How to Start Your Own Athletic Blog
Interested in finding a way to combine your love of sports with your passion for talking to strangers on the Internet?
If so, you’ve likely already considered starting your own athletic blog. While, yes, anyone can create a blog, if you want yours to be successful, there are a few crucial things you need to know first.
Creating the perfect foundation for your sports blog will ensure that it steadily grows in readership — and that it starts making you serious money.
So, what do you need to get started?
Read on to find out.
Find Your Niche
With over 25% of people playing some kind of a sport, it’s safe to say that there are practically unlimited options out there when it comes to the topics you can write about on your athletic blog.
Plus, new sports are invented every day!
While all of this choice might initially seem like a good thing, if you want to grow and monetize your blog, you need to find your niche.
Translation: instead of writing about the latest developments in soccer, baseball, basketball, hockey, and weightlifting, pick one specific thing within the sports world to write about on your athletic blog.
For example, perhaps you’d like to create a blog solely dedicated to Olympic gold medalists. Perhaps, like TAC Sports, your blog and site will focus on young athletes and the programs available to them.
Not only will getting specific help you to establish yourself as an expert in your field of choice, it will also allow you to increase your site’s conversions, influence, and search engine rankings.
Focus on the Details
In life, lots of people will tell you not to sweat the small stuff.
However, when it comes to blogging, the small stuff is exactly what can make or break you.
First, decide on the perfect domain name for your blog. Make sure that it clearly communicates exactly what your athletic blog will cover. Now isn’t the time to keep it general or to dedicate your name to an inside joke between you and your two best friends.
Keep it relevant, professional, and short.
Also, be sure to consider the theme you choose for your website. It needs to be easy-to-read and consistent with the graphics, font, and navigation methods you choose.
The next thing to consider is your overall loading speed. Avoid using enormous images, pop-up ads, and autoplay features on your homepage if at all possible. Not only are these things annoying to your visitors, they’ll also seriously slow down your site.
Make sure that your blog can be read just as well on mobile devices as it can be on your desktop.
Finally, it’s time to start conducting thorough keyword research. Keywords are the terms and phrases that people type into their search engines when they’re looking for the content you post about on your blogs.
The more keywords you include in your content, the faster you’ll connect with your target market and see your blog rise in the search engine rankings.
Create a Content Schedule
When you first decide to start your athletic blog, you’re brimming with ideas. It seems like you can’t write fast enough, and you’re going full steam ahead when it comes to your social media accounts.
Before you start that next tweetstorm, however, take a breath.
Ask yourself if both the amount and the quality of the quality you’re currently pumping out is actually sustainable. Face the harsh reality that eventually, you’re going to run out of ideas — or simply the time to write them down.
This is why it’s so important to create a content schedule.
At the start of every month, take a few days to focus on generating as many content ideas as possible. You should vary the type of content you create, too.
Think outside of the traditional blog post or status update. Instead, focus on video content, email blasts, listicles, and more. The more creative the type of content you share on your blog is, the higher your follower count will grow.
Once you’ve come up with your topics for the month, it’s time to cancel your plans for the weekend and dedicate yourself to creating and writing. Then, once you finish, you can automatically schedule your posts to go up on your blog and social media pages throughout the day.
This allows you extra time to focus on the mechanics of your site, create more content for next month, and engage with your followers.
Don’t Neglect Advertising
While some people create their athletic blog out of a love of the game, far more are looking to make some kind of revenue from blogging.
If that’s your game, there are a few things you need to know.
First of all, don’t be afraid to look into affiliate marketing. Most often, this will come in the form of writing reviews about products or services in the athletic world. Is there a new workout machine on the market? What about a new basketball or pair of running shoes that will shave minutes off your mile time?
Approach companies and ask them if they’re interested in having you review their products. Or, work with sites like Amazon, and include links to these products in your content.
If someone purchases the product following a link from your site, you’ll be able to earn a nice commission.
Once you’re comfortable with that, start reaching out to other, bigger sports bloggers and offer to write guest posts for their sites! Even if you don’t make any money guest posting, the exposure will drive traffic to your blog.
Finally, look into Pay-Per-Click advertising and the all-important Google AdWords.
Ready to Start Your Athletic Blog?
Now that you know how to create the perfect foundation for your athletic blog, it’s time to move onto the next steps.
Not sure where you should go from here?
Don’t panic — we’re here to help.
Check out our website and blog to gain access to hundreds of invaluable posts about everything within the blogosphere. We also offer easy-to-follow guides on how to create your own website and blog.
Whether you’re looking to learn how to create tutorials or want to brush up on your SEO skills, we have everything you need to take your blog to the next level.