A Weighty Subject: How to Write Content about Weight Loss

So, you’re ready to start an affiliate marketing site, complete with blog and informative articles. You’ve even decided on a general topic: weight loss. After all, everyone wants to lose weight, right? Your site should make it into the Google Top Ten in no time flat. But weight loss is so broad a topic, that it’s hard to narrow down. By thinking of your readers’ needs however, you can create succinct content that delivers value and encourages click through.

Bariatric Surgery

Weight loss surgery, whether traditional gastric bypass or the less invasive “lap band,” is becoming increasingly popular. Depending on the physician’s expertise and the patient’s willingness to undertake some difficult changes, it can also be quite successful. It’s also a goldmine for blog content. You can devote entries to types of procedures:  adjustable gastric banding, vertical banded gastroplasty, sleeve gastrectomy, Roux-en-Y bypass, and biliopancreatic diversion. Discuss the benefits (rapid weight loss, reversing or improving diabetes and heart disease); risks (clots, infections, surgical complications, death); and side effects (malnutrition, vomiting, gall bladder disease). Interview people who have had each type of surgery: what were their experiences? What has been difficult? How has it changed their lives? Interview physicians. Discussion cost and payment options. Help your readers make informed decisions, while at the same time adding original content and boosting your rankings.

Exercise

Everyone knows that successful weight loss involves eating less and exercising more. The trick is finding the time, the motivation, and a routine that’s affordable, maintainable, and halfway interesting. The eternal struggle between modern man and optional physical activity will provide you with endless blog fodder. Write about low-cost exercise options. Review various fitness chains. Discuss workout wear for the chic--and those for whom it’s less than flattering. Write your own exercise diary--and record others’ attempts. Do computer games really lead to weight loss?  Should you go with cardio, weights, pilates or yoga? How can a person add exercise when simply bending down to tie her shoes leaves her out of breath? Is it possible to create an exercise routine when you have four children under four? When you have a sixty hour work week? When you’re disabled? When you’re sixty-five? Your readers need to know, and will return to your site over and over again to find out.

Diet

Again, everyone “knows” the answer: make healthy changes. More fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and fiber. Less refined carbohydrates, artificial additives, dehydrogenated oils, other fats and sugars. Fast food is the devil. Or is it? Even when we know our lives depend on it, making dietary changes is difficult. You can use your blog and article content to keep readers up to date on the latest studies on nutrition and weight loss, while at the same time encouraging them to make the small changes we know really do work. Chronicle your own attempts to give up sugared sodas, fries, or (horrors!) chocolate.  Experiment with popular (safe) diet fads; record your impressions and results. Discuss dangerous diets--and those which have proven to be beneficial. If you have the time or the funds, you can even try (and blog about) popular commercial weight loss programs. Do they work? Do they make weight loss easier? Harder? By mingling consumer information with nutrition science, you can keep your readers informed, inspired--and coming back.

Motivation

No matter whether a person chooses to lose weight through surgery, diet, exercise or a combination of all three, he’ll struggle with motivation. There comes a time when vegetables are not as satisfying as chips. Where one’s sorrows cry out for a tub of ice cream, or inhaling a package of cookies really does keep family harmony. The challenges of life make it hard to stay motivated. As a result, most people gain back the weight they make such great efforts to lose, and eventually they stop trying. In your site content, you can explore the reasons why people struggle to lose weight and keep it off.

Interview people who have successfully maintained their weight loss; share their stories and methods to inspire your readers. Write about ways people can more effectively handle the emotional challenges in their lives--without medicating themselves with food. As with each weight loss topic listed here, pay attention to the comments and discussions each piece gathers; these are the subjects your readers care--and want to learn more--about.

In the end, you’ll probably find that, while you initially put up your weight-loss site to add to your income, you’re also providing a valuable service: helping readers improve their health. A quality site with attention to accuracy, quality content, and reader service does both.

About the Author: Leah Guinn is a freelance writer and mom, and spends a lot of time researching and writing on topics that would make other people faint in frustration.