YMCA facilities thrive on community, whether it’s online or off. Each YMCA establishment maintains their own website and on these websites, you can find lots of useful information pertaining to schedules and events. On some local YMCA sites, you can even find a tailored blog section.
These YMCA blogs are specifically targeted to interest the people within their own communities, so content may vary from site to site. In fact, some YMCA sites don’t have a blog at all, which means that they may be missing out on some great opportunities to reach out to their community.
Why Your YMCA Should Blog
Blogging is a great way to share and provide information that people in your community are looking for. Whether it is about health or 
community events at your YMCA, blogging will keep your community up-to-date. This steady stream of good information will drive people to your website and hopefully to your center. Businesses that blog tend to reach more people than those that don’t.
A Good Blog has Varied & Informational Content
After looking through a few YMCA blogs what stood out the most to me was the varied content. Despite having various subjects ranging from member and leader success stories to health and technology, the blog posts all have an overlap that discusses how the YMCA helped the author or the community.
When a YMCA blog shares the stories of successful members and leaders, it’s often told in first-person by that individual. Writing a success blog from a first-person perspective gives an inspiring tone and may hit home with a lot more readers than if it was written in third-person.
What to Avoid When Blogging for Your YMCA
While looking through YMCA blogs, the first thing that you notice is the catchy titles. Don’t misunderstand—catchy titles are good, as they catch a reader’s eye and invite them to click on the blog post. What you want to avoid is titles that are catchy, but vague, which many of these blogs were guilty of.
While these kinds of titles do make the blog sound interesting, it can also be confuse readers as to what the blog is actually about. Try to aim for clean, straight forward titles that grab the essence of the content within in a clever way.
Another thing I noticed were big blocks of text, which did not make for easy reading. When writing a blog break up the text into manageable paragraphs. Breaking up long paragraphs and sentences will make it much easier for the reader to read as well as understand what they are reading.
Next Up: How to Make the Most of Your Gym’s Social Media Pages
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