Blogging Tips for Beginners: the top ten and a bonus tip!

Your website and how to start blogging

As a yoga teacher, I’m sure you’ve realized by now how important it is to have your own website. It is the center of your communication with your students, especially through blogging. You can use it to share useful information and keep them informed about your offerings. Your website conveys your authentic message to your audience and enables the students who are interested in your teaching to find you.

I’m sure you also realize how important it is to have your website active and up to date. Google requires this to send you traffic, and your students require this as well to stay in touch and let you become a part of their lives. If you want them to embrace you and let you become a daily habit, you need to keep offering fresh and valuable content.

You want to keep in touch and facilitate connection. However writing a blog post isn’t always easy, especially after the initial enthusiasm. Blog posts need to be at least 500 words long, and they need to offer information that is useful and, of course, easy to read. Publishing them also needs to be consistent. At least once a month, ideally once every week. And that’s not easy to maintain.

Tips on how to start blogging successfully

1. Treat your blog like your yoga practice

When you start your blog, it’s best to treat it like your yoga practice. Blogging is a journey, just like your yoga. You will discover things as you practice and grow. Just remember that it doesn’t have to be perfect at the beginning. With consistency and dedication your blog—just like your practice—will thrive.

2. Find your unique voice

As you write your blog, make sure to use your own unique voice and be true to yourself. According to some experts, it’s not that much about what you say, but how you say it. It’s about your voice. Be you, and remember people follow people. Talk to them on a personal level.

3. Take your time

Leading from the previous point, take your time to find our voice. Keep writing, keep sharing, and things will come more naturally to you. Start making a list of topics so that you always have something to write about, and just keep at it. People don’t expect you to be a magnificent writer. They just want you to give them your valuable insights.

4. Catchy headlines are everything

I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that unless people are enticed by the headline they are not going to click on it and read the rest. Even if the body of your blog post is the most amazing piece of writing, if the headline isn’t catchy and inviting and intriguing, people are not going to find that out. Common catchy headlines include

i. How to _________
ii. The best way to _______
iii. Ask a question like: Are you ready to ______
iv. What is the best way to ___________

I’m sure you get the idea. Make them intriguing, so readers are compelled to find out what you are talking about.

5. Keep it short

Don’t worry about writing too much. The absolute minimum is about 300 words, but aim for 600. You want your content to cover the topic without becoming tiresome. Present one single idea at a time, and do so beautifully, with an introduction and a conclusion. Don’t go overboard, and remember to ask yourself: Will someone want to send this to a friend? If the answer is yes, you are on the right track.

6. Make sure you niche down and write for your tribe

As a member of your tribe, I’m sure you can understand their pain points and their way of thinking. This will guide you on what will resonate with them. Test topics in class or on your social media to nail the subject people really care about. Here you can find a useful post about Niching Down [add link] and how it can help you.

7. Be yourself

As an enlightened yoga teacher, you have a lot of thoughts, opinions, and ideas about yoga and all things related. Start writing and the ideas will come. You can write about the perfect yoga gear, your ideal class, or your experience at a workshop or a retreat. Even if your students haven’t asked about it, if something is close to your heart and you feel it is relevant, write about it.

8. Get ideas from your students

You can write about issues that concern your students, the topics they talk about in class, and the questions they ask you. Keep in mind that the overarching theme must always be yoga. You can also write about the books they read and the comments they post on social media.

9. Show love and appreciation to your followers

Don’t forget to show appreciation to your readers. Talk to them through your blogs, show how much you value them, ask them to reply or comment, and share their own experiences. Exciting stories and blog posts may come from this. Remember they only read your content because it has value for them.

10. Don’t be afraid to share your knowledge

Don’t be afraid to share ideas about your classes and your teaching style. A lot of bloggers want to keep some stuff their secret, but in the world of the Internet, there is no such thing as secrets. People can access all sorts of information at all times. So be honest, authentic, and open about your yoga. This will entice the right students to come to you.

Extra tip: Do some basic SEO

You have probably heard about SEO when you started your website, and your blog posts can also be Search Engine Optimized for better Google results. In simple terms, this means that you need to use the right keywords for your content to be found and indexed by the crawlers that categorize the information.

Technically, SEO can become quite exhausting, but for a small personal website like ours, all it takes is some attention to use the right words. If the content is created especially for your tribe, you are going to use the right words anyway—yoga, tribe, enlightenment, yoga class, etc. Just make sure you also add those words in your tags and the alt text for your images.

Wrapping up

Don’t forget that blogging, first and foremost, is supposed to be fun and a wonderful way to facilitate connection with your tribe. Once you have clarity, you will immediately know what you want to talk about. Here you can find a useful PDF about Finding Clarity. And here is a blog with some helpful information about Niching Down and talking to your very own tribe.

If you want to discuss blogging, hit reply and send me your thoughts. I’d love to connect and share ideas.

Talk to you again soon!