Your home page is the first page visitors to your blog see. It should introduce your blog’s topic and give visitors an idea of what it’s all about.
Create an “About” page
Your About page should provide visitors with more information about you and what your blog is about. It should also include a link to your contact page (if you have one).
Create a Blog Post Template
Your blog post template is used to create individual blog posts. It should include your blog’s formatting (e.g. font sizes, font colors, highlighted text, etc.) as well as other elements (such as images, callouts, etc.).
Create a Blog Archive Template
Your blog archive template is used to display your blog’s collection of posts, as well as give visitors an easy way to search and browse through your blog.
8. Write Your First Four Blog Posts
Now that your blog is almost ready, it’s time to write your first four blog posts.
These four posts should provide an introduction to your blog and its topics. Be sure to focus on quality writing and provide as much content as possible.
Your first blog post should generally be an introduction post outlining what your blog is about and why you’re writing it (e.g. to help people with their fitness). You can also include links to your About page.
The second post can go into more detail about your blog’s topics. For example, if your blog is about fitness, you can talk about different types of exercises, the importance of diet, etc.
The third post should focus on how your readers can get started with their fitness journey. This post can include advice, tips, and links to helpful resources.
The fourth post can be about anything you want. Write a concise, well-research deep dive into one of the subjects you’ll be covering.
You’ll need it for what comes next.
9. Build Links With Guest Posting
Once you have your first four blog posts published, you can use them to create links and drive more organic traffic to your blog.
Guest posting is a great way to build quality links and network with other bloggers in your niche. You can start by finding other blogs in the health and fitness space. Reach out to them and offer to write a guest post on their blog.
Once published, you can link back to one of your blog posts. This will help boost your blog’s authority in the eyes of search engines, resulting in faster indexing and higher rankings.
10. Push Content Out Like Crazy
Now that your blog is ready and you’ve established authority in the eyes of Google, it’s time to crank out high-quality content.
Consistently publishing blog posts will help establish your blog as an authoritative source of information within the health and fitness niche.
As you create new posts, you’ll get more and more search impressions, resulting in more and more traffic. Eventually, you’ll find yourself with a thriving blog, provided your content is high quality and provided genuine value to its readers.
Using keyword research to create a content strategy
By doing keyword research, you can create an intelligent content strategy to you drive more organic traffic to your website. Find relevant keywords that fit your blog’s topic and use them to create blog posts and other content pieces.
I recommend using Ahrefs.
With Ahrefs, you can find content opportunities and optimize your website for search engine rankings. It will help you find relevant keywords and track their performance over time, which is key to creating a successful content strategy.
As a matter of fact, Ahrefs is how I got the idea to write this post. I found that “how to start a nutrition blog” had decent volume and low competition, so I wrote this article to rank for it.
How to do keyword research for free
I’ll be honest: Ahrefs (and other keyword research tools) are pretty expensive. You may not be willing to invest that much in your blog starting out, and that’s okay.
There are a few free tools you can use to do keyword research.
My favorite free tool is Google Keyword Planner. It lets you find keywords related to your topics, as well as search volume and competition for each keyword.
You can also use Ubersuggest, a free keyword research tool providing similar features as Ahrefs. It’s not as powerful, but it still provides great insights into keyword performance.
11. Be Patient
This is where the vast majority of aspiring bloggers screw up.
Creating a successful blog takes time and effort.
It takes months, often years, to build up enough of an audience to make your blog successful. You’ll have times of frustration and disappointment. You’ll have periods where you wonder if it’s all worth it.
For example, I read a LinkedIn post where someone published a topic cluster (a set of SEO blog posts about a similar topic) on their blog. They published in the summer but didn’t start getting clicks until the winter.
A year later, that group of ~20 posts fetched over 200k clicks by themselves. It’s a microcosm of blogging as a whole.
Blogging, like any other venture, is a long-term game. Stick with it, and you’ll be rewarded—I promise.
12. Start Monetizing Traffic
Once you’ve built up a healthy amount of organic traffic (at least 10,000 visitors per month is a good starting point), you can start monetizing it.
There’s no single “right” way to monetize your blog, everyone does it differently.
My personal favorite methods are affiliate marketing and selling digital products.
Affiliate marketing involves promoting other people’s products in exchange for a commission, whereas selling digital products involves creating your own product and selling it (like online courses).
You should also run ads with Ezoic—a great platform for bloggers to make money with ads.
It uses AI algorithms to find the best ads for your blog and then serves them to your visitors. It’s a great way to make money without spending a ton of time managing it.
Wrapping Up
All and all, running a blog isn’t nearly as complex as it just requires hard work.
It requires a bit of research to get the ball rolling, but once you’re off the ground, it’s just about consistently producing content, building backlinks, and finding new ways to monetize your traffic.
If you’re serious about starting a nutrition blog, give it a shot. With the tips and tricks we’ve provided here, you’ll be well on your way to success!
