Okay, so it’s our 100th blog post here at Hive Health Media. It’s a rather small milestone, but I thought that I would take the opportunity to thank all of our contributing authors who’ve helped so far.
Just three or four months ago, Doug and I started this
Like anything other endeavor that people put time and effort into, it all started with identifying a problem. In the health and fitness niche, it’s pretty hard to get anywhere with a single blog.
So many new blogs and splogs are cropping up every day in our niche as well as others. Throw into the mix savvy health and fitness related companies that market products online who now use blogs to increase their traffic, online magazines like Men’s Health, sites like Livestrong who hire innumerable writers, or the litany of mainstream media (MSM)sites like Яху Health, the New York Times, MSN Health, or others and it doesn’t take very long to realize that you can only get so far on your own.
Why do people actually read blogs?
Depending on the niche, there are several reasons why people read blogs not the least of which is that they do provide useful information and generate traffic from search queries. For avid sports fans, Newspapers alone often just can’t keep up with their fans esurient appetites for opinions and information. In some niches like blogs about blogging, there really aren’t any equivalent sources of information or competition from MSM sites.
Though MSM sites often provide topical and useful information, they’re not always written by people who are knowledgeable in their field, who are not afraid to offer an opinion, or who simply lack passion about the area that they write about. At the same time, they generally lack the same degree of social interaction.
Getting a little help from your friends…
Early on, I was fortunate to get some really good advice from Gail Gardner (). In an email conversation (if there is such a thing), Gail did provide some very effective advice. When you’re working in the online realm, you often interact with and collaborate with people who you’ve never actually met in real life. Gail’s sage advice boiled down to: give, give, and give some more, then see which people reciprocate or give back. It’s actually quite an effective way to gauge or find out who you like to work with.
Doug and I had a conversation early on and one of our mutual concerns with starting a blog network pertained to a core problem. People are happy to join these types of networks, but many just want to take what they can get from it without contributing. Just like in any other areas of life, if you surround yourself only with people who ‘take’ as opposed to reciprocate as well, you won’t get far very not to mention that it’ll just leave you feeling annoyed and frustrated.
Due in part to these reasons and other technical concerns, Doug and I have chosen to keep things fairly small until we’ve also worked out additional technical details.
Where do you find blogs to contribute or accept guest blog posts?
Thanks again to Ann Smarty’s excellent site, My Blog Guest. where you can join for free or get a premium membership for only about $10 per month.
Shoutout to our contributing authors!
At present we have 31 registered authors (excluding Doug and I), though not all have submitted articles yet.
The early birds…
Special thanks to Sean Dent from, Christopher Govendor from Diet and Nutrition TV, and Alexandra Williams from Fun and Fit who were the first three guests authors at our site.
Sean Dent has submitted 3 great articles for our site. still holds the record for the most Facebook likes at our site with 26.
Most published articles
Cole Watts from who’s already contributed 4 excellent articles. Sean Dent is 2nd with 3 published articles while both Jessy Troy from and Ken Weiss from have each published 2 articles.
Youngest author at our site!
Lukas Larrson fromwho’s a 15-year-old entrepreneur, blogger, and Parkour enthusiast. You can visit Lukas’ site to subscribe for Parkour and Freerunning instructional videos or purchase items from his store.
Most Гугл Buzz
Cole’s article about received the most Гугл Buzz among our guest blog posts with 19.
Most Facebook Likes
Alexandra’s entertaining article which addresses the question of, received the most Facebook likes with 26.
Most Tweets
For this, it looks like there’s currently a 3-way tie with 20 including Jessy Troy’s,:, and Lukas’.
Most Search Engine Traffic
John Smith’s article,, continues to pull more search traffic than most articles on our site. John works for a site that sells.
Much appreciated single post contributors:
- Rose Shapas from the
- Chris Alex from the blog,
- ***Dr. Gene Emmer from the (He also has one upcoming post)
- Jennie Excell who writes for the website
- Jon Rhodes from the
- Josy Spooner from, a women’s fashion site
- Samantha Rachael from the
- Tanya Todd from the blog
- Ted Begnoche from Eating Raw Benefits
- Rafael Olartecoechea from Blog
Thanks again to all off those who’ve helped to grow our site.
Shoutout to some cool people from Bloggerluv
Bloggerluv is a useful forum design to help people interact and discuss blogging issues. John Sullivan is the creator of the site and he also maintains his personal blog, Pot Politics (aka the greatest blog in the universe). Unlike other forums, the members at John’s site are a very interactive and helpful group.
One of the funniest tidbits of advice that I read at John’s blog was something about how people will link to your posts even if they aren’t that great if they like you. Definitely true!
In the health and fitness blogging niche, bloggers seem fairly fragmented and focused on just doing their own thing. We could certainly learn a fair amount about networking, working together, and just plain interacting from those who blog about blogging.
For those who’re looking at learning more about blogging itself
Though our фокус here at Hive Health Media is providing great health and fitness content, you can’t really aspire to run a great blog if you don’t know what you’re doing.
- Imran Yousef actually just wrote a recent post which highlights most of the blogs about blogging that I read titled,. It’s a great list if you’re interested in learning more about how to run your blog.
- From that list, I’ve already mentioned who’s a very well known SEO expert as well as who’s blog provides great information and resources about building an online presence.
- If you’re looking for website design work, Nile at does some cool design work.
- Ileane creates some excellent video tutorials for beginners at her site, Basic Blog Tips. Her recent example includes tips on.
- Tia at Biz Chicks blogs does a great job at capturing and writing about the emotional aspects of blogging. Her recent post should resonate with most of us,
- Hesham’s site, , covers pretty much most areas from social media, SEO, to web design. It’s a great example of a well-run multi-author blog.
- Lastly, why search the web for great blogging resources and tips when Kristi Hines at Kikolani does all of the work for you? Her running series,, covers every thing you may want to keep up to date on and more.
Well, that’s it for now, but don’t forget to connect with us on, Amplify, or.
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