Sports Blog Bucks

Should I Make Money from My Sports Blog?

March 19th, 2008

Should I Make Money from My Sports Blog?That is a good question, and a question that has puzzled many sports bloggers. They do not want to pollute their blog with advertising. They do not want to be a sellout. Well, I can answer the question by asking you a question. Do you want to make money off of your blog? If the answer is yes, then start making money off of your blog. It is that simple. With a little bit of traffic you can make a little money off of your blog.

There is a list of things to remember though.

Always remember that content is key. Never forget that a reader did not come to your blog to click advertising. They came to read/ view content. Pop-up ads and peal away ads are a way to make a quick buck, but do you think the reader will come back? DO NOT BE OBTRUSIVE!
Do not make a confusing layout to trick the reader. This goes with rule 1. The readers eye goes left to right and top to bottom. Put you content near the top and to the left if you can. Do not put adds that take up the top half of the page. A reader must come to a site and see the content right away. Do not make them look for the content. They will never come back.
Always remember that you must not lose your core audience. If you try to cater to everyone because you are afraid of making someone mad, your core audience will notice. That is when the word “sellout” comes into play.
Always remember that repeat visitors are coming back for content and community involvement. Remember to answer emails and follow up on comments, even if you think you are too busy. The readers notice when the blogger is involved with the community. The guys at loserswithsocks.com are a good example.

The ultimate goal for a lot of bloggers is to be a full time blogger. You have to make some money in order to do that. The main writer for EDSBS.com , Spencer Hall, started his blog a few years back. He is now a full time blogger and he writes for the Sporting News. You can not get much better than that. Not many people would call him a sellout.

My main point is that it is OK to make money on your blog, just do not forget the reason you have a blog. If you just want to make money, you are a sellout. If you love what you are writing about, and just want to make a little cash, there is nothing wrong with that.

Popularity: 48% [?]

Posted in Make Money Blogging | 2 Comments »

Drive Blog Traffic With Social Bookmarking, Digg, Ballhype, Yardbarker

March 17th, 2008

Drive Blog Traffic With Social Bookmarking, Digg, Ballhype, Yardbarker

First let me explain Social Bookmarking. When the Internet started there was no way to organize everything till search engines. Now you can go to Google and find anything you want. Well Social bookmarking is another revolution in the Internet. People will bookmark a page and all of their friends, or people with the same interests, can find it easily.

So if you like college football, you can go to a social bookmarking site like Digg.com and find sites that people have bookmarked as a great college football site. You can also submit a story/post to these sites. It is not hard to get started. You fill out a simple application and you can get started in minutes.

How do social bookmarks help bloggers? You can submit your own stuff to the bookmarking sites. There are so many of them. You can literally spend hours submitting your stuff to bookmarking sites. The trick is to submit your work to the right ones. For sports bloggers they are Digg.com, Ballhype.com, Yardbarker.com, Stumbleupon.com, and very few others, but those are the best. The reason is that digg and stumbleupon are the biggest and yardbarker and ballhype specialize in sports bookmarks.

Do not just submit your stuff and walk away. You need to interact within the networks. Vote for other peoples stories/posts. You can leave comments. If you notice someone likes your favorite team or votes for your posts, ask them to be your friend. Join groups that are of interest to you.

Do not spam the sites. Submit your bestwork and never submit advertising posts etc… You might even want to submit someone else’s work like NESWSports.com :-). That way you do not seem like you are just self promoting.

Why would you go through all of this work? Submit your work because no one else will see it on those sites, if you do not do it. You network on the sites to build up a following of people that will vote for your stories. You want votes because that is how a story/post gets popular. When your story get enough votes, you might get on the front page and you will get more visits from those sites. That is what is known as the Digg Effect. Some sites have had server crashes because of all the traffic Digg.com has brought them.

Popularity: 54% [?]

Posted in Blog Marketing, Drive Blog Traffic | No Comments »

SEO on a sports blog, Drive traffic with Search Engine Optimization

March 15th, 2008

How to get SEO on a Sports blog. A lot of traffic for sports blogs comes from Search Engines like Google and Yahoo.

SEO=Search Engine Optimization = It is a fancy way of saying, ” Google and other search engines, like Yahoo, can bring you traffic, if you know how to “ Optimize “, or maximize, your blog to drive traffic on your keywords.”

Keywords= Are the best search words for your sports team/player you are blogging about. For SEC Football Blogger, my keywords are SEC Football, SEC Football blog, SEC Football videos, SEC Football Fan etc… After reading this you will have a better idea on how to get your SEO right to drive traffic on your Keywords.

The first thing you can do is sit down for 10 minutes ( longer time for more success ) and write down the 10 best words that have to do with your team/player name. Michael Jordan would have 1. MJ 23

2. Michael Jordan

3. Air Jordan

4. Jordan 23

5. Michael Jordan Bulls

6. Jordan Dunks

7. Jordan Nike

Etc….

Then spend 10 minutes typing those things into Google and see what comes up. Look at the top 3-4 searches. Look how they used the keywords on the page. Now you know what the search engines like when people are looking for those keywords. Now you know what the SEO experts did to get those websites listed. You will most likely find

1. Keywords in the title.

2. Keywords in the first paragraph.

3. Keywords in the last paragraph.

4. Some Keywords through out the post.

5. Keywords in the Widgets, or Side Panels.

6. You will also see that they made the Keywords Bold or Underlined or italicized. That helps tell Google what is important.

This is all for your front page SEO Keywords. Try to use the keywords as much as possible, but also remember to only use them in places they fit. If you were writing about Michael Jordan try not to say “He” too many times. Use his nicknames or his actual name, then make them bold. Do that as many times as you can do it in the side bar and the description, but only where it naturally fits. That is a crash course on SEO for a main page. Make sure to tweak your keywords every once in a while to find out what works best for you. After your blog is up and running for a month you could be on the front page on Google for some of your keywords and that is what drives Google traffic.

Doing a post is something different, and easier. You will repeat some of the same steps. Lets say you wanted to write about Jordan scoring 55 against the Knicks in Madison Square Garden.

1. Think just for a minute about the keywords.

A. MJ 55 Knicks

B. Michael Jordan 55 Knicks

C. Michael Jordan 55 MSG

D. MJ 55 Madison Square Garden

E. MJ 55 against Ewing and the knicks

F. Jordan scores 55

H. Jordan 55 at the garden

I. Etc..

2. Think of a title that uses some keywordsand still makes sense “ Michael Jordan scores 55 against Knicks, MJ scores 55 at MSG”

You can repeat yourself in a title to help the reader and Google to know exactly what the post is about.

3, Now that you have a title you might want to put your title as your first line. You can add some to it like “ Michael Jordan scores 55 against Ewings Knicks. MJ stunned the Madison Square Garden crowd as he scored at will. “. Just make sure it makes sense.

4. Write your post and make sure you can add your keywords where ever they make sense.

5. After you are done with the post read back through it and make some of your keywords Bold. It is great for the Google bot, and the reader. It draws their eyes to the important material.

6. Finish the post by putting your best keywords as Tags, if you can add tags.

Those are just a few basic tips on how to make your sports main page and posts SEO friendly. Keywords are just one piece of the puzzle. I will do many posts on SEO.

Popularity: 100% [?]

Posted in Drive Blog Traffic, SEO | 1 Comment »