How to Start a Sports Blog: Tips for Budding Journalists

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You’re studying to be a sports journalist, chasing your dream career by completing the requisite sports journalism masters programs. But did you know that starting a sports blog while you’re studying can help boost your career and credibility?

Starting a sports blog of your own not only develops your sports journalism skills, but will also help get your name out there, and – if you do it well enough – build up an online readership of fans who genuinely enjoy engaging with your content.

Here are our top tips on how to get it done.

Sports Blog Tip # 1: What’s Your Niche?

So you want to start a sports blog. But which section of the sporting world do you want your blog to focus on, specifically? Consider this:

If you spread the scope of your blog content too wide, you won’t be considered an expert in any capacity. Write about every sport out there, and you won’t be able to specialize in any particular area. Being overly general in your sports blog content can also affect your audience reach. As the common marketing adage affirms – if you appeal to everyone, you appeal to no one.

By selecting a specific niche, you can narrow down your content, and even, cherry-pick your target audience readership – creating a community of sports fans who are passionate about consuming the blog content you’re creating.

Sports Blog Tip # 2: What Platform Are You Using?

You’ve selected your sports blog niche. Next, you need to build your blogging site.

So what online platform will you choose? There are, admittedly, so many to choose from. Unless you’re an experienced web developer, it can be challenging to decide which one to go with.

Here are some of the top blog development platforms:

WordPress
Wix
Blogger
Contently
Joomla
Linkedin Blogs

But regardless of which one you choose, your selection of blogging platform will predominantly depend on what functionality you want your sports blog to have. Do you want it to be interactive, include whizz-bang animation features, and be optimized for SEO?

Stay with us for more on this later.

Sports Blog Tip # 3: What Does Your Blog Branding Look Like?

Your sports blog’s domain name. Something you may not have considered critical, but in fact, it is. Your site’s domain name reflects your blog’s brand, and as such, it’s key.

So, what do you want your sports blog to be called?

Think carefully about what you want your domain name to be, as once it’s set – that’s it. Stuck for ideas? Try using a domain name generator to prompt a snappy, catchy, on-brand title for your site.

Sports Blog Tip # 4: What Content Are You Publishing?

In the blogging world, content is king. But what does this mean?

If you want your sports blog to be a success, you need to be careful about the content you’re including on your site. Avoid spammy, bot-generated copy that’s considered ‘unhelpful’ within the parameters of Google’s recent ‘Core Update’.

The nitty-gritty of this important algorithm update? For written content to be considered helpful, it needs to be unique, original, and provide value to readers. Keep this in mind when you’re writing your content. Ask yourself: is this scoop-worthy? Is it something my readers will want to consume? And just as importantly, is it consistent with my blog niche and brand image?

Once you’ve got your content down-pat, you’ll of course also need to get online readers to visit your blog. So how do you encourage them to drop past your site? Most often, this doesn’t just happen on its own – you need to actively promote it.

Sports Blog Tip # 5: What Are You Doing to Promote Your Blog?

It’s not enough to just create quality, readable, relatable blog content. What’s the point, if no one’s reading it? You also need to generate traffic heading to your blog. There are a few ways to do this: