Blogging is one of the oldest ways to make money online and still one of the most profitable. According to reports, the average blog salary is over $33,000, but this number can go significantly higher and reach over $200,000 if not more per year for only 10-30 working hours per week.

This is why many people are chasing their dream of becoming bloggers and writing articles as full-time jobs.

The best thing about the blog business is that after building your brand and generating free organic traffic, your blog will start generating passive income. This means that you’ll have to do minimal work to keep the blog going and still earn a six-figure income per year.

However, it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows.

Now is the perfect time to mention that over 80% of all blogs fail within 18 months due to not following basic blogging rules and jumping into a subject without doing the proper research.

According to the newest data from 2021, there are more than 7.5 million blogs published every day, and that number will increase even more in the future.

But don’t get discouraged. There is still a chance to make your dream come true, but you have to be prepared to work hard just because making money by blogging doesn’t happen overnight.

One of the most important things when creating a blog is finding the right niche. It is very hard, almost impossible, to build a general blog that will cover every topic possible. But by creating a niche blog, like a sports blog, you narrow down your target audience, have less competition, and improve your chances of success massively. 

That’s why in today’s article we decided to highlight some of the steps that will help you create a profitable sports blog.

1. Choosing the Right Niche

As we mentioned earlier, the first and most important step is choosing the right niche for your blog. A good starting point should be the things that you feel passionate about. You have the most knowledge on these subjects and you’ll have the motivation to keep on going even when you don’t see instant results.

The sports niche is already narrowed down, but it is still too general. You need to dig even deeper and find a subject that people are interested in and that has the potential to become something big in the future.

Some examples of sports niches:

• Home exercises
• Swimming tips
• Best gear for hockey
• Physiotherapy for basketball players

And the list goes on and on.

Finding the best niche for your blog depends on what you like writing about, and if the niche has a decent number of searches per month. After all, there is no point in making a blog on a subject that nobody is interested in.

Finally, if you are posting news pieces about sports sure you base your info on trustworthy news websites – like TwinSpires NBA rumours that you can click here to find out – otherwise you can be sued for fake news. Use hyperlinks to the sources to keep yourself safe in case you are caught in one of those fake rumours.

2. Choosing a Content Management System (Blogging Platform)

Nowadays, you can publish a blog in just five minutes if not less. You don’t have to worry about not having coding skills or being a computer genius to create a beautiful-looking blog. Many blogging platforms have simple-to-use tools that will do the heavy lifting for you.

Depending on your skills and the type of sports blog you want to start, you have to weigh in the pros and cons of some of the best blogging platforms.

WordPress is currently the most popular blogging platform that supports more than 65 million active websites generating more than 400 million visits each month. The reason why it is so popular has a lot to do with its simplicity, great user interface that anyone can understand, and powerful plugins that can transform your website into anything you like. That’s why most startups use WordPress.

There are other CMSs like Wix, Weebly, Blogger, and Squarespace but all of these options are designed for simple blogging websites and they don’t provide powerful tools like WordPress. This doesn’t mean that they are less good, after all, you have to do your research and choose your preferred blogging platform.

3. Domain Name and Hosting

Once you finished the first two steps, it is time to get creative by choosing a domain name. Nowadays, most of the catchy one-word domains are already taken or they are way too expensive. But it is not the end of the world, since you can still create a successful sports blog that has a longer domain name.

With that said, your domain name should represent the topics you’ll cover on your blog. So, if you want to start a basketball blog, you should come up with something interesting like basketballtalks.com or basketballcorner.com. 

It is also a good idea to go for a .com extension since it looks more professional and it will help your SEO.

Choosing a hosting provider is another important step that can make or break your sports blog. There are many different hosting options like shared hosting, cloud hosting, and dedicated servers, and most beginners go for shared hosting since it is cheaper. Shared hosting means that your website is on the same server as other websites, which lowers your website performance. However, if you are expecting less than 3,000 visitors daily, you should be good.

4. Building Your Website

After completing all previous steps, it is time to build the structure of your blog. Most beginners make the same mistake of overcomplicating the design of their blog by adding tons of widgets, images, and sliders which compromises the performance of the blog.

You should focus on the things that matter to people, which is content!

Since you are making a sports blog, a nice starting point would be buying a premium sports theme that will make your job much easier. Sports themes come with very interesting widgets such as teams’ live standings, transfer tracker, upcoming matches, and much more.

Fortunately, most premium themes have a one-click install, so you don’t have to worry about spending months building your blog.

5. Sources of Income

Even though you are still in the starting phase, it is very important to highlight your sources of income. After all, that is the main goal of your blog. The best thing about the blog business is that you can have multiple sources of income that go along with your niche.

Sports blogs are perfect just because you can make money in many different ways.

For starters, most blogs monetize their content with ads and they get paid when people view the ads on their website. With that said, be careful not to add too many ads and make the blog unreadable. 

The second way you can make money with sports blogs is through affiliate links. All you need to do is promote someone else’s products or services and earn money whenever someone clicks or makes a purchase of your link.

Here are some of the best sports brands that have affiliate programs:

• Fitbit
• LeftLane Sports
• AI’s Sporting Goods
• Soccer Garage
• Baseball Rampage
• Under Armour
• Total Gym

The third way you can make money is through sponsorship deals. Sponsorship deals are the most profitable way to make money on your blog, but the only drawback is that you first need to gain some popularity to get noticed by big brands.

Last but not least, we have merchandise. Sports blogs are perfect for selling your products just because this niche has one of the most loyal audiences on the market. You can easily build your eCommerce section on your blog where you can print your merchandise or make a deal with a third-party company to sell products for profit.

6. Marketing

After you’ve finished all the steps above, it is time to showcase your blog to your target audience. You cannot expect people to be rushing in to browse your blog without investing a dime in advertising.

Fortunately, we live in a world where social media can make wonders, and you can use their very effective targeting tools to get to your target audience.

With that said, the best way to get people to visit your blog is through search engine optimization. Following some of the latest SEO standards will improve your domain authority which makes your blog rank higher when people browse sports-related topics on search engines.

In the end, remember content is KING! Even if you come up with a genius advertising strategy for your sports blog, you won’t have many returning visitors if you don’t provide high-quality and accurate sports-related content.