Want to turn your passion for fitness into a business? Want to earn money online and stay accountable for your fitness goals at the same time? Here’s how to how to set fitness goals that you’ll stay accountable for with a blog! I used Siteground to make my blog and now I am enjoying an extra paycheck every month!
I wasn’t planning on talking about my blog income or fitness business goals much here on Ironwild.
But the more I talk to others, the more I realize how important sharing it could be.
My most important fitness goals might never be met without accountability, after all!
I started blogging after my daughter was born in 2014. My primary goal was to earn money from home.
It took me about two years, but I figured out how to make $900+ per month just from my blog. I could have made a lot more (some bloggers do it full-time and make 5+ figures monthly).
But I got overwhelmed and my fitness goals started to take a backseat to blogging, so I took a break.
For almost a year, I focused on just getting healthy again. I picked fitness goals to set and got to work.
But something didn’t feel right. Even though I’d set realistic fitness goals, I felt like I needed to talk about blogging.
I felt like blogging was a big, powerful secret I was keeping. It felt like it was what I was meant to do.
But I didn’t take blogging back up because I was worried that I couldn’t balance it with my fitness goals. So I gave myself an ultimatum – if I wanted to blog, it needed to be about health and fitness.
For the sake of my mental and physical health, I didn’t want to be less committed to fitness. I decided to go all-in and become a personal trainer. (I’m studying for it right now!)
But I knew that I didn’t want to go back to work immediately (baby #2 is due this January) and I knew that I wanted to tap into the crazy income-generating potential that blogging held.
I just knew in my heart that a virtual business was in the cards for me.
So I started this blog knowing that it would take some time to build and knowing that it would be mostly fitness-related.
But like I said, I started talking to more people about health and fitness and realized that blogging can be more than a tool for accountability. It can be used for making money, too – no matter who you are.
P.S. This post contains affiliate links. If you choose to make a purchase using my link (at no extra cost) I may receive a commission. Read more about that here.
A Fitness Business That Can Work for Anyone
Every time I talk to a personal trainer in real life, they say they wish they had a way to make more money.
They say they wish they knew how to build a website.
They’re weak on social media and don’t know how to market themselves. They don’t even know about all of the opportunities there are to make money online.
Every time I talk to my mother-in-law (who is a NASM-certified personal trainer), we agree that one of the primary reasons we decided to become personal trainers is ACCOUNTABILITY.
We are ordinary people who weren’t raised in fitness but decided to commit to it fully.
Every time I talk to other people with fitness-related goals, they say they wish they had a way to stay motivated and on track.
They wish they could break the cycle of doing great, and then falling back into bad habits.
They wish they could stop wishing. You know what I mean?
So I had this thought – what would be so wrong with me trying to help others start their own fitness-related blog?
What if I could teach others how to use a blog to stay accountable OR make money? What are some common fitness goals that would be better achieved with a public blog?
Of course, everything is still weight-loss, mental health, fitness, or nutrition-related.
Blogging doesn’t have to be such a big secret, even though it feels like it is for me.
I want to share my monthly goals and income with you so that you can see how blogging helps me stay accountable for my health, income, and business.
If that’s something that can inspire you, soak it up and roll with it!
Psst! I recently created an online nutrition course jam-packed with information on food mindset, exercise science, and nutrition education so that I could pass that knowledge on to you. Check it out!
Every month starting now I will share two different kinds of posts – ones related to my fitness goals, and ones related to my fitness business goals.
That would be blogging now, but I hope to add real personal training once this baby is out!
So if you’re looking for a way to expand your business as a health professional, or you’re looking for a way to be accountable for your own fitness goals, this is something you’ll want to be reading.
You don’t have to be a personal trainer, health coach, Beachbody salesperson, etc. You just have to be someone who has health or fitness goals.
Blog Income & How it All Works
There are many ways to make money online, but blogging is unique and versatile.
There are a few major ways to make money blogging – affiliate sales, selling your own products, with ads, etc. I’m not going to go into much detail about those because I already wrote an entire post about them here.
But I would like to share with you my first “income report” for this blog, even though I currently don’t have any real monetary goals since this blog is NEW.
If you want to learn about starting your own blog, I wrote this post just to explain it.
I did, however, make a few pennies this month through social media and blog stuff. Keep in mind that I am not currently trying to make money actively, and I still consider myself in the “building” phase.
Update: I’d encourage you to read a more recent income report.
Last month I made over $900!
Blog Income in October 2017
Affiliate Sales
Activate – $1.57 – I got paid to Tweet a few things.
shareasale.com – $1.18 – I had a commission from telling others about the affiliate network.
Ads
Media.net – $0.53 – One of two ad networks I have used here on the blog.
Total: $3.28
(This income is based on 1,380 page views for the month. That’s NOT a lot of page views, but I did see some major growth over the last month because I was only aiming for 500 views for October.)
A Very Short Explanation of How Blogging Works
A blog is just a website. To own a website that has income-generating potential, a domain name and independent hosting is needed.
My domain name is ironwildfitness.com and I am hosted using a company called Siteground.
Once you have a website, you can build it and write about anything you like. Your blog can be promoted in several ways (so people actually visit it) but most bloggers use social media for primary traffic.
You provide content (blog posts, articles, whatever) and people read it.
You can then make money by promoting products you’ve created or by promoting for others. This can be done with links or ads that link to other brands.
You can promote essentially anything. The brands or networks will track the source of their sales or leads (your blog) and give you a cut.
Easy, peasy.
That is a very short, very general explanation – but you can see how it’s like any other type of marketing. Your blog is a marketing tool.
Or, if you want, your blog can just be yours to vent, share fitness goals, and connect with others.
It’s pretty cool!
If you’ve never been a blogger, it may sound intriguing but very confusing. Here are some more in-depth posts about blogging for business or fitness.
- How to Start a Health, Food, or Fitness Blog
- How to Make Money Blogging
- Ultimate Blog Startup Checklist for Beginners
- Introduction to Blogging for Fitness Professionals
How a Blog Can Be Used to Reach Fitness Goals
What are some health goals you just can’t quite reach? Without accountability, no goals would ever be met.
I plan to use this blog to share before and after pictures, workouts, recipes, and reflections PUBLICLY.
I find that building a community and telling others about my goals is big-time effective when it comes to follow-through.
With blogging, you decide everything that happens on your blog.
That means the level of transparency and vulnerability you take your blog to is your own choice.
For me, the more transparent I am, the more people I really connect with. You can have that, too!
Do you have more questions? I look forward to sharing next month’s fitness business update with you all but want to make sure I address all of your needs, so let me know below!
Other Posts You Might Like:
- How To Know If You’re In The Wrong Blog Niche
- 5 Virtual Product Ideas For Fitness Bloggers
- List of Fitness Hashtags To Use On Social Media
