7 Reasons You Should Start a Blog

I totally forgot about my own blog’s birthday earlier this month! Oops.

I started Kayla in the City a little over 4 years ago as an outlet for my new found love of fitness. After reading a ton of fitness blogs, many of which I still follow and many of the bloggers I have now met, I decided to start my own blog documenting my attempt to lead a healthier life during my senior year of college. Working out had just become a part of my daily routine and I was starting to discover things like almond milk and coconut oil.

My goal was to inspire others to make simple, easy changes to their lifestyle. If I could do it, so could you. Four years later, making healthy approachable is still a top priority of mine for this bloggy blog. Naturally it’s grown into a bit more. At age 25 I look at health and fitness a bit more holistically and choose to write from that place more often than not now. It’s evolved into more of a “Girl Navigates The Real World” with a healthy lens, blog.

KITC has been a place for me to tell my own fitness journey, from training for my first 5K to running a freaken marathon. Since I started this blog, I became a certified personal trainer and acquired a handful of other fitness certifications. I graduated college, changed my job and my career goals (okay a few times) but at my core I’m still that girl dishing out advice on how to become a morning workout person and giving tips for joining gyms. Encouraging others to lead a healthy life is something I will always be passionate about.

In the beginning I was totally embarrassed and didn’t tell anyone I wrote a blog because of this weird stigma I assumed people had about bloggers. Growing up in the age of LiveJournal, blogging felt incredibly vulnerable. While this isn’t my personal diary, it’s still a place where I candidly share details about my life. Slowly, I became more and more comfortable talking about it and sharing it with both friends and strangers.

When I started this blog senior year of college, I had no idea just how big an impact it would have on my life. This blog got me the job that changed my life. This blog has given me so many opportunities to work with awesome brands and attend amazing events. This blog has connected me with so many incredible people that share my love of fitness.

Instead of talking about what I’ve learned over the past 4 years, I’m going to tell you why you should start a blog. Because honestly, it’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

7 Reasons to Start A Blog

1. It’s a place to share your passion. My friends, boyfriend and family were sick of hearing me talk about fitness. We get it, you like working out Kayla. I now have my own little corner of the internet where I do just that, talk about fitness, and get to have a conversation with others that share this passion.

Writing a blog gives you the space to share what you’re passionate about, whether it’s makeup, fashion or fitness like yours truly.

2. It could lead to a job. I’m living proof that you can get a job thanks to social media and blogging. Fun fact, I didn’t apply to my job at ClassPass all those years ago, they scouted me out thanks to my twitter and this here blog.

While blogging may not always lead directly to someone reaching out to you for a job opening, it definitely helps open doors. Blogging allows you to be an influential voice about whatever you love, in my case fitness. The skills and connections I’ve gotten from blogging has made aspects of my current marketing position much easier.

3. You’ll learn an insane number of random but marketable skills. When I started blogging I had no idea what SEO was or how to navigate google analytics… I was a drama major, they don’t teach you that in theater school. It’s kind of crazy the number of random skills I’ve acquired thanks to blogging– basic SEO, google analytics, designing graphics on photoshop, basic photo editing, social media hacks, and more. Though, some bloggers and businesses might go for digital marketing companies similar to web optimizers since they can provide quality services related to SEO, CRO, Google ads, Tiktok ads, Instagram profile management, etc. But I wanted to learn everything by myself. Stubborn, that’s me!! Anyways, it led to me getting first-hand experience running a mini business that requires interacting with a ton of other companies in a professional manner.

Moreover, other than basic blogging, you can also get to learn new things on social media, like how to attract clients to your business, especially the companies that sell products. For instance, blogging for product-based businesses means sharing special features such as packaging style, unboxing of a custom mailer box, additional vouchers, gift cards, discounts, gifts, etc. After learning all these, my resume isn’t looking too shabby these days, even though I have no official training in business or digital marketing.

I had no idea that I would learn all of those things and thought writing was all there was to it. I’ve learned “on-the-job” and am still learning a ton every day thanks to blogging.

4. It’s a [creative] outlet. Okay, during the early days I was certainly getting my fair share of creativity as a theater major, but I needed a creative outlet that wasn’t related to theater. As my career has moved away from the arts, maintaining my blog and writing daily has helped me to still feel creative, even when my job hasn’t always been. If you are planning to start a blog, before you forward with writing stuff for it, consider designing an appealing and inviting website interface. As a writer, you may have a talent for writing quality content, but if you can’t understand how to design a website, you contact a professional website designing company similar to Radiant Elephant to create and launch your dream blog. Once things are in place, you can use your hobby to create a living out of it.

5. The business experience. Whether or not you’re making a ton of money, running a blog also means you’re running a mini business. I’m constantly emailing companies that reach out to me or I reach out to them. Every day I’m making decisions about whether or not to partner with a certain brand and if it’s a good fit for my blog. Even though sales are not my strongest suit, the blogging world has taught me how to negotiate in a professional setting. I learned early on that you can’t say yes to everything that comes your way. Moreover, blogging could also help you make money, for instance, if you are running a fitness blog, you can earn a side income by doing sponsorship blogs, collaborating with other businesses and bloggers, launching products as well as selling them on your blog site. You can additionally look for ideas on making money with a fitness blog to improve your revenue generation.

6. The free stuff. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that getting free stuff is awesome. It’s certainly a perk of blogging.

7. The friendships. Blogging has allowed me to connect with a ton of amazing people. Making friends over the internet sounds really creepy, but I swear it’s not. It’s been exciting over the years to meet bloggers I’ve been a huge fan of and to meet people face to face that I’ve had an online friendship with.

Top 5 Posts Of All Time

Sweat Like the Rich (for dirt cheap)

My First Bikram Yoga Class

Traditional Gym vs. Boutique Fitness

30/60/90 Class Review

I didn’t workout for 2 weeks and here’s what happened…

And one last thing… thank you for coming along for the journey. I’m happy I didn’t ditch this blog like I ditched so many others in the past.