A few months ago, I started reading a new blog put out by my blog friend Matt from No Meat Athlete. This new blog was called Health Blog Helper, and saying that it helped my blog is an understatement. The things I learned about the Web from this site — and the things they ultimately inspired me to teach myself — have helped me make my blog unique in so many ways. When new bloggers (or old bloggers!) ask me for advice, I so often direct them to the Health Blog Helper blog.
Here’s a little of what Matt has to say about it:
“After reading some other health blogs and learning everything I could about what bloggers in other niches are doing, I realized there’s a LOT that many of us aren’t doing. Search engine optimization, affiliate programs, different advertising sources than you-know-who, social media marketing on Facebook and Twitter, and effective ways to make your content compelling, even magnetic. When I started learning all these powerful strategies and realized that nobody in the health niche was using them, I wanted to tell the world. And for that purpose, Health Blog Helper was born.There’s tons of great information on other blogs about blogging. But not everyone has the kind of time to subscribe to them, read their posts carefully, and separate what works in the healthy living niche from what doesn’t. I present the best of what I’m learning in ways that health bloggers can relate to, and from angles that apply specifically to healthy lifestyle blogs.”
Obviously, Matt is a hollback health kinda guy! The things he’s done with Health Blog Helper really inspired me to round up the girls to get Hollaback Health going.
Beyond that, HBH is a huge resource with tools that can benefit health bloggers (and any bloggers really). Here are some of my favorite posts:
- Getting your own domain name and becoming self-hosted. Learning to do this was a huge turning point for me professionally; I now create new Web sites at the drop of a hat.
- The best plug-ins. Downloading a simple SEO plug-in made a huge difference in how much traffic I get. Huge.
- Writing “home run posts.” Matt posts a lot about creating good content, and this post really sums it up. “Home run posts” are the posts that separate your blog from the “oatmeal parade” that so many blogs have become.
- Taking better food photos. No, it doesn’t have to look like Gourmet magazine but the better your pics, the better your blog looks. Just knowing these basic tips is super important. (It took me a couple months of blogging to learn the #1 No Flash rule! And surprise, surprise — I learned it from Health Blog Helper.)
I’ve also done some guest posts over there!
- All about the “vlog.” I definitely made my mark in the health blogging world by starting Shed Theater and I feel compelled to get other bloggers to give video a try!
- Making shameless self-promotion a little less shameless. If you’re going to write great content, you need to take pride in it and promote
- Using StumbleUpon Ads. A good way to spread the word if your blog has good content but not a lot of readers.
From tech stuff (even the smallest things can add up to big changes on your blog!) to ideas on how to create better content (great for people who often struggle to post often or come up with new ideas) this is one of the most useful resources I’ve seen for health bloggers yet. I highly recommend all health bloggers spend some time there; there are great tips on it that can help us all!
