Do you enjoy sports? Would you be interested in writing for a sports blog? If so, you’ve come to the right place! Below, we will show you how to start a sports blog and earn money easily.
8 Steps to Start a Money-Making Sports Blog
1. Decide on What type of Sports Blog would you like to Start?
A website should cater to one specific topic. Sports is not a very broad topic. You can start a site about baseball, soccer, golf, tennis, or any sport. That’s what we did. We started a site called www.tensports.com. Our goal was simple – provide quality entertainment and information about ten sports.
To do so, we needed to find out where our target audience hung out online. We found out they were hanging out on social media. So we decided to make a Facebook app.
We highly suggest starting out with a niche where you already have an audience. For example, if you love soccer, start a soccer website. Or, if you’re passionate about fashion, start a fashion site. Your goal should be to build something people want to read.
2. Finding the Right Domain Name for your Sports Blog
Don’t ever give yourself an easy task. You should try to come up with something unique and memorable. A good rule of thumb is to avoid using.com domains because they’re already taken. Also, if you can think of a better keyword, try to include it in the URL instead of just the generic term “website”.
You should also consider the amount of traffic that your website receives. For example, if your site gets 10,000 visits per day then you would have to pay $ 7,000 per month just to sustain that level of traffic. However, if your site only receives 100 visitors per day, then you could expect to pay no more than $ 0.10 per visitor.
You’ll be able to register a free domain name if you use BlueHost.
3. Where to get Traffic to your Sports Blog
Content is the king! We strongly advise you to post at least 50 articles without thinking too much about SEO. Let at least traffic comes naturally from Google. Focus on creating high-grade content. If your posts get traffic from Google, then visitors will visit your website regularly.
You should also create pages for each social media site where you promote your content. You can then share them from there.
You don’t need to remember to create an email subscription list. If you can get 1,000 subscribers, it is estimated that 5–10 percent of them will be your customers. Make sure you choose either AWeber or Mailchimp for your email marketing service provider.
Commenters on other sports blogs often bring their own blogs to attention. Pete Cashmore, founder and editor of Mashable, did just that by commentating on other sites.
4. Choose the right platform to host your sports blog.
We don’t waste time discussing which CMS (content management system) to use, but rather focus on why WordPress is the best option for your needs.
You just have to choose a good web host that provides excellent customer support.
For newbies, we highly suggest using BlueHost. They provide a good page load speed for just $2.95 per month.
You can quickly set up a WordPress site using BlueHost.
5. Host your Sports Blog
You can save some cash by signing up at bluehost.com/revenueacceleration right now.
You can easily set up WordPress by following our detailed step-by‑step instructions for hosting and installation.
It’s now up to you to choose which plugin you want to use. If you decide to go for WordPress, then we highly suggest using WP Rocket (which is our top recommendation).
Explore WordPress themes that you believe would suit your needs. You will find a number of WordPress themes that can help you get started with your website. One theme we must suggest is ThemeForest. It offers tons of premium themes that are ready to download.
If you’re selling physical goods, install WooCommerce. It’s free.
6. Choosing a Theme for your Sports Blog
I am not saying that you should spend money on a theme just because it is free. But if you are serious about blogging, then it is always better to invest in something that suits your needs rather than settling for something that does not fit your requirements.
7. Start Writing Articles
Now is the time to begin writing articles related to your sport blog. You could write about post-game analysis, before-the-match forecasts, player profiles, commentary of an upcoming sporting event, and so on; and use some free and/or payed keyword researching tool to come up with fresh topic suggestions.
8. How to Make Money with Sports Blog
If you have a website already then you could start selling products directly to your audience via your site. For example if you run a fitness site then you might sell exercise equipment such as dumbbells, gym bags, yoga mats, weight plates, kettle bells, running shoes, etc.
You can also create a membership site where people pay a monthly fee to access training videos, ebooks, audio courses, online classes, live events, private coaching sessions, etc. Or you can offer paid advertising space on your site to companies who want to reach an active audience.
a) Affiliate Marketing
If you want to start an online business, there are lots of affiliate programs that let you sell others’ goods. You can get into health and fitness affiliate programs which are available for free on the Internet.
Read: How to start an affiliate marketing business
You can market goods sold on Amazon by linking them to your own website. In addition, you may also offer links to third party sites such as Ticketmaster, where you can promote tickets for sporting events.
Affiliate marketing is an excellent method for increasing traffic to your site. However, make sure that you only link to relevant sites, otherwise you could end up promoting something that doesn’t match with your niche.
b) Google Adsense
After publishing some articles, you can submit them to Google AdSense. If accepted, Google AdSense will begin placing ads on your site. Many bloggers earn five figures per month from Google AdSense alone.
c) Sell Ad Space
If you want to advertise online for free, there are websites like BuySellerAds where they’ll take a cut of every ad sold through their site. Alternatively, if you’re willing to pay for ads, you can approach advertising companies directly.
There are plenty more things you can do besides just writing for free. You could write an e-book, create a paid subscription service, sell merchandize, sponsor and review content, etc. As your site grows a lot of different opportunities will open up to you.
“If you encounter an obstacle, don’t give up. Work around it, figure out how to get past it, or go through it.” Michael Jordan
We hope this post inspires you to start your own money-earning sports blogging business. One day, you might be asked to write guest posts for other bloggers or maybe even get an invitation to speak at conferences. So explore and see the endless opportunities ahead.
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