We constantly fantasize about becoming more involved in the sporting world as avid sports fans. From going to live events to see our heroes to sharing our thoughts online, we love getting into as much detail as possible with our passion. Learning how to start a sports blog can help us keep our passion alive and generate a nice income. Sports blogging is much more complex these days and can cover a wide range of sports and niches. As long as you are passionate about one particular sport or all of them, your voice will matter if you promote it healthily.
If you want your sports blog to last and be successful, you need to start by following a few important steps. Now, investigate each aspect in greater depth to ensure that you are prepared to succeed with your sports blog. How to Start a Sports Blog in 10 Steps: A Comprehensive Guide The steps to create a successful sports blog are relatively straightforward. Still, some parts are slightly unintuitive, and this guide will make the whole process much more manageable.
1. Identify Your Sports Blog Niche
As you know, there are hundreds of sports out there. Sports blogging can focus on different aspects of each particular sport. However, given the amazing increase in popularity surrounding e-sports, things can quickly become rather overwhelming.
Finding what you are truly passionate about and what successful sports blogs need to improve is the first step in becoming a sports blogger. Finding your niche will play a crucial part in the success of your sports blog. Tackling the giants in the industry is never a good idea when you are just getting started. Therefore, instead of becoming a sports-themed blogger, focus on a single subject that piques your interest. When trying to choose a niche, consider the following suggestions:
- Extreme sports gear
- E-sports
- Epic running trails around the world
- Fantasy football leagues
While these examples can be good choices, we are sure that your ideas will be better, especially considering that they will be based on what you are most passionate about in sports.
2. Choose a Name and Secure Your Domain
After realizing the ideal sports niche for you and choosing the suitable sports-related topics you will focus on, you must also find the right name for your blog. This name should be:
- Easy to remember
- Short
- Relevant to the niche
- Catchy
Whether you choose to use a clever name through wordplay or decide on a more straightforward approach, you must buy your domain name.
Buying a domain is simple and quick, and the costs are generally very low, depending on the type of name you want to use. Make sure to be as exact as possible and find a way to match your domain name to your blog’s name. This will demonstrate to your visitors how trustworthy you are.
3. Select a Hosting Provider
You must now consider the hosting provider that will keep your website online. There are a huge number of available hosting providers, and this variety can be both a good and a bad thing.
Too many choices can make things difficult if you are unsure what to look for in a hosting provider. Luckily, we know a thing or two about the topic, so our list of top hosting providers may help.
Balancing costs and performance is a fine line to walk when choosing a hosting provider, and we can relate to your desire to cut costs as much as possible, especially when you are just starting this journey. Without sacrificing performance or quality, here are some of the cheapest hosting companies you can choose from.
4. Install WordPress
While there are decent alternatives, WordPress remains one of the best and most commonly used CMS and site builders. There are many reasons to choose WordPress as a blogging platform for your sports blog, including ease of use, accessibility, and security.
Installing WordPress is easy and can be done by following a couple of easy steps. Obviously, the process may differ slightly depending on your control panel and hosting provider, but the following should be the general order of events: Log into Your Hosting Control Panel. Whether that is cPanel or something else, logging into it will be easy to do from your hosting account.
Start the process of installing WordPress by finding the WordPress Installer. You can do this with the one-click installer generally offered through services like Softaculous. You can easily find it through the search in your control panel.
Enter Your Site Information. Before the installation begins, you must fill out some information about your site. The site name, a title tag, and your login information are mandatory.
Access Your WordPress Dashboard. When the installation is finished, you can access your WordPress dashboard by logging in with the login information you created in the previous step.
5. Select a WordPress Theme
How your sports blog looks and functions depends on several factors, but one of the most important ones is the theme you will use. A sports blog’s theme can make or break it, so don’t take this choice lightly. There are thousands of WordPress themes, and selecting the best one for your purposes will make a huge difference. That is why choosing the WordPress theme needs to be treated seriously.
Some of the best themes you can choose from when it comes to creating your WordPress blog are:
- Dérive
- Pro Inspiro Inspiro Premium
Each has its own benefits and disadvantages, but none is as well suited for a popular sports blog as the Indigo theme. This theme was designed as a starting point for magazine-type blogs and offers many layout options.
That way, you will have a lot of freedom in designing your website and making it as good-looking and functional as you please. You can choose the layout that works best for you and decide whether the written content or the images should take center stage. Considering that sports are spectacular both in terms of analysis and opinions and visually, you will probably need to find a way to balance the two. The WordPress theme is simple to install if you follow a few simple steps.
6. Customize Blog Settings
With your theme installed, you can start customizing your site and making it look how you want it to. Even though this process as a whole may initially appear to be somewhat intimidating, if you follow a few straightforward steps, you will almost certainly understand what needs to be done. Of course, going into the finer details of site customization will require more knowledge and a better understanding of WordPress. But the steps below should be more than enough to get you started.
Personalize Your Site Title and Tagline from WordPress Settings. This information is essential for your readers and will allow you to introduce yourself and your blog’s purpose. You can also use this to select the right timezone for your blog and explain how the subscription settings will work.
