How To Start A Gaming Blog 2022

Unedited Transcript

[00:00:00] Hello. And welcome back to the channel today. I’m going to show you step-by-step how to start a gaming blog. So be sure to subscribe during the belt. This video or any other video on the channel helps you out. So what we’re going to do today is we’re going to define what a gaming blog is.

[00:00:13] I’m going to show you a few examples. First, I will show you how to pick a niche and why choosing a niche is so important. And then we’re going to talk a bit of niching down and why that is even more important. Then I will show you how to pick a platform and get a domain name for a free hint.

[00:00:25] You can click that first link in the description to get it free. After that, we’re going to talk about installing WordPress, installing a WordPress theme, what those two things mean to you and why they’re essential, and then significant changes you have to. Then, to start getting traffic to your website.

[00:00:40] After that, we’re going to start writing. We will talk about some ways to monetize or make money with your new gaming website and why you should share it on social media. And then about how many blog posts you should write before determining if your website’s a success or failure. And then again, be sure to click the links in the description to get up and running today.

[00:00:59] All right. So first things first, what is a gaming blog? A gaming blog is simply where you’re just going to write on. Gaming topics you can write everything from the PlayStation five release, two individual video games, old games, new games of the past consoles that are now defunct. For example, I used to own an Atari Jaguar at one of about 3000 people that own one of those, but that is what the gaming niche is.

[00:01:21] And just let me show you an example of a gaming website or a gaming blog. So if we go over to a, it’s called that video game blog.com. This is an excellent example of a video game blog. Because the website’s so large, they’re picking the. They can write on just about anything when you’re first starting. And now I’m talking about picking a niche and niching down when you’re first getting started.

[00:01:44] I recommend that you focus on one or two small niches. For example, you could concentrate on PlayStation or Xbox news and rumors. You can put focus on individual video games. I recommend that you focus on the particular topic and specialize in that topic. And to further illustrate my point, I’m just going to show you this keyword research tool called.

[00:02:06] You don’t have to use it. I like to use it to make my life a little easier when finding blog topics to write. So if I just type in video games, for example, You’re going to see that’s incredibly competitive on a scale of zero to 100. It is ranked at heart 71 hard. So that’s going to be difficult for a brand new blog to start getting traffic.

[00:02:24] What we could do is we could talk about, let’s say, PlayStation five, hit enter. You’re going to see that’s difficult as well. That’s going to be hard to start getting tracked. What we can do is we can niche down to maybe division two. Now I know that division two is an older video game, but this can work for anything.

[00:02:43] So we type in the division. It says that it’s difficult, but if we go down to matching terms, there are several keywords that we could potentially write on and start getting traffic. So if you look at this right now, there are 284,000 searches per month, 40,000 keywords. We can change. Keyword difficulty to 10 or less, and you’re going to see there’s some opportunity now in the chance you have to look and see what they’re writing about.

[00:03:08] As you can see the division two best weapons, you could create content about that. Division two cross-platform, you are all different opportunities getting loud—questions and searches per month. And you could create content and start building an audience. Now again, once you write on the Division two and get your domain authority up and you can branch up or niche up and start writing about other topics.

[00:03:29] But what I think you should do in the beginning is pick a few different video games or maybe a few other accessories and start creating content in that space. So if we jump back over to our slide deck, you can see we have talked about it. What do gaming blog is we’ve spoken about niching down. And now we want to talk about a platform and a domain name.

[00:03:48] As I mentioned, you can get a domain name for free for the first year. And your domain name is simply how people are going to refer to you or reference your site. So, for example, that video game blog.com, that’s their domain name, and that’s how humans, that’s how people refer to their site and their.

[00:04:04] Probably using some type of web hosting company. I recommend for beginners using blue hosts because blue hosts will get you up and running within five to 10 minutes. So basically, web hosting is where you’re going to rent hard drive space from a third-party like blue host, and they’re going to host your website.

[00:04:22] So people from around the world can see it and. I would say about 55% of the entire internet uses WordPress. And that’s what I recommend for somebody that is just getting up and running. Now, as you gain more experience, you can look at other things, but if you’re brand new to blogging and creating a website, you want to use WordPress because it will allow you to write much faster.

[00:04:42] Most likely, these guys are using WordPress, right? Without doing a little bit of research and digging. I won’t be able to. I won’t be able to dig further into it, but so what we’re going to do next we are going to walk through the steps of getting web hosting through Bluehost. And we’re going to get that domain name for free.

[00:04:59] It’s going to take us probably about four or five minutes, step by step, to get everything that you need. So when you click that link, you’ll be taken to this website, where you’ll go ahead and click get started. I recommend clicking the first one on the far left, the basic plan if you’re just getting started with a website.

[00:05:13] As you can see, there are several options but click that click select, and then move on here. You’re going to create a domain name. If you have one in mind, you’re going to type it in here. Like you see that? I do. What I recommend is to try and find a domain name. It’s going to be related to your niche.

[00:05:26] Now, what I do is type in a domain name that I know is already taken. When it’s accepted, you’re going to get this error. What you can then do is go back and try different domains. Now make sure again that you want to pick one related to your niche, click next, and then you’re going to see a green box that says that it’s approved.

[00:05:42] The next step is simply to go through and enter your contact information. Make sure. When you scroll down here and make sure that you leave all of the settings on but again, entering your contact information, the settings right here, where it says domain privacy, leave all of this check. If you don’t leave it to check, you’re going to get people reaching out to you.

[00:06:00] Spamming you, emailing you, trying to get you to sign up for web hosting. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to go ahead and sign up and then jump back to you once I sign on and move to the next step. All right, so I’ve signed up, and I’m going to go ahead and set up my website. Just create a simple username and password, make sure it meets the requirements.

[00:06:20] And then move on, make sure that you write it down to write it down in a safe spot so that you have it. And you remember it because it can be a pain to go ahead and get everything back. So you will have to enter in some vital information, but make sure to write it down. It’s straightforward and effortless.

[00:06:34] Now, one thing that I do want to note is that this part is not sped up. This is real-time. And you can see that you’ll go from absolutely nothing to a complete website in less than probably 10 minutes. And once you click submit, you’re going to move on to the next step, where you get to log in. So here is where you’re going to start creating your WordPress website.

[00:06:54] Now, the great thing is Bluehost does everything for you. And it’s straightforward. So again, I’m not speeding this up at all, and I want you to see what it takes to create a web. So Bluehost is going to do a little bit of work in the background for you. And we’re just going to click on skip this step.

[00:07:11] This first one I clicked on. I started a blog, but just click, skip because we know what we’re doing for the next step. And I’m going to tell you what to do so that we can get up and running. So click get started right here on the left-hand side. And then move on, click, skip here and click skip. And then pick the first one in the far left. Make sure that you’re choosing a free theme because they’ll charge you.

[00:07:34] They have both free and premium themes, which we’ll talk about in just a moment. So right now, it’s creating your WordPress website in just a few moments. You’re going to click on log in to WordPress on the right-hand side there. You’ll see it in just a second. And then, we can start looking at some basic configurations.

[00:07:50] All right. So we click log. And now we have a WordPress website. So what may need to happen is you may need to click refresh a few times to get it to work. But now we have our website. So as you can see, what I’m going to do is I’m going to log in and delete a few plugins because right now, it has coming soon.

[00:08:09] And so if someone tried to get to your website at this moment, it’s going to say coming soon to them, even though we can see it, this is what your WordPress website looks like, but for everyone else outside of your network, it’s going to say coming soon. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to go down to plugins eventually, and we’re going to delete some of the plugins that we don’t.

[00:08:27] No, I talk a bit about plugins later on, but plugins add additional features and functionality. We are going to deactivate the blue host as well as the other plugins that are already activated. And then we can go through and make the necessary changes, which I’ll cover in just a moment. So we’re going to deactivate them and then delete them.

[00:08:45] Now, you want to make sure that you only have the plugins you’re using. The more plugins you have on your website, the slower your website’s going to respond and function, and you’re going to lose out on ranking. So make sure you have a lean setup, very few plugins, and then move on. As you can see right now, I’m simply deleting some stuff you don’t need.

[00:09:04] If you want to, you could keep them, but obviously, you don’t need this other stuff if you’re just getting started. What’s more important is the themes that we’re going to talk about in just a moment, as well as getting writing. So I’m just going to go ahead and delete those, deactivate them. And then we’re going to start moving on to settings, which you see right here.

[00:09:21] All right. So now that we have blue host, our web hosting company, and we have WordPress. Theme installed what we need to do. And what I recommend is that you go out and get a premium WordPress theme. A WordPress theme will change the look and feel of your website. Right now, you have the basic theme, which doesn’t come with any features.

[00:09:40] If we look at the website here, that video game blog.com, but this is a WordPress theme. That’s probably a premium theme where they have different features and functionalities. Now you can use a website called. Themeforest.net. There is a link in the description. The second link is in the report.

[00:09:58] In fact, we’ll take you right over here to themeforest.net, and you can just type in different niches or niches, and you can find a blog that meets your needs. As you can see, I just typed in gaming, and the cost of the WordPress themes will vary between 20 and maybe a hundred when I recommend that you spend some time and find different WordPress themes that will work best for you.

[00:10:22] Now, the cool thing with a premium theme is they do come with additional plugins. Those plugins add other features. Maybe you want a countdown timer for the next new, big release. You could find a WordPress theme. That includes that. So what I recommend that you do is find one. Click on this right here to add it to the cart, and then check out that you’re going to buy your WordPress theme when you check out.

[00:10:43] When you buy it. After you purchase the WordPress theme, you are going to download the zip drive to your computer. Once you get that zip drive, unpack the zip drive, and you’re going to find a second zip drive. We want that second zip drive because if we go back to my dashboard here, we are going to upload that new WordPress theme.

[00:11:01] And to do that, we’re going to go to appearance. We’re going to click on the. When we click on themes, we’re going to click on, add new, and then we’re going to click on upload theme. You’re going to drag and drop that second. WordPress zip drive your new WordPress theme. You’re going to drag and drop it right in here.

[00:11:16] Or you can even click and manually get to it by choosing a file. Once you get it over, you’re going to install it, then you’re going to activate it, and you’re going to have a brand new theme. So after that, we are going to start writing to we’re going to go up to posts. And in the previous section, I showed you the settings that you need to change.

[00:11:33] One of them was posts. So what we’re going to do as we’re going to click on edit. And we need to title our blog posts. So what I recommend is that you come back over to AHS or whatever keyword tool you decide. We are going to copy our keyword. This is what people are searching for, and we will paste it right here into our WordPress page.

[00:11:56] Now, the reason why you want to do that is that people are going over to Google or Yahoo or duck go. And they’re typing in this exact phrase. So, for example, if we come over here, And we just paste this in. You can see people are typing in this exact phrase. And when I click on this dual shockers.com, you can see at the very top the division to cross-play.

[00:12:18] And what they’ve done is they’ve included the title as I showed you as the post name. And so, this is going to help with search engine optimization. So, now, as you become more familiar with blogging, you’re going to hear this term a lot. And so just know that this is what you should do. This is the right way to do it.

[00:12:35] And so what we’re going to do. Is, we’ve got our post title, and that’s called an H one tag. Now we need to figure out precisely what to write. Two questions that I always get. One, how long should a blog post be? How do I get started? And for me to answer the first question first. The blog posts should only be as long as it needs to be.

[00:12:56] You need to make sure that you are creating enough content where you’re answering the question thoroughly, but not so much content where you’re just diluting your posts. If your competitors are writing a 1500 word blog post about this topic, you should write 1500 to a thousand, 2000 as well. If your competitors are writing 4,000-word blog posts, you should be writing a 4,500-word blog post on the same topic.

[00:13:22] You don’t need to write a 5,000-word blog post on something that can be answered with a thousand words. That’s going to be overkill, and that’s going to be a waste of time. So now, let’s figure out how to start writing. What I like to do is I want to take 10 minutes before I start writing. And I like to do who, what, when, where, why.

[00:13:42] Spell some words right here, and how, and before I write my blog post out, I’ll take 10 minutes, and I’ll just ask myself questions, and I’ll make a little bullet so that I can use these bullets to flush out my answer and write a good blog post. So, for example, I might come over here and say who would be interested in it.

[00:14:03] In the division to cross-platform. So I might use that as a subheading now. Not all of them are going to be good ideas. This is going to help with your brainstorming phase. You might be. People might go out and ask what is. Cross-platform, and that’s going to be something that you’re going to want to answer because it will help your reader learn and gain more information.

[00:14:28] What platforms allow cross-platforming? So we could say what we can say, which media, which we’ll just put, which. So platforms allow cross-platforming, and believe it or not, people are asking these questions, and it’s your job to solve them. And what we’re going to do here is we’re just going to turn this into an H two. So as you can see, this is a subheading.

[00:14:53] If this is our heading, this is a subheading, and we’re simply going to answer the question. This is going to help us. In Google, Yahoo duck go. And so now that we have our outline, we’re just going to go in and fill in the bullet points and then turn it into a blog post. Once we’re done, we will click on publish and write our first blog posts.

[00:15:14] Congratulations. After that, we are going to. Too. Let’s see. We’re on a start writing phase. The next step is to figure out how to make money. Now, there are several ways to make money in the gaming niche. So the first thing that we can do is place ads, as you can see right here, this one for the makeup and Squarespace.

[00:15:32] Those are ads that are placed. So now you can get started with Google AdSense, this Google ad. Google AdSense is like an entry-level ad network that will work with most companies, most websites. And so what you’ll do is you’ll create an account you’ll automatically place ads, and then you’ll get pennies on a dollar.

[00:15:50] You’re not going to make a lot of money until you start seeing one thousand five thousand ten thousand page views per month. When you hit those marks, you want to look at other ad networks like ad thrive and media dot. They’re going to pay you a little bit more. You’re going to have to work a little bit more than with some of those other networks, but you’re going to make a little bit more when you start doing it that way.

[00:16:11] And so that’s just one way to make money. Another way you can make money is with affiliate marketing, and with affiliate marketing, you’re simply going to recommend or sell other people’s products. The cool thing with the gaming niche is that you can be an affiliate with Amazon associates, and you can recommend gaming chairs and beanbags.

[00:16:26] And controllers and all sorts of stuff, but there are other affiliate programs out there, and you don’t have to just rely on Amazon. There are gaming chair companies where they’ll pay you 10%. You can be an affiliate for individual video games and consoles. There’s so much opportunity out there.

[00:16:43] The third link in the description is a complete guide to learn affiliate marketing for. Click that third link. If you want to learn more about affiliate marketing, but there’s a lot of options there and every way to make money, as you can sell your own digital or physical products, maybe you’ve created a walkthrough, a guide for the division to, you could package it up, sell it for 4 99 and you have a list of buyers.

[00:17:04] So there is opportunity there as well. Maybe you have gaming t-shirts you want to sell. You can sell those right on your website that is outside the scope of this. But there’s opportunity there as well. After we look at different ways to make money, you want to share it on social. Now, you want to share your blog and blog posts on social media because it will take a little bit of time before Google picks up your website and your blog posts.

[00:17:28] If you want to get the fire started, you share it on relevant social media sites. For example, you could find different subreddits to share it. As long as you have permission, you can share it on Facebook groups. You could create your own Facebook group. Instagram tic-tac YouTube Twitter.

[00:17:46] You can share it anywhere as long as it’s relevant. You wouldn’t want to share your video game website with people interested in makeup or basket weaving. That’s not going to be congruent. The final step that you will want to do is continue to do it right now. I recommend that you have at least 50 blog posts before determining if your site is a success or failure.

[00:18:05] Ideally, I recommend that you write 50 blog posts, one blog post every single day at worst. Write one, every other. But you want to get to 50 just to see if your website starts gaining traction. Don’t stop after 10. You will be disappointed in yourself because 10 is not enough time to see if you’re going to build a following and gain traction, at least 50, one every day or every other day until you meet that mark, then you can step back analyze. So make sure you click the links in the description to get up and write. Be sure to like subscribe and ring the bell so that you’re notified when I upload a brand new video. Thanks for watching.

[00:18:40] And we’ll see you.