INTERVIEW: MEET BECKY FROM ART OF HEALTHY LIVING

Becky has been blogging for 5 years and is a member of the Guest Bloggers Wanted community (a place for UK lifestyle & parenting bloggers to find new collaborations & partnerships), I caught up with her to find out a bit about her blogging journey and pull out some tips and tricks about earning multiple income streams through blogging.

Hi Becky, nice to meet you! So, tell us, how long have you been blogging?

About 5 years now - gosh that’s gone so quickly! I started off doing a bit of writing for my husband who has his own SEO business, when the kids started school and I had a bit more time. Then it carried on from there and I realised how much potential there was in me writing for my own website.

Can you tell us about your blog Art Of Healthy Living and who it is for?

It’s very much a healthy lifestyle site, but one that takes the realistic stance of ‘everything in moderation’. I run, do weights and HIIT sessions, and I generally eat quite healthily, but I also love chocolate, crisps and Prosecco and am 100% unapologetic about it.

My site is for the vast number of women out there like me - and there’s lots of us! I’d say it’s generally women who are mums, aged between say 35 to 55. We know what we want and we’re not afraid to get it.

Were you a complete blogging beginner when you started Art Of Healthy Living?

I’ve always been interested in writing, but hadn’t actually blogged before this. As a child I loved writing and making books about my pets (I still have them!) and then it became me dream to be a journalist.

I worked in the advertising department of a National newspaper in London for a few years after University, with the hope of getting my foot in the door, but it didn’t turn out that way and I then became a stay at home mum once we’d moved back to the countryside and settled down.

What has Art Of Healthy Living given you in your life you didn’t have before?

I set out to help inspire and motivate as well as provide a support network for women, to show them that we’re all kind of just winging it at life and that none of us are perfect. Whether that be body positivity, how we raise our kids, in relation to any exercise we do, our thoughts and feelings about life in general.

​And the more I wrote the more it increased my own confidence in the process. It has given me a purpose and a role other than ‘just a’ mum, plus the independence and extra income is definitely an added bonus.

What three tools could you not run your blog without?

Trello - for lists, setting deadlines and just basically keeping my work life in order.
Yoast - a Wordpress add-on that helps me out with all my SEO
My phone - for pictures and just generally keeping on top of all things social media, which in turn helps promote and drive traffic to my website.

Name three inspirational bloggers you’ve met or discovered on your blogging journey and tell us why you chose to tell us about them.

I’ll be honest I don’t really go in for all this bloggers meeting bloggers malarky.

However, some that I follow and who I think are totally smashing it are Jenna Farmer from Bloglancer, Chessie King - what she has done for body positivity in young girls is just incredible, and Petra Kravos from Be Healthy Now for her extensive range of reviews.

What is your advice for writing great content on your blog?

For me it’s all about finding your unique voice and keeping that consistent throughout all of your posts. It needs to be honest, especially when it comes to an opinion piece or a review, and it needs to be interesting.

Ask yourself whether you would be interested in reading it? Can you hear yourself saying it when you read it back? If the answer is no to either or both of those questions then chances are it will be the same for your audience.

I write exactly how I speak, so if there’s a bit of slang in there, so what? It helps people see your true personality and if they like it, they are much more likely to remain loyal readers.

I know some people struggle to find their voice when writing and the only piece of advice I can offer is to hear what you want to write in your head and then jot it down word for word.

Then read it aloud to yourself and see how it sounds. We all have that voice in our heads, so it’s about translating it from head to written form. Practice is of course key, and the more you write in this way, the better at it you will get and it suddenly becomes very natural. 

What is your number one piece of advice for growing a loyal blog following? 

Similar to the above, but also posting regularly, which is easier than it sounds! I try to plan ahead by a couple of weeks so that I can keep on top of things, but it does get harder the more work you get - not that I’m complaining!

I use Trello to help me plan out my schedule and also to keep track of any ideas I might randomly have for posts. This is my full time job, but I do have to fit it around school hours, so I think the knowledge that I only have so many hours in the day is enough to keep me on it.

Make sure to also share as much as possible on your social media channels as this can drive a lot of traffic your way and it is much easier to respond to comments and interact with your readers on there.

And finally, we would love to know how you have monetized Art Of Healthy Living and what you would say is the best way to make money blogging.

It’s a mixture really. Some of my money comes through link building, others through guest posts, but where the good money lies is when I write the content myself - I can definitely charge more for this and it generally does much better than articles that have been pre-written by a company or guest poster.

Since working on my own site, I have also had content writing opportunities arise for other company websites - they have seen my writing style and liked it and so asked me to write content for their landing pages.

​I have also edited a work of fiction as a consequence of someone seeing my own writing. It’s surprising what’s out there!