Posts Tagged ‘fitbloggin’

Top Ten Things To Take Away From The Fitbloggin Conference: Part Two

Check out part one of my Fitbloggin conference insights and the blog tips I picked up!

Number Six: Free samples rock! And we should utilize those relationships. We received so much swag this weekend. I’m still impressed with myself that I managed to fit it all into my two carry on bags to bring it all home. As excited as getting a bunch of free stuff makes me, the thought that companies out there exist that support bloggers excites me even more. So many brands worked to help support this conference. That just shows me that they are open to making connections with bloggers. Knowing that, I fully intend to keep building relationships with these brands in the future and value their products even more than I did before.

iBeaniAttune FoodsChoose Cherries WPRawl

ZUMBA Fitness New Balanceegglands best

larabar Dr. Praeger's

The Laughing Cow Jump Sport
all images from the Fitbloggin Sponsors page

Number Seven: Know your goals. During the session on making your blog more professional, which I captured as a live blog, Ryan kept bringing up the importance of knowing the goals you have for your blog. It can be anything. It can range from wanting to inspire as little as one person to a platform for selling other resources you share to gaining more subscribers and page views. Once you know your goals, make sure you express it in what you present in your blog. Make the actions you hope those who come across your site take a predominant focus. For example, if you hope to gain subscribers, you should have subscription and follow options easily accessible on your site.

Number Eight: Have a passion so you can be willing to invest in your blog. Whether you view your blog as solely a hobby or as a potential source of income/opportunity, you invest in your blog.  It takes time and energy to share your thoughts with others. You need to find a niche you feel strongly about so you don’t experience burn out. Once again, the message of staying true to yourself prevails. Also, if you hope to move past simply blogging for yourself and ever strive to reach more readers, a monetary investment will likely come up – in the form of hosting, design, web tools, learning experiences, materials used (cameras or food for example) and more.

blogging requires passion and authority source

Number Nine: “Fit” doesn’t mean “no fun”. I certainly noticed that many of us in attendance really do try to live a life of balance. Everyone seemed to want to have an enjoyable time and not stress over things like food. Sure, we had numerous workouts we could choose to join on Friday. Sure, healthy and balanced meals appeared for our breakfasts, lunches, and snacks. Yet the focus still seemed to be on living life and soaking up all the time we had with each other. I hope to express on my blog that healthy living is fun and I sure appreciated feeling that same mindset surround me this weekend.

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image from my roomie Katie (with Heather and Alicia)

Number Ten: Your readers are the MOST important. I wanted to save the best for last. I cannot cannot cannot even begin to express my gratitude for the relationships I have developed with everyone who reads my little musings on FFF. I would not have a reason to give so much of myself to this blog without you. I truly believe a blog is only as good as its readers. I don’t mean that in the sense of the number of readers, page views, or comments at ALL. I mean that in the sense of the quality of relationships and community built from you visiting this site. FFF would be nothing without you! Any blog would be nothing without support from others. Never lose sight of yourself in blogging, but also never forget the people who help make it happen – readers!

What ways do you invest in your blog? Does passion reflect in a person’s blog?

Posted by on May 23rd, 2011 36 Comments

Top Ten Things To Take Away From The Fitbloggin ‘11 Conference: Part One

And just like that…the Fitbloggin’ conference ends. It seems a little surreal that it has now come and gone. Before sharing a final recap of the conference, I hoped to pass along things I took away from the conference which I believe had the most value. You know, besides numerous bags of Popchips, many Larabars, box of Fiber One cereal, New Balance sneakers, workout clothes, food scale, and plethora of coupons for free food. 😉

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Number One: Be yourself. I think every single panel discussion or conference session touched on the importance of simply being yourself as you blog. We all have such unique voices, experiences, insights, and strengths. We need to trust those and tap into those as our resources to accomplish anything as a blogger – no matter our blogging goals. You can’t reach an audience when you come across as fake or forced.

Number Two: It doesn’t hurt to ask…if you have a relationship. If you have a brand with whom you hope to work, would like to work with another blogger on something like a guest post, or hope to make a connection with other media, you must put yourself out there. Make certain you first build up relationships through blogs, Twitter, Facebook, community chats, or other platforms. Then, kindness and a previous relationship can go a long way in leading to a natural progression of other opportunities to join forces in the future. In blogging, we are a network. Go ahead and use it!

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The nifty Poken we received to pass along each other’s social media with a simple tap.

Number Three: Links Matter. The discussion Matt from The No Meat Athlete did on SEO impressed me so much. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) can overwhelm many of us, myself included. He broke it down into a basic note – links matter. Below I listed a very few of the things he touched on. The Fitbloggin site has a full recap on his SEO tips.

  • The anchor text (text that makes up the link) is vital. For example, link to the words “running songs” over “my post”.
  • Have friends share links, tweets, etc to build up links to your site and SEO.
  • Have a highly visible offline appearance in order to get people searching your blog.
  • Focus the use of “keywords” in your title.
  • Focus links around keywords early on in your posts and then use as appropriate.
  • Most importantly - Make content awesome so people share it and link to it.

Number Four: It is not a competition. When chatting with the other bloggers in attendance, a common theme came up a lot in the beginning. Many of us felt a bit overwhelmed or nervous about meeting so many people. Would there be a certain level of judgment? Would there be any unwelcoming bloggers? I quickly learned that there is space for everyone at these conferences – no matter the size of your blog, your current level of fitness, or what you write about as your focus. The blogging world truly is a network where we share similar passions and interests. I felt that network in action this past weekend.

Number Five: Trampolines give a killer workout. Hey – we are discussing a fitness blogging conference! Out of all the loads of fitness activities from Friday morning, the trampoline class impressed me most. Dare I say even more than my beloved Cathe? Those things have my butt STILL sore! You would think bouncing around on something seemingly made for kids would come easy. Oh, no. I think this needs to become the new craze in gyms. Seriously. Thanks Jump Sport for the fun!

Well, I got a lot out of the conference and don’t want to skimp on passing these insights along to you all. So look for part two on this post later this afternoon!

  • What’s a workout you’ve done that was surprisingly hard?
  • Is it difficult for you to reach out and ask about certain things?

Posted by on May 23rd, 2011 47 Comments

 

 
Catch Up With Recent Posts

Announcement Time

Posted: November 23, 2011 at 7:47 am

Well, I have had a whirlwind of a few weeks over here. I missed all of you so much! I can’t express enough gratitude for your patience while I got some important things sorted out. Some scary things. Are you ready for the announcement? Here goes! I will no longer be blogging at Faith Fitness […]

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Self-Love Reflection: The Road Not Taken

Posted: November 20, 2011 at 11:47 am

Hello FFF readers! Nice to meet ya! My name is Carissa and my husband and I blog at Fit2Flex.  Well, I blog…he consults! We are both certified personal trainers with a passion for healthy, active living and clean eating.  I am also studying to become a registered dietitian, a race announcer, and a runner.  Stop […]

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Healthier Eating For Kids

Posted: November 19, 2011 at 10:56 am

Thanks to Plum Organics for sponsoring my post about tips for baby feeding magic. What if you let baby choose what’s for dinner? Check out their cute "Quest for Yum!" video and see what happens! As parents, we want the best for our children. We help them to feel loved. We strive to teach them […]

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Announcement

Posted: November 17, 2011 at 3:36 pm

Hey, everyone! I wanted to pop in and say I am working on some new and exciting changes.  As a result,I may not be posting as much during the coming week.  Please stay tuned for the big announcement! Love you all! And still feel free to find me on Twitter and Facebook for the time […]

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Where The Change Happens

Posted: November 16, 2011 at 7:54 am

It’s kind of funny. I become a certified personal trainer and the first workouts I turn to this week come from someone else. The book came in for me at the library last week and, after flipping through it, I couldn’t wait to give the circuits a go. Making The Cut includes a lot of […]

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From Beginning To End

Posted: November 15, 2011 at 11:53 am

Good morning! First off, thanks for the many congrats yesterday. Love you all bunches for the tons of support you have given me in so many things this year. I hope I can return a little bit of that love through this here blog as well. So yesterday I had my first parent-teacher “conference” for […]

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