Border House Blog (original) (raw)

This is a blog about gaming, and I know that a lot of my visitors have more and different knowledge than I do, so I thought I would put up a quick post to help you create your own blog about gaming (or anything else) if you are so inclined.

Video games are more popular today than ever before, and thanks to the internet it’s possible to build your own little gaming community (and make some pretty decent money along the way) with a blog centered around the gaming world today.

Twitch streamers and video gamers on YouTube have been making thousands (sometimes even hundreds of thousands) of dollars with their very own video blogs and content, and if you want to try and get your own piece of this pie you’ll have to make sure that you are set up right as soon as you hit the ground running.

Take advantage of the tips and tricks below and you will be able to build your own video gaming blog with no difficulty whatsoever. On top of that, you’ll be a lot more deliberate and a lot more strategic in how you build this blog, giving you a competitive advantage over all of the other video gamers out there trying to get in on the action, too.

Let’s dive right in!

Plan your moves before you dive right in

It can be very tempting to want to simply fire up a brand-new blog on some inexpensive web hosting, throwing up different pieces of content you have already produced or are pumping out right now, and then cross your fingers hoping for the best – but this Field of Dreams approach to building a videogame blog just isn’t going to work these days.

No, you can’t just build something and expect folks to show up.

Instead, you have to be very focused, very deliberate, and very strategic about the kind of videogame blog you produce.

For instance, if you’re interested in building a videogame review blog, you have to recognize that there are already giants in the space with budgets way bigger than anything you could throw at your own blog right now – and you’ll have to find a way to compete with these kinds of titans while carving your own corner of this niche out for yourself.

The same goes if you’re looking to post videogame play throughs, walk-throughs, report on industry information, or any other aspect of the videogame community. Because this is already a somewhat mature industry you have to be craftier and more deliberate about how you set up your blog right from day one or you’ll never get the kind of initial push you need to succeed.

Really think about exactly what kind of videogame blog you want your site to be known for, the one thing that you want your visitors to tell all of their friends and fellow gamers about what your blog brings to the table. This has a lot more power than trying to be everything to every gamer out there today.

What kinds of games are you going to focus on?

A great way to get really strategic about how you build your videogame blog is to think about the kinds of games you want to focus on.

Some of the best videogame blogs out there right now not only focus on a very small subset of videogames (RPG games or first-person shooter games, for example), but even go so far as focusing entirely on a single title and building their blog around that game entirely.

Now, that may not be the kind of approach you want to take, just because the popularity of games that are hot right now can always fall off and then your blog traffic goes into a tailspin. But you do want to build your videogame blog around a specific type of videogame so that you can become recognized as an industry expert or a leading voice for these kinds of titles.

Again, it’s all about niching down and controlling your own corner of the video game industry rather than trying to cover anything and everything the videogame community has to offer.

What kinds of content is your ideal audience after?

You should also start thinking about the kinds of content your perfect audience is looking for, rather than just the kind of content you already feel comfortable producing for the kind of content that you specifically might be interested in putting out there.

A lot of really passionate gamers dive headfirst into the world of building a new videogame blog, looking to ignite the same kind of passion they have for specific games or specific content in fellow gamers.

This can work quite well, to a point, but a much more effective strategy for building a brand-new videogame blog is think about who your perfect visitor is right now and to produce the kind of content that they are dying to see or dying to read.

When you switch of the focus from what you are looking to do or what you want most and instead focus on what your audience is most interested in what they are desperate for, building traffic streams, capturing attention, and creating a successful videogame blog almost becomes effortless.

This is a game changing paradigm shift you’ll want to make just as soon as humanly possible!

Who’s going to handle producing all of the content you post to your videogame blog?

In the early days of running your videogame blog, the odds are pretty good that you’re going to be running the show across the board.

You’ll be the one producing or curating content, you’ll be the one adding and modifying elements of your blog and website, you’ll be the one handling marketing and advertising on social media, and you’ll be the one tackling customer service and support issues.

Eventually, however, your blog is going to become so successful that you simply cannot wear all of these different hats at the same time.

You’re going to want to have a plan for finding voices that can add content to your site in a congruent way, helping you to expand without your visitors even knowing that you aren’t still the hand behind all of the content getting pumped out.

On the flipside, if you are the face of your video game blog, you might want to outsource ALL of the other “heavy lifting” that goes on behind the scenes of running a popular blog to other people and organizations so that you can put out top-flight content that brings people to the platform.

Get set up with social media and video streaming right away

Social media and video streaming services are major factors for growth in the videogame blogging world today, and you’d have to be at least a little bit crazy not to have your own accounts and your own channels set up just as soon as your blog launches.

Video games, by their very nature, are incredibly visual mediums. Video streaming gives you the opportunity to post game reviews, gameplay highlights, live video game sessions, and so much more.

Social media helps you grab attention, bring traffic to your videos and your blogs, and also builds a sense of community for those that are looking to support your videogame blog right from day one.

Focus on monetization right out of the gate, but build your blog for growth initially

One of the biggest mistakes people make when they want to monetize blogging is focusing first on generating as much content and as much traffic as possible and only later thinking about monetization.

This inevitably results in clunky monetization approaches that turn off a lot of visitors and alienate a lot of fans.

What you want to do instead is focus on finding ways to monetize your traffic and your videogame blog right out of the gate, even if you don’t put these monetization plans into action right from day one.

You’ll at least have a strategy for how you want to monetize your site and your traffic in the future, even while you build your blog for immense growth to get it up off the ground right out of the gate.

Take these tips and tricks and you’ll have no trouble whatsoever rocking and rolling with a powerfully effective strategy for building a successful videogame blog from scratch!