If you have a flair for the written word and a passion for a sport, it makes complete sense to combine those two skills and launch your very own sports blog. Blogging has simply exploded in popularity in the last decade, as content management systems have made it easier than ever to create individual websites for bloggers to voice their opinions and break exclusive stories that other reporters and journalists may not be able to.
As a result, sports blogging has not just become a fun pastime for some, it has even become a career for those that get it right.
With hundreds of millions of blogs now circulating the internet, it can be hard to cut through the noise, but by doing things properly and showcasing your knowledge and personality on screen you can attract thousands of visitors that can help to monetize your website.
If you’ve always fancied becoming a sports blogger, this guide will give you top tips on how to make your mark and turn a much-loved hobby into a potential second income.
It’s important not to spread yourself too thin on the ground.
If you’re a soccer fan, don’t choose to write a blog dedicated to the entire English Premier League.
With 20 teams to cover, this would be virtually impossible to maintain alongside your studies or day job.
Don’t be afraid to narrow down your focus and write about a specific team instead.
You might be fearful that this will reduce your potential traffic, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Say you choose to write about Manchester United instead of the entire English Premier League.
Your articles will still feature EPL-related content, which could see it rank for EPL-related keywords and search terms as well as Manchester United keywords.
Plus, it’s always better to own your niche than to be one of many swimming in a sea of ‘niche noise’.
The biggest issue among most sports bloggers is maintaining the frequency of their articles.
So many start out with good intentions to write daily content to entice Google’s search engine bots to your blog more frequently.
However, too few manage to keep up with their intended output, which leads to frustration and the eventual death of the blog.
Sure, you want to be putting out new and interesting sports content on a regular basis, but not to the detriment of your enjoyment writing it.
Build your own posting schedule that will help to provide inspiration for future articles and structure for your article frequency.
If the sports team you cover plays at weekends, pencil in a round-up article on a Monday to discuss the comings and goings and the fall-out from the game.
It all helps to build the necessary familiarity and consistency that readers want from their most trusted bloggers.
It’s important to accept that you’re not going to get instant gratification or exposure after the first couple of weeks of blogging.
Successful sports bloggers commit to it as a long-term process, building authority and readerships over several months, even years.
Once you’ve accepted that you won’t get rich from sports blogging overnight, it’s far easier to get into the nuts and bolts of what you want to write about.
If you want to build instant traction for your blog from day one, social media is most certainly your best friend.
Promote all of your initial articles via Facebook and Twitter, making sure to include suitable hashtags relevant to your sports niche e.g. a sports club’s hashtag or the hashtag commonly used by supporters of a sports team on social media.
It’s also a good idea to find other ‘influencers’ within your niche to share your blog content with on social media.
Incorporate their social handles within tweets and Facebook posts to encourage them to take a look and, hopefully, share it with their own followers.
It’s the best way to build authority and exposure simultaneously without having to spend a cent.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of ensuring web pages are visible for relevant terms and keywords a target user will input into a search engine.
If you chose to use WordPress for your sports blog, as so many frequently do, it’s possible to download a handy plugin to do the hard work for you.
WordPress SEO by Yoast creates immediate fields in the back end of WordPress for you to enter meta titles and meta descriptions for all landing pages.
It will even inform you how well-optimized each individual page is for key search terms.
You should also look to register your website with Google and Bing.
This is an entirely free process, but it helps to put your new blog on the radar of bots operated by Google and Bing that crawl the internet in search of high-quality, relevant content.
You could start by signing up to affiliate programs from relevant organisations.
For example, sportsbooks tend to offer betting promotions to entice new customer sign-ups.
You may be able to promote some of these offers and get commission from the sportsbooks when users sign up.
Google AdSense is still a tried and trusted way to monetize your sports blog.
Integrate Adsense ads into your blog and you’ll be able to feature an array of advertisements that are targeted to what your visitors have previously searched for in Google.
This is known as re-targeting.
You could, of course, aim to sell your blog to the highest bidder.
Typically, blogs will be in-demand if they are getting five to six-figure monthly visitors, as this is a huge demographic to advertise and reach out to.
Ultimately, the world is your oyster once you become a fully-fledged sports blogger.
It’s a hugely fulfilling pastime and could become a direct pathway into full-time journalism, with websites and newspapers regularly scouring the web for talented writers in their respective fields.
Good luck!
If you have any question, feel free to ask via comments
If you find this article interesting, don’t forget to share it with your friends and family.
Why?
Because, Sharing is Caring!
Don't forget to like us FB and join the eAskme newsletter to stay tuned with us.
As a result, sports blogging has not just become a fun pastime for some, it has even become a career for those that get it right.
 |
| Top tips to become a successful sports blogger: eAskme |
With hundreds of millions of blogs now circulating the internet, it can be hard to cut through the noise, but by doing things properly and showcasing your knowledge and personality on screen you can attract thousands of visitors that can help to monetize your website.
If you’ve always fancied becoming a sports blogger, this guide will give you top tips on how to make your mark and turn a much-loved hobby into a potential second income.
Choose your niche and stick with it
We’ve already discussed the explosion of blogs on the internet, but it’s important to reinforce the importance of choosing an angle or niche for your blog that sets you apart from the rest.It’s important not to spread yourself too thin on the ground.
If you’re a soccer fan, don’t choose to write a blog dedicated to the entire English Premier League.
With 20 teams to cover, this would be virtually impossible to maintain alongside your studies or day job.
Don’t be afraid to narrow down your focus and write about a specific team instead.
You might be fearful that this will reduce your potential traffic, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Say you choose to write about Manchester United instead of the entire English Premier League.
Your articles will still feature EPL-related content, which could see it rank for EPL-related keywords and search terms as well as Manchester United keywords.
Plus, it’s always better to own your niche than to be one of many swimming in a sea of ‘niche noise’.
Create a posting schedule to maintain article frequency
The biggest issue among most sports bloggers is maintaining the frequency of their articles.
So many start out with good intentions to write daily content to entice Google’s search engine bots to your blog more frequently.
However, too few manage to keep up with their intended output, which leads to frustration and the eventual death of the blog.
Sure, you want to be putting out new and interesting sports content on a regular basis, but not to the detriment of your enjoyment writing it.
Build your own posting schedule that will help to provide inspiration for future articles and structure for your article frequency.
If the sports team you cover plays at weekends, pencil in a round-up article on a Monday to discuss the comings and goings and the fall-out from the game.
It all helps to build the necessary familiarity and consistency that readers want from their most trusted bloggers.
It’s important to accept that you’re not going to get instant gratification or exposure after the first couple of weeks of blogging.
Successful sports bloggers commit to it as a long-term process, building authority and readerships over several months, even years.
Once you’ve accepted that you won’t get rich from sports blogging overnight, it’s far easier to get into the nuts and bolts of what you want to write about.
Social media is your best friend to gain exposure
As a brand-new website, it’s difficult for your website to rank in major search engines for the topics you are talking about.If you want to build instant traction for your blog from day one, social media is most certainly your best friend.
Promote all of your initial articles via Facebook and Twitter, making sure to include suitable hashtags relevant to your sports niche e.g. a sports club’s hashtag or the hashtag commonly used by supporters of a sports team on social media.
It’s also a good idea to find other ‘influencers’ within your niche to share your blog content with on social media.
Incorporate their social handles within tweets and Facebook posts to encourage them to take a look and, hopefully, share it with their own followers.
It’s the best way to build authority and exposure simultaneously without having to spend a cent.
Ensure your blog is suitably optimized for search engines
Once your sports blog is up and running, it’s important to optimize your blog’s web pages for major search engines such as Google and Bing.Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of ensuring web pages are visible for relevant terms and keywords a target user will input into a search engine.
If you chose to use WordPress for your sports blog, as so many frequently do, it’s possible to download a handy plugin to do the hard work for you.
WordPress SEO by Yoast creates immediate fields in the back end of WordPress for you to enter meta titles and meta descriptions for all landing pages.
It will even inform you how well-optimized each individual page is for key search terms.
You should also look to register your website with Google and Bing.
This is an entirely free process, but it helps to put your new blog on the radar of bots operated by Google and Bing that crawl the internet in search of high-quality, relevant content.
Useful ways to monetize your blog to get paid for your efforts
Once you have sustainable traffic flowing to and from your website, it may be possible to earn some money from your sports blogging.You could start by signing up to affiliate programs from relevant organisations.
For example, sportsbooks tend to offer betting promotions to entice new customer sign-ups.
You may be able to promote some of these offers and get commission from the sportsbooks when users sign up.
Google AdSense is still a tried and trusted way to monetize your sports blog.
Integrate Adsense ads into your blog and you’ll be able to feature an array of advertisements that are targeted to what your visitors have previously searched for in Google.
This is known as re-targeting.
You could, of course, aim to sell your blog to the highest bidder.
Typically, blogs will be in-demand if they are getting five to six-figure monthly visitors, as this is a huge demographic to advertise and reach out to.
Ultimately, the world is your oyster once you become a fully-fledged sports blogger.
It’s a hugely fulfilling pastime and could become a direct pathway into full-time journalism, with websites and newspapers regularly scouring the web for talented writers in their respective fields.
Good luck!
If you have any question, feel free to ask via comments
If you find this article interesting, don’t forget to share it with your friends and family.
Why?
Because, Sharing is Caring!
Don't forget to like us FB and join the eAskme newsletter to stay tuned with us.
