How To Start A Mental Health Blog That Inspires Others

So you want to know how to start a mental health blog? Maybe you’ve been toying with the idea to create your own blog for a long time but you’ve never felt like you’ve had the time or courage to pull the trigger. This was the position I was still in just over a year ago.

I had so many worries like;

• What if no one likes my blog?
• What if no one reads my blog?
• How will I get people to visit my blog?
• Will my blog cost me money?
• How do you start a mental health blog that stands out?

I eventually got the courage to start my own mental health blog and write about my experiences. My aim was to share what had worked for me personally in the hopes that I could have a positive effect on at least one person.

Why Start A Mental Health Blog?

So why do you want to start a mental health blog? Maybe you want to help others and make a name for yourself whilst you’re at it. Here’s some of the benefits of starting a mental health blog in my experience;

• I’ve met some other awesome bloggers
• You can raise awareness for mental health
• You can build a community
• You can use your mental health blog to share your thoughts with likeminded people
• You can learn a new skill
• Blogging about mental health is therapeutic

There are so many benefits to starting a mental health blog. I really can’t think of any drawbacks. The best part about starting this blog was being able to learn a new skill and develop my writing as I’ve moved along. When I first started this blog I felt nervous because it seemed like there were so many things to learn.

Whilst there are a ton of things you need to learn, it’s really fun figuring them out for yourself.

Having a mental health blog of your own gives you space all to yourself to vent whenever you need to and at the same time help other people. You might be anxious about starting your own blog because of the reasons I mentioned above but you’ll only know if you can do it if you just start!

The best part is, it’s not as hard as you think, in fact, it’s pretty easy once you get going. Some people still thank that having a blog of your own is hard to get set up. These days, web hosts make the whole process super easy.

Should I Blog About My Mental Illness?

Again, it’s important to remember that not everyone will enjoy blogging. Not everyone wants to have their story out there for the world to see. If you’re suffering with anxiety it can be a little daunting to have your story in the public eye.

Blogging is basically keeping a public diary whilst you share your journey and advice as you go along.

Whilst blogging is easy once you get going, it is a big time investment. I know that some people will tell you that it isn’t but I can tell you that it is. Depending on how much time you put into your blog, it can sometimes feel like a part-time job.

However, that’s not a bad thing because the more you put into your blog, the more you get out of it! I’ve been blogging for a while now and it still amazes me how much there is to learn. Although I felt anxious at first I can honestly say it’s been a lot of fun and worth the time I’ve put into it!

Make sure you have a good connection

Of course, it goes without saying that you should have a good internet connection in order to update your blog with posts, content, etc rather than having to resort to using your mobile data, so you may wish to search for internet in my area to get yourself the best internet possible for your blogging venture.

When it comes to getting the actual blog up and runnning, you can start a mental health blog in just a few clicks. There are plenty of tutorials online about how to start a blog but I’ll give you the direct points.

How To Start A Mental Health Blog

You can start a mental health blog in a few clicks. There are lots of tutorials online about how to start a blog but I’ll give you the direct points.

The first thing you need to know is – you want your blog to be your own. You’ve probably seen those ads on TV for website builders like Wix which are great for people just wanting 2 or 3 page websites.

There’s 2 different kinds of websites;

• Self-hosted
• Non-self-hosted

Self-hosted means that you own all the content on your website. If you build your blog on Wix or places like Tumblr, you cannot access everything and there are limitations.

Non-self-hosted is exactly this. You’re essentially burrowing hosted space on their land.

I myself have used those not self-hosted sites in the past for various projects but I wouldn’t recommend building your mental health blog on those kinds of websites. There are 3 main reasons for this;

• You don’t fully own your website
• If their servers go down so does your site
• It’s difficult to move your blog somewhere else if you don’t like it.

What every great website is built on is wordpress.org. Not wordpress.com (this is not self-hosted) WordPress.org is the one you should be going with.

Another huge reason why you need a blog that is self-hosted is that you need to have wordpress.org’s plugins. These are essential to your site and how it performs. Plugins allow you to track visitors, put security in place and basically anything you can think of. Plugins give your site flexibility and options.

You can customize your site thanks to the many free plugins. Non-self-hosted websites don’t have plugin options.

When you run your blog on wordpress.org, you can access thousands of free and premium themes, allowing you to change the look and feel of your blog.

Literally Start Your Mental Health Blog In A Few Clicks

So, you need hosting for your site. A host is basically a place where all your files are kept in the backend. WordPress.org is the frontend – the place where you do your writing and editing.

My number one host is Bluehost. These guys are the favourites for most bloggers. This is mainly because they only charge you £3.95 for hosting each month.

The best part? They offer a one-click worpress.org install. What does this mean?

Well, years ago you used to have to try and install wordpress.org onto your host which was fiddly and time-consuming. It was almost impossible to do unless you were good at coding. Now you literally click on a button and the whole thing unfolds for you and you’re ready to start writing on your new blog.

You don’t even have to go to wordpress.org. Everything is done within Bluehost.

Once you go through this link, you simply need to type in your details. You’ll be taken to a page that looks like the below;

On the next page you can select the ‘basic plan’ that will cost you $3.95 a month for hosting. Once you select it you’ll then be able to choose your domain name. The basic plan gives you a free domain!

What is a domain name? – A domain name is the place where people find your website. You need one of these. For example, my domain name is projectenergise.com. Usually, these will cost you anywhere from $5 a year to $20 in my experience. Bluehost gives you one for free.

When choosing a name for your blog, try and keep it simple but memorable. If possible, try and keep it short too. You might get a message saying that the domain you’ve entered is in use because someone else is already using it. If this happens, keep trying until you find one that is not in use.

Once you’ve selected a domain name that is free you’ll be able to enter your payment information.

When you’re account is active, you’ll then need to do the one-click wordpress install. Navigate your dashboard down to this menu and click on one-click install.

This might take a few minutes but once it’s done you’ll be given a password to log into wordpress.org and you’ll be able to access your wordpress.org dashboard and create your first post!

When you’ve installed WordPress onto your host you’ll then have a ‘barebones’ site with the default theme. The theme is the way your site looks. You can change the way your site theme looks by navigating to the left-hand side menu and clicking ‘appearance – themes’.

There’s a lot to choose from but try not to get caught up here, you can always change your theme later.

Starting A Mental Health Blog

So, that’s the boring techy stuff out of the way. Now you’re going to want to think about what topic you’re going to build your blog around. Of course, you probably want to blog about mental health but you should consider writing about a narrow theme. If you’ve had experience with anxiety, write about that. If you’ve had experience with depression and overcoming it, write about that.

You want to ‘niche down’ as much as possible. A niche is basically a theme. The more laser targeted your theme, the better-qualified visitors you’ll get. I personally write mainly about anxiety and depression which means that I get visitors coming here to find out about overcoming these things.

The more personal your writing, the better. People love to hear about personal stories and people overcoming what they’re struggling with.

Think about what you have been through and make your first post on your new mental health blog personal. However, you don’t want to make it too personal as if you’re writing in a diary. By doing this, your writing can easily become a bit of a mish-mash and the search engines won’t understand where to put your website in their search results. Instead, aim to write in-depth, helpful and themed posts.

Here’s some mental health bloggers for some inspiration;

Anna Lisa Scott @ The Worry Games – Anna Lisa stands out as one of the best mental health bloggers because she writes really in-depth and useful posts. After suffering from anxiety herself, she writes in a way that is really relatable and sincere.

Karen @ Heysigmund – Karen writes much of her own content but also invites other mental health bloggers to contribute. Her site is very clean and is packed with mental health advice for children and adults alike.

How To Get Visitors To Your Mental Health Blog

Ah yes, visitors – the very lifeblood of your mental health blog. Without visitors, you’re talking into the abyss of the internet. But don’t worry, every blog starts from 0 visitors. I didn’t have anyone reading my blog for a long long time before people started to find me. The key is to get your name out there. Here’s how you can advertise your mental health blog to people;

• Share your posts in Facebook groups
• Build an account on Instagram and post useful images. You can leave a link to your mental health blog in the profile section
• Reach out to other mental health bloggers and ask to write for them and vice versa
• Become a member of relevant forums and share your work
• Write on blog submission sites and link back to your blog
• Join Pinterest and start pinning your best images that link back to your blog posts

There are so many ways to get visitors to your site and not every one will work for every blog. So mix it up and experiment. Some people’s blogs take off quite quick through luck, but most of the time it takes a long time and lots of work to make a blog successful.

The more blogs that are talking about the same thing, the harder it will be for people to find you, unless you put in more work than the other blogs. Nothing worthwhile was ever easy so keep writing!

The best way to get visitors to your mental health blog is to write really helpful and in-depth posts. Always try and put your reader first. Don’t think about the length of your posts, just write what’s on your mind whilst being mindful of the usefulness of your words. Whenever I write a post, I give it a clear theme and then go ahead and write. After I’m done, I’ll come back and edit it.

I’ll usually cut bits and move bits around for better clarity in my words.

Be Prepared To Spend Some Money

Blogging isn’t free. Sure, it can be, but that’s only on non-self-hosted sites that you don’t actually own yourself. Don’t let spending the money put you off though, hosting is dirt cheap these days and you could even end up making some money back on your blog.

I won’t go into how to make money on your blog because there’s plenty of tutorials out there. What you should be aiming to do first is to provide real value to your visitors in the form of great writing. If you can do this, you’ll be on the right track. Try and aim to write helpful posts at least once a week (as long as your writing doesn’t feel forced) so that people keep coming back to see what’s new on your mental health blog.

Once you’ve written them, share them on social media for some initial feedback. Blogging isn’t always easy but it certainly is fun to write about your personal experiences. Keep on sharing your posts and you’ll get momentum over time. Blogging is like anything else – the more you put in, the more you get out of it.

My Mental Health Blog Topics: What To Write About And How Often?

This is the question that most people who start a blog or even those who have been blogging for a long time will ask at some point. Sometimes I still bang my head on my keyboard because I really want to write but I don’t have a focused topic to talk about!

Usually, those are the times that I need to step back and leave it a few days or even a week. New bloggers sometimes feel as if they need to stick to a writing schedule to make their blog work well. Whilst there is some truth in that, I personally only write a blog post when I feel inspired by something or I really want to share something that I have learned. Otherwise, I feel like I’m writing for the sake of writing and nobody wants to do that.

Writing should be fun and when it comes to mental health, I think it’s important to be genuine and share a story or something you’re passionate about when you feel like it. The mental health subject itself needs people to talk about their real life stories from an organic place so forcing yourself to blog just doesn’t work.

For example, I’ve shared plenty of posts about anxiety and depression and each of those normally revolve around a time in my life. I don’t want to write generic stuff that you can find anywhere else, I want to write unique posts that people can take something away from.

So, in terms of mental health blogging topics, try and write about your own experiences because you’ll feel more satisfied and it may even relieve some stress when you do so.

Now you see how easy it is to start a mental health blog, don’t be so afraid to start! There are plenty of YouTube videos online if you get stuck. I myself have called on these many times before.

Do you have your own mental health blog? Leave a link in the comments below!