Alexa Blog Ranking
286,105
Instagram Following
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Twitter Following
13.2K
Youtube Following
28.8K
First and foremost, Jason is a man in love with all things running and second – a highly successful blogger.
Jason is virtual running coach for thousands. With his blog, YouTube channel and podcast series, Jason has built up an audience who are passionate about improving their running through injury prevention and strength.
Strength Running.com is a powerhouse of resources and Jason was kind enough to sit down with us and talk about how he built up his mini-empire and how blogging changed his life.
Table of Contents
Case Study
How did Jason Fitzgerald get started blogging? 🏃♂️
Jason was always interested in running; competing in high school, college level and carrying on after college, getting into longer distances.
However, minor disaster struck when Jason ended up off the track for 6 months after getting injured after his first marathon.
It was this moment that made him realise he had to change the way he was training, how he approached recovery and basically his whole approach to running. That process, learning and evolution is what lead to the start of strength running in 2010.
The goal was clear: Jason wanted to create a site which would help typical adult recreational runners get access to the same information & techniques that the best of the sport were using.
And so he set about it, diligently creating detailed and comprehensive content; a journey that would lead Jason to quit his 9-5 job as a government contractor and turn his passion into a full-time income.
Here are some thoughts about how you can do the same:
Jason’s Framework to Create Top Quality Content 🧮
We often talk about the importance of writing compelling content for your audience. From the beginning, Jason took a very methodical approach to writing for his blog – and this has paid off in spades.
To help his content stand out from the crowd [LINK – Make your blog stand out from the crowd short summary post of Ed, Jason, Noah etc. on creating great content**]**, Jason focused on two things:
Consistency, consistency, consistency.
The truth is, Jason says “most blogs fizzle out over time, people just aren’t consistent enough”.
However – this presents an opportunity for those who are willing to put in the work
Jason made a pact with himself that whatever happened; whether it was his Birthday or the day before his wedding, he committed to putting out two blog posts a week.
Quality & Relevance
Having been in the running world for so long Jason had a good handle on what runners cared about and what would be relevant to them.
“Only focus on content that means something to your audience and make sure you do it better than anyone else”.
Jason wrote posts which were comprehensive, meticulously well researched and just frankly – better than what else was out there. If you want to be noticed, you have to do the same, put in the work, write better content.
How to Network and Build an Audience for Your Blog 🕸️
As we wrote in our case study of Ed Latimore (read that here) contrary to what you might expect, life in the blogging world, is just as much ‘who you know, not what you know’ as normal life.
Jason has some great advice for networking, meeting other bloggers and helping grow each others’ audiences.
In a nutshell, Jason says:
“be a supporter of people’s work you are a fan of”
Give your audience a variety of experiences, give a backlink to them (if you don’t know what this means read our into to SEO guide: here), bring attention to them and support their work.
One super simple way of doing this is – ’roundup posts’. Simply take what you’ve been reading the last week, find the best bits that are high quality and relevant for your audience, and put it in a post. Give them a backlink, send it out to your email list – #boom
If you don’t have an email list for your blog – you need one. Read this ➡️LINK: How to build an email list for your blog from scratch
“social media is a great way of opening up yourself to serendipity”
Get on twitter, interact with the people you aspire to be, but don’t ask for anything, be helpful and interested. You might be surprised what comes your way if you do. Twitter is a fantastic platform for connecting with people, sharing ideas and Jason couldn’t recommend it enough.
Email Marketing 📧
Jason is a big believer in email marketing. “The money is in the list, simple as” Jason says, “you basically have a group of people who have decided that they want to hear from you” – in the blogging world that is such a valuable thing, it cannot be stated enough.
Case in point – Jason’s email opt-in is front and centre on the StrengthRunning.com homepage.
More than that, Jason believes that if you want to run your blog as a business – you have to learn copywriting. Learn to write emails that are compelling, emails that make you money.
Not only that, Jason believes that it is important to have a channel that you, yourself actually own.
Podcast, YouTube – all that jazz 🎷
Although it can flourish into a great business, blogging should be enjoyable – and can be a great way to branch out into other forms of content.
Jason has a great podcast, you can listen to that here at https://strengthrunning.com/podcast/ & he has clocked up nearly 30,000 subscibers on his YouTube channel (link).
YouTube is the 2nd biggest search engine on the planet, and if you have the gift of appearing on camera you can drive a lot of people to your blog this way. Likewise with a podcast:
“Having a podcast is frankly just an amazing way to meet people”
Podcasting is one of Jason’s favourite mediums and works great as an interview format.
Hold on… Blogging, YouTube & Podcasts – this sounds like a massive headache 🤯
Do not fear, Jason has a plan for that, he breaks it down here:
You can combine blogging, YouTube, having a podcast all together – saving you time and helping you create tonnes of content.
Let’s take you through an example.
Imagine you interview someone for your blog:
🎥 Film the interview – 💥boom, a long-form YouTube video just appeared.
🎞️ Cut the best bits into bitesized chunks (say 2 minutes) – great content for social media or for your list.
🎙️Record an audio intro and outro – congratulations, you know have a podcast episode.
✍️Write a post – publish it to your blog
4 pieces of content from one, simple right?
What about the lifestyle of blogging? 🏖️
Jason loves the lifestyle running Strength Running has afforded him. Working in his old 9-5, where he would work his ass off all year for a 4% raise just didn’t cut it for him, it wasn’t exciting or motivating like blogging is.
Jason says:
“Having more flexibility and control of your income is priceless – knowing that if you do certain things, your income will go up and that you’re in the driving seat, that’s what matters to me”
We couldn’t have put it better ourselves Jason.
Jason has been invited to give speeches about at top companies, sat on panels, interviewed top performers on his podcast not to mention; with all this flexibility Jason has just been able to live a lifestyle that wouldn’t have been possible with his old job. Whether it’s taking a three month trip abroad with his wife or having more time and flexibility to look after his three kids. The hard work pays off in the end.
Check out Jason’s Blog here
You can follow him on twitter here
Subscribe to his YouTube here
and catch the strength running podcast here
