Posted 7/3/08

Guest post written by Aaron of Daily Basketball; a must read for any serious NBA blogger or fan.

As any statistics-obsessed blogger already knows, there are three types of traffic: direct visitors, referring visitors, and search engine traffic. Gathering direct visitors and referring visitors can be considered an art; write enough quality content, and you'll gain a strong readership and get rewarded with a lot of links. Search engine traffic, however, is a lot more mysterious for many bloggers.

Assuming you'd like to increase your search engine traffic, I'd like to share a hint that has worked well for Daily Basketball in the past.

For a week or so this past June, the most popular page on my blog wasn't the home page. It was "34 Reasons to Cheer for the Boston Celtics". I wondered why this happened, so I check out my trusty stats program. During the NBA Finals, I had over 2000 visits to my site from people searching for "paul pierce."

In contrast, I'm pretty proud of myself ranking #2 on Google for the keywords "basketball blog," but I don't receive a lot of traffic for my high ranking there. Probably one-tenth of what I received compared to the Boston Celtics post a couple weeks ago.


Anyway, on to my hint for bringing search engine traffic to your blog or site. Write posts about keywords with a high-volume of search queries. Spend less time worrying about ranking high for extremely specific terms. The topic should be related to your site, but general in nature.

Let's refer back to the Boston Celtics story above. I couldn't find my blog post in the top five pages of the Google results page for "paul pierce". When you're dealing with extremely high volumes of traffic, you don't need to be on the front page of the results to bring tons of visitors to your site.

One site that can help you find popular search terms is Google Trends. You can find a list of the top 100 search terms for every day. While most aren't relevant, you should be able to find something particularly interesting to the sports audience.

Take a look at your statistics and find what keywords people are using to come across your blog. Hopefully, you'll be able to find the post(s) that brought those readers to your site. Find out where your site ranks well, and what your readers are searching for.

A quick review: remember to find high-volume search keywords. Don't worry about finding your way to the front page of the results. Write your posts about keywords related to your blog that have tens of millions of interested visitors, if not hundreds of millions. Yes, those keywords are out there.

You'll have to experiment, but once you hit the niche, you'll be rewarded with a stream of interested readers.


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Posted 6/18/08

Mitchell Blatt, owns Juiced Sports Blog and loves to Stumble. Click to friend me on SU!

How to Install Link Vault and Start Building Tons of Links

About a week ago, I wrote a post on how to build lots of links through a program called Link-Vault.

A few people in the comments section had further questions—specifically how do I install this [stuff]?—so I am going to address installation today.

A quick review for anyone who missed the post: Link-Vault uses a disguised code to automatically put links onto each page of your site and you earn credits to have your customized links appear on other network sites.

It is fairly complex to install though, so here’s how:

First, you must have a Wordpress blog or other hosted blog—it doesn’t work with Blogger. Also have access to your ftp. If you don’t have an ftp program but you do have Wordpress, you might want to get an ftp program. They are pretty cheap (about $20) and give you good access to editing and uploading files on your site easily. I use Fetch for Mac OS, and I hear Cute FTP is pretty good for Windows as well as Mac.

So, once you have an FTP program, Part 1:

Go to “site setup instructions” on Link-Vault, and they will tell you:

Create a file called lvqi9reotDrtCX3zzS.php or download (right click, Save Target As...)

All you do is click the download link and the file downloads to your desktop then upload the file into the index file of your FTP. You would log into your FTP program. It would give you a list of the pages and websites on your account. Click to the folder labeled mysportsblog.com and open it, then drop the file into that folder.

Basically, dragging and dropping into FTP is all you’re going to be doing to set up.

Part 2

Create another (empty) file called qi9reotDrtCX3zzS.txt (download), upload here : http://yoursportsblog.com/qi9reotDrtCX3zzS.txt and give it read/write access (use your ftp client to change the properties of file once uploaded).

Again, download the file and upload it. For this specific file you have to give it reading and writing permissions, which lets the links be written in. To do that, on Windows FTP, highlight the file and go to File > Properties, and put check marks in all the boxes for reading and writing, which would put your permission level at 666 (my favorite number).

Part 3

There is some code in a text box that you should copy and paste into the footer theme. That code is the link code.

Part 4

This isn’t necessary, but recommended, an automatically updating file that updates the link code, making it more disguised. You just download then upload it again.

Part 5

Click a link to turn test mode on and test links will show up on all pages if you installed it correctly. Then turn it off and click a link to check setup and activate at the bottom of the page. After you pass the check setup, you will slowly begin receiving link credits.

Enjoy the links!


Time to join ClickBooth to help monetize your site, don't you think?

Posted 6/9/08

Mitchell Blatt, Juiced Sports Blogger and AirRaid Stumbler who wants to friend you.

Cool Trick to Get a Ton of Links

You can get high as Ricky Williams in the search engines by getting dem links. Everyone knows that. But how do you get lots of links? Other than writing good content?

Here’s a nice, free, and easy technique to build extra links without doing any other work. I’m warning you it only works if you host your site, so it won’t work for Blogger, but it will for Wordpress.

The site you can use to build links is Link-Vault.

What Link-Vault is is an automated link exchange network. What sets it apart is that it puts different urls on every page load, thus getting your url onto more websites and on different websites. If you url were only on the same website, the PR juice flowing would be greatly devalued. The fact that it loads on so many different pages at different times means that on some loads, the spiders will see it and credit you with links from multiple websites. This increases PR.

You simply set up the code and files and then ignore it as you build links. You can customize the links and have them link to any pages you want with custom anchor text. You get credit for links shown based on a points formula involving how many pages you have and links you show, how much traffic you have, and how much PR you have.

The only problem is that Google doesn’t really like link exchange networks, but Link-Vault combats this fact by offering code with hard-to-spot codes in it to direct the links, and changes the code ever so often. Google may be good, but they don’t have the resources of Bill Belichick yet, so it is pretty hard to get caught.

This is a good tool whether you want to promote your sports blog or various pages of it for various keywords or if you have multiple websites you want to promote. Building organic links from good content is a must, but having these extra tools is what can put you over the top.


Time to join ClickBooth to help monetize your site, don't you think?

Posted 6/6/08

Guest Post written by Michael "Cuzzy" C. of the sports/Raptors/money making blog, Cuzoogle.com! Make sure you check out part 1 of the 25 Traits of Successful Sports Bloggers.


25 Traits of Successful Sports Bloggers: Part 2

13) Positive - If you write articles in a negative-tone that criticize others' or discourage others, I generally will stop reading your sports blog over time. I get tired of negative views pretty fast and I bet a lot of readers do as well. Readers will take a look at a couple of posts, see the negativity throughout and won't hesitate to leave and never look back at your blog again. Now don't get me wrong I know the negative side can spark a good debate and bring in a load of short term traffic but it should not be the overall tone of your sports blog.

Keeping a positive writing voice is something that you should always try and maintain and in the end it will really help you maximize your results. Most People love reading sports blogs that have a positive, funny and entertaining author. It takes a lot more skill to write something with a positive spin and be entertaining than it is to resort to put down humour all of the time.

Don't forget that a positive attitude should not only be taken into account for sports blogging, it should be taken into account for your overall life. Without a positive outlook and the building of positive relationships, blogging won't be that much fun.

14) Enthusiastic - Everyone loves a writer who can show a lot of enthusiasm through their sports blogging voice. When writing my own posts I try to be as enthusiastic as I can stand without going over the top. You should try this as well since you really don't want your readers to get bored. An upbeat tone is a great way to convey content on your sports blog.

Try to be as enthusiastic as possible towards your favorite team or player no matter how bad they are playing; your enthusiasm could rub off on the crowd. Do something to fire up your readers because the chances are good that it will help you become more successful. As a sports blogger you are already passionate about sports so let it show in your writing. If you can be enthusiastic everyday, there is a better chance people will enjoy reading your sports blog.

15) Responsible - Successful sports bloggers take responsibility of all their actions when it comes to their blog. Taking responsibility of actions simply means letting readers know when they made a mistake, how they are learning from a mistake, and following through on any promises made. It is very difficult to stay subscribed to a sports blog when a writer tells the readers one thing, then never follows through or provides an explanation for not following through. If you are going to promise something, you have to deliver.

In a world of thousands of sports blogs, you can't leave a reader hanging because it won't take much for them to click elsewhere. Ask yourself, do you take responsibility for your mistakes and actions when it comes to your sports blog?

16) Independent - You can't be completely dependent on others to show you the way to success online if you expect to succeed one day. At some point, you have got to take your own action, come up with your own goals, and know what it is you want to achieve.

I try to seek help and offer up help as much as possible to figure out any nagging issues, but that only goes so far. A lot of blogging knowledge comes with experience and how long you have been doing it for. The sports side of it is the easy part but sometimes the blogging side of things can really frustrate you. Being more of an independent thinker, coming up with your own fresh ideas, and learning from yourself is key to becoming more successful as a sports blogger.

17) Goal-oriented - What are your online goals for your sports blog? Do you even have any yet? It really helps to set solid and smart goals that you think you can realistically achieve. I bet you have seen a lot of sports blogs without a clear-cut focus and to be honest it is really a time killer.

An example would be of a sports blogger that does not know what topic to focus his or her time on and makes a huge list of categories in the sidebar. I have always been bad for this and this is one area where I am trying to improve on and scale back my goals. After going through it I now think it is much easier to be successful as a sports blogger if you set an achievable goal to work towards.

Successful people know that goals are important and realize that having good goals to work towards can keep them motivated, focused, and excited. How boring would it get if you had nothing pushing you to make your sports blog better everyday? If you don't have any online goals yet for your sports blog, ask yourself what you enjoy about sports and list the items. Force yourself to pick one item and one item only from the list. Then, blog about only things related to that item. It can be difficult, but keeping your sports blog's goal focused is key to success.

18) Balanced - Successful sports bloggers understand that staying well balanced is crucial to their future success. There are a number of things you must learn to balance your sports blog. They can include promotion time vs. time spent writing articles or balancing sports blogging with daily life. It can definitely get tough and any one who runs their own sports blog knows this. You may initially want to overwork yourself in pursuit of big money and begin to lose sight of things that really matter.

Successful sports bloggers know how to keep the right balance to achieve optimum results. Too much time spent promoting and not taking the time to develop good content is a setup for failure and vice-versa also applies Are you having trouble balancing your sports blog?

19) Purposeful - What is the purpose of your sports blog? Do you want to make money (duh)? Do you want to share with others how much you know about sports? Do you just need a place to rant about your team? Whatever it is, it really helps to understand the purpose of your sports blog in relationship to your personal values.

If I really didn't enjoy sports blogging, I would probably stop doing it and start focusing more of my time on other projects. Successful sports bloggers understand their online purpose, share it with others, and are passionate about their experience because of it. You have to understand that purpose is not the same as your online goal. Purpose is the reason for which you are online in the first place. Successful sports bloggers want to be online and are not forcing themselves to run a blog. They truly want to be doing it and everything that comes with it is like gravy.

20) Efficient - How efficient are your work habits? I will admit that from time to time I get caught up with life and am not able to stay focused on my sports blog even though I do always try my best. Sometimes when doing up a new post I will stop and have the urge to check my email, blog stats, how many tweets I have or feel compelled to check out Entrecard.

I have recognized this behavior and every time I have an urge to check my e-mail I try my best let it pass (unless it is the girlfriend). Why should you try to curb your e-mail urges? Because checking e-mail during the middle of a blog post is inefficient. Successful sports bloggers usually have a daily blogging routine that they stick to and incorporate into their life. It usually is as simple as a certain time period each day to work on your sports blog and let nothing interfere with that time.

21) Competitive - As a sports blogger it is pretty much built in that you are competitive already so this trait will be very common. I am always up for some good competition in my daily life and of course the blogosphere. You need to be somewhat competitive if you want to be a successful sports blogger.

What do I mean by competition? It can include friendly challenges with other sports bloggers such as networking to run a contest where the winner of the contest is the sports blog with the highest RSS subscriber count on a certain day. Simple things like that is great to see in the sports blogosphere even if your blogs should be bitter rivals based on the topics (Lakers-Celtics).

If someone asks me to have a competition and it does not involve a lot of money, you can bet that I will be willing to join. Being competitive also means being up-to-date with your advertising, producing quality content, and keeping your sports blog up to speed on the latest trends (Twitter for example). Not to get to philosophical but in the end it is important to realize that your only competition is yourself when trying to become successful as a sports blogger.

22) Honest - Honesty online is crucial to success. If you cannot be honest with your readers and admit your mistakes to others, you will never build trust or a good relationship with your readers (if that is your goal). Being as honest as possible with your commenting crowd is key and I really think that most readers enjoy that.

Successful sports bloggers are not afraid to admit their shortcomings or report the trouble that they ran into along the way. I will not hesitate to post about a time that I failed or ran into serious problems because I realize that there is always something to learn. From that others can learn from the problems or mistakes you have made. Be honest with yourself and be honest with your readers. Don't report huge monthly earnings just to draw attention to your sports blog and impress readers. Who really cares? Sure it can work for some (John Chow) but most people in the sports blogging world don't really care.

It is a terrible thing to lie to your readers and give them false hopes by displaying skewed information. If you are one of the big sports blogs, those starting out are going to try and follow your lead, so don't trick them. Read a successful sports blog once and you will know that they are not afraid to admit their mistakes!

23) Focused - Staying focused on sports blogging is very difficult for anyone that has not had much blogging experience. Starting out in sports blogging, I only posted about once every few days. Then I finally decided it was time to step it up. I really challenged myself to make a conscious effort to post everyday without excuses. It got to a point to where I felt bad for not posting and it became addicting. Now because I have the time to do it, I am posting three or four times a day.

While I am writing posts, it can be difficult to stay focused when others are emailing me, the dog is bored and wants to play or there is something on TV I want to watch. You need to fit all that in with your sports blogging. Over time I have developed a good strategy that seems to work out for me and really helps keep me focused. Getting into a daily blogging routine also helps. Think of it like your business or job (that you like) and that will help you be more focused.

Successful sports bloggers stay focused on their online projects and know exactly what move to make next. Are you focused, or do you get lost for hours once you open Facebook or Twitter?

24) Unique - Being unique is always something to strive for and incorporate into your online image. Who really wants to read just another sports blog? It really helps when you can think of your own interesting content and not flood your posts with regurgitated ideas that myself and others have read on all other sports blogs and websites.

Can't think of any ideas? Surf around the Internet and look at other blogs, listen to music or watch a TV show. Something will trigger a new idea. I like to think of it like this. What would be interesting and entertaining enough to get on the front page of Ball Hype or Yardbarker?

If you are a sports blogger you have an idea of what readers want so put your own spin on it. Most successful sports bloggers were the first of their kind and put forth the best effort in the growing niche. Sure you can choose to start another sports blog but don't make it a blog that someone refers to as "just another sports blog." Create an image to stand out from the crowd, and make it something memorable!

25) Patient - Fitting trait for the end of a list don't you think? Initially, sports blogging is not a very good investment. Your time spent sports blogging is worth much more than what you will initially be earning. If you are willing to stay in the game for the long-term, I think you will be very happy with the results. Successful sports bloggers understand that in the short-term, it may be very tough to get traffic, earn money, and get recognized. However, once you have stuck around for awhile with consistent content, you will be recognized as a reputable source of solid information.

It is great if you can throw a huge contest to celebrate the start-up of your sports blog, or get a load of traffic initially, but most sports bloggers are not that fortunate. Write these words down and live by them - patience is a virtue that successful sports bloggers have.


Make sure you check out other posts from Cuzzy like his ongoing "Rolling a Blog Joint..." and his "Babes of Survivor!"


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Posted 6/5/08

Mitchell Blatt of Juiced Sports Blog. Friend me on Stumble Upon at AirRaid81.

A Comprehensive Strategy for Pissing Off Loyal Visitors – In Other Words, This is Why You Shouldn’t Use Many Videos.

Arrogant bastard and super blogger John Chow recently did a post on Why Video is the Future of Blogging (it’s no-followed for ya, John) thus exposing himself as an idiot.

Now, you may think, John makes $30,000 a month, he knows blogging, so he must be right, but I think, John makes $30,000 a month, he’s got an ego bigger than China, so of course he thinks people want to see him talk about his daughter Sally.

Lately John has been posting a lot of videos of himself talking about something completely un-related to blogging, like traveling, China, or his daughter Sally, but even if he was talking about blogging, I still wouldn’t watch the videos.

Let me tell you why videos in blogs suck.

You guys are reading this right now and skipping sentences and paragraphs (or maybe even the entire article) that you don’t like. You know what to skip because you see the words on the page and you can see what paragraphs look interesting or if the article looks interesting as a whole.

With video, you can’t skip to the good parts, and you can’t even decide if the video looks good. You just see a screenshot and make a jump of faith. A few minutes in to the self-absorbed jackass prattling on about whatever, you decide, the first minute sucked, so the next five will probably suck, too. Does it take five minutes to read a blog post?

This is not to say all videos are bad. Here’s when to use videos.

Use a video of something related to make a point or entertain the reader. DON’T USE A VIDEO OF YOURSELF TALKING. That is what blog posts are for. You get a keyboard type out the same s%$t you speak, but a lot faster.

Use a video of the athlete you are writing about doing something funny or making a good play. Use a video of Will Leitch getting bitch slapped by Buzz Bissinger. Use a video to add to the post. That’s my point.

Now here are some more reasons John Chow’s post was retarded if you wish to read more Chow bashing.

He lists a bunch of reasons why people should use videos that make no sense like:

As a money making blogger, you have to keep an eye on the market to see where it’s headed. The next Internet isn’t on the desktop. If you stay there, you’ll be left behind.

What kind of a loser sits looking through websites on their phone at dinner or wherever the hell else they are? People have desktops and laptops because a phone can’t show a whole webpage on it, and because people don’t go out on a Friday night to search the internet. Also, IF the internet is headed that way, than the possibilities of making money are dramatically decreased, because no one can click ads on a small screen.

Low Cost of Entry
… If you have a digital camera (and who doesn’t?), chances are you can add videos right now.

If you want to waste time remembering to carry your camera with you everywhere, film yourself, edit the film, then upload it, I suppose it’s easy.

Having said that, keep in mind that the future of video on the Net is Hi-Def. If you’re in the market for a new digital camcorder and have some money to spend, you should consider getting the HD model.

No one cares about HD on YouTube… even less on an iPhone with a much smaller screen like you mentioned earlier.

Videos have their purpose: they should be used to enhance posts, but never use a video of yourself unless you want the publicity of being bashed on the Sports Dollar.


Time to join ClickBooth to help monetize your site, don't you think?

Posted 6/2/08

Guest post by Mitchell Blatt, AirRaid81 on Stumble Upon. (Add me and I'll add you) And the owner of the Sports Blogging Forums.

(Insert Subheadline Here)

You know those long rambling posts that you never read in their entirety? I admit I am guilty of them on my own site Juiced Sports Blog sometimes, because I like to write long. In a world of sound bytes and one-paragraph blog posts, that shouldn't be a problem, though, if you write them right.

Subheadlines

Subheadlines are good for conveying a detailed summary of the post. They also help for SEO. For SEO purposes, you will have a lot of keywords right at the front of the article in nice important tags. SE's give words in italics, bold, and h1-6 higher value that other words. More to the point, they get to the point of the post without a rambling title.

Titles should be short and catchy, like on one of my posts where I used the title, "Leave BlogRush Alone!" and featured a pic of the Leave Britney Alone Girl/Boy. Readers won't necessarily know what that means, though. It could be defending BlogRush, it could be parodying BlogRush, or it could be BlogRush tips, or anything else. As it turned out, it was BlogRush tips, so I added the subheadline "BlogRush Can Still Bring Decent Traffic if Used Properly."

Italics and Blockquote the Quotes

Quotes are usually more important or interesting than text, so make them stickout.

The best way is to blockquote them.

You can also make some returns and italics them. Blockquoting is similar to italicsing, so either way works. On a related note, you should also put in bold anything you want to draw attention to. People are going to be skimming your long articles, but there's some great lines or key points you want to make sure they don't miss.

Skip This Paragraph

Another important thing is to pay attention in school and work hard, because then you will do well. If not, you get stuck in Iraq. Hillary doesn't know what it's like to be in a country and a culture run by rich white people. God damn America. DON'T TAZE ME BRO! Can you get me some of them footsies? Hey, Charles, can I be in your Five? Welcome to the Jungle, We've got fun n games, We've got anything you want. And that's why I don't eat shrimp.

I told you to skip that shit

If you stopped reading there, you can start reading again now. That's an example of how to use more subheadlines. Put them throughout the post so that people know when to pay attention. When they see a stupid topic, they can just skip that paragraph and look for the good paragraphs. Like if John Chow wrote a subhead titled, "Sally," you would know to skip it.

Conclusion

You can still write long entries, just mark them up well.


Stay tuned, in a day or two, I will be writing a post bashing John Chow for being an idiot again, this time on the topic of "in post" videos. Chow thinks they're really cool. He's a fool.


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Posted 5/30/08

Guest Post written by Michael "Cuzzy" C. of the sports/Raptors/money making blog, Cuzoogle.com!


25 Traits of Successful Sports Bloggers: Part 1

The goal of the list is to help you understand how to shape your sports blogging experience towards becoming more successful online and in the sports blogging niche. I hope you are able to find characteristics that you might be lacking or may need to improve on. If not then you are probably one of the successful ones already.

Nobody is perfect, but successful sports bloggers really do a fabulous job at effectively mastering the majority of the 25 traits that are listed.

The cool thing about this list is that though sports bloggers may have an edge against you with certain traits, you can always work to improve and get stronger. Let me know what you think below and add any that I may have missed. These traits are not sports blogging specific so don't worry if you are not in the sports game, they work for whatever you blog about.

1) Hard-working - Though it looks like an easy path to become a successful sports blogger, it does take some hard work as anyone who has a blog knows. If you cannot put in hard work towards becoming successful online, it would probably be best to not work at all. It takes a lot time to educate yourself about a certain topic and to constantly think of new ideas as article topics.

Successful sports bloggers are usually passionate and willing to work hard on a daily basis in order to improve and stay successful! It is like building a championship team, it does not happen over night. In sports blogging, you must produce new, quality content to keep your reader's satisfied. The content cannot be filled with bogus information either, meaning you have got to be willing to actually do some hard work and get your hands dirty.

2) Persistent - Successful sports bloggers never shy away or back down in the face of failure. They realize that if they want to be successful they must never back down and be around for the long-term. If you look at some of the best sports blogs out there, they have been around for years. Sports bloggers that may not be persistent, usually back down and end up not being very successful.

The hype and fun that initially comes with the creation of a blog can definitely keep you motivated for a couple of months, but if you're going to back down and stop being persistent, you probably don't want to be successful in the first place.

3) Educated - It is important to stay educated in the niche that you are blogging about. Nobody wants to really hear or read what amateurs are going to write on their sports blogs. So that means you have to watch sports. Rough life eh? If you are a sports blogger chances are you watch a good amount of sports so this part is easy. If you follow one team, read everything there is about that team. Sure there might be the odd visit from a hardcore sports fan but most people are looking for good, quality content. Posting a recap of a game won't cut it but if you add your own spin or opinion, then it could catch fire.

As a sports blogger, it is extremely important to keep yourself educated by reading other successful sports blogs and understanding what can be done to improve your efforts. It is of course obvious that you should never copy other's work but I always find reading other sports blogs will stir up several ideas in my head.

4) Strategic - Not all sports bloggers have a good online strategy that works. Successful sports bloggers understand how to plan for success. This is key for when something goes wrong, or their business model is not well accepted by their readers. Then they will re-evaluate and plan out a new strategy.

Strategy is a factor in virtually every part of a sports blogger's online experience. You have to plan out promotion, goals, building traffic, and keeping visitors coming back for more. While many successful sports bloggers make blogging strategy look like Ray Allen shooting a free throw, there is a lot that is being done behind the scenes that may not be written about.


5) Disciplined - It can be difficult to stay disciplined for anyone, even the successful sports bloggers. What separates the successful sports bloggers from the unsuccessful, is the fact that successful sports bloggers force themselves to stay disciplined with posting, thinking of new post ideas, and doing work to improve their online status. Some days or weeks can seem like a struggle but you have to fight through. When seasons end, it can be the hardest but that is when you have to think outside of the box for ideas. Discipline can be tough for anyone, though there are activities like getting into a posting routine that can improve your discipline.

6) Intelligent - Do you want to read a blog post by someone that is less intelligent than you? Probably not although I would guess a lot of you don't really think about that. Most people follow sports bloggers to learn something about a sport, team, player or hot button topic. If you are not as intelligent as another sports blogger, who do you think is going to get the majority of traffic and keep their visitors around? Yep you guessed it. Intelligence is a big key as a sports blogger. We are not born with blogging knowledge (Wow can you imagine?) or experience but we can all educate ourselves by reading other sports blogs and staying subscribed to them.

7) Social - If you are not networking with other sports bloggers (WTF? You better be.), it is time to start. Networking with other sports bloggers can include things like doing a guest post (just like I am doing), running a contest with other sports bloggers or a mutual exchange of links for your blogroll.

Everyone involved in the business world networks offline, online, and know how to network very successfully. You do not really want to network with another sports blog that has significantly lower traffic than yours or a poorer online image although there are always exceptions to this.

If you have not started networking with other sports bloggers, send several blogs (preferably ones that are bigger than yours) a message asking if they would like to network with you. It is amazing how friendly the blog community is if you just ask. Everyone used to be small and I find even the big dogs don't mind helping out where possible. You can do things like put up each other's 125 x 125 advertisements, comment on each other's blogs and advertise using Entrecard.

8) Understanding - Successful sports bloggers are usually understanding of what most of us want to see and how they can help out their readers. As a sports blogger myself, I try to be understanding of my reader's needs and interests by interacting with them in the comments section of each post and answer all e-mails that come my way. If you are not understanding of what readers want, you don't allow yourself to have a friendly online image that helps form a strong community.

9) Creative - This is my favorite trait of a successful sports blogger, one that I really try to zero in on. If you do the same thing as everybody else online, it is going to be extremely difficult to succeed. Right now the sports blogging niche is so overcrowded and over populated that it is very tough to get inside position under the boards. The good news is there are so many teams and so many players that it is possible to carve out your own little area.

The key to online success is being creative. Most sports bloggers that are successful right now did something completely new and innovative that most others had not thought of at the time. We all read Dead Spin and think wow, that is such a simple concept for a blog, why did I not think of that. Many people are reading that blog hoping to do the exact same thing as Dead Spin and make the same amount of money. Good luck to you if that is your goal right out of the shoot.

The fact is, most do not realize that it is much more difficult when you follow suit. The term been there done that comes to mind. Now there are many sports bloggers making a name for themselves, don't get me wrong but you need to stand out a bit. When you can be creative and be the first of your kind in an untapped niche, then you will be able to be as successful as the lucky bastards at Dead Spin.

10) Flexible - Being flexible plays a huge part in being a successful sports blogger. Anyone who works in sports or watches a lot of sports knows the strain it can put on the people in our lives. Most successful sports bloggers understand when it is time to call it quits and spend time with their family or dabble in other hobbies.

It is important to not get addicted to sports blogging to keep other areas of life in perspective. When money starts to roll in and the traffic jumps, the temptation can be to sit there for several hours working on the blog. I am not saying that is a bad thing but too much of any one thing can really throw other areas of life out of sorts. Too much sports blogging is not good and can actually get people a little overstressed. On the flip-side of that, too many outside activities can make it difficult to get back into the sports blogging routine. It is all about balance. So go and watch the game and take a break.

11) Consistent - Consistency is a key attribute to online success. Successful sports bloggers stay consistent with posting, marketing, and maintenance of their blog. Being consistent with posting frequency plays a huge role in gaining the trust of RSS subscribers and getting more visitors to subscribe. Staying consistent with all of your online efforts will play a huge role in the success of your sports blog. If you know that you can stay consistent with quality content, I can tell you with confidence that you will make money eventually and be successful. Like many things staying consistent is much easier said than done, though with proper discipline, we all have it in us to do it.

12) Confident - I have yet to come across a successful sports blogger that has low levels of confidence. Just like the athletes we watch, showing confidence is everything when going into battle. Confidence is displayed in your writing tone, through the quality of your content, and through activities such as guest posting on other sports blogs.

Most other sports bloggers that are in the business to be successful are never stressed about asking someone to guest post or posting links to their posts in forums. This is why it is great to ask other sports bloggers for help or even trading links. I have never felt like someone was turning me down because I was the competition. It is not like we are in law school or fighting for a Wii on Boxing Day. If you are lacking in confidence, you better do yourself a huge favor by boosting it up. Now drop and give me 20.

This concludes Part 1 of 25 Traits of successful sports bloggers. Look for the part 2 soon!

Make sure you check out other posts from Cuzzy like his ongoing "Rolling a Blog Joint..." and his "10 Reasons Why I hope the Spurs are Done."


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Posted 5/29/08

Guest post written by Carolyn of the And One basketball blog, an amazing NBA blog following the Cleveland Cavaliers.

How do you Make Time to Blog?

Carolyn approached me the other day after reading a question from LinkedIn which asked, "How do you make time to blog? How do you maximize your blogging and social media productivity?" This was her response...

Blogging For Life

Number one rule - never go to sleep until you have listed your blog on one new directory and/or left a comment on someone else's blog. This will quickly build an audience which helps motivate you to write when you're busy.

Make a list (mental or otherwise) of your favorite blogs. This will come in handy on a day when you need an idea or are too busy to write. Takes about 10 minutes to put together a list of links for your readers to enjoy.

Interview your readers. Make a list (mental or otherwise) of questions for a mock interview. Every so often, ask a frequent commenter or another blogger for an "interview." Send questions, sit back, do other stuff, post answers when they arrive. Your readers will feel more involved with your site and it gives you a break.

When you find yourself staring out the window, watching the Godfather for the 19th time or chatting on the phone with nothing to say, remind yourself (out loud is fine) that your fan base awaits. Put down the phone, toss the remote out the daydream window and get to work. We'll all feel better.

Make a list (mental or otherwise) of interesting topics that cross your path. For us sports bloggers, this list is golden in the offseason.

When you read a blog and think "that's what I'm talking about," send the site administrator a note. Let them know you appreciate their work and suggest a link exchange. I have the world's ugliest blogroll (cannot be alphabetized) and am continually surprised how many people are willing to be listed.

When you're feeling productive, write a couple of pieces. Only post one. Save the rest for a busy day.

Guest bloggers - your friends and family will be thrilled and flattered to have a byline on your site.

If there are social networks specific to your blog's overall topic, join every one and engage with the community.

Saying to a friend who wants to go to a movie that you need to write a game recap for your blog and seeing that "you have got to be kidding me" and involuntary eye roll can be intimidating. This happens to me a lot. Any time you make a change in your life, people will resist it. They want your relationship to stay the same. Two thoughts on this.

1) Reconcile yourself to seeing less of this particular person

2) Explain to them what blogging means to you and you may be surprised that the next time you ask them to go to the movies, they will decline because they need to post something.

The assumption behind this question is the notion of sacrifice in order to blog. How do I put aside the rest of my life to make time for blogging? My experience has been exactly the opposite. Blogging is the fountain at the center of my life, enriching all areas. I have met people all over the world and right here in Cleveland, including my own neighbors. Friends use the blog to stay connected in their busy times.

It is possible to sustain a real life and an interesting, current blog. In fact, it's the only way.

Did you know you can sell links on your site with Text-Link-Ads?

Posted 5/27/08

Mitchell Blatt, owner of Juiced Sports Blog’s Sports Blogger Forums and AirRaid81 on StumbleUpon who would love to add you as a friend!

BlogRush Can Still Bring Decent Traffic if Used Properly

Alright guys, so many of you know about BlogRush and chances are if you know about BlogRush, the first thing you know about it is that is sucks. That is only partially true. BlogRush does suck in it’s default state, but if you make some modifications to the RSS feed, it came bring good traffic.

BlogRush, for those of you who don’t know about it, is a blog syndication service that puts a widget up on your site with links to related posts, and it will put your links up on the widget on other people’s sites if you add it to yours. You can sign up here: BlogRush

The problem is that it uses the default RSS feed of your blog to display the links and titles. That leads to terrible click-thru rates, because the title space is pretty small in BlogRush, and even if the titles fit, they won’t get many clicks unless they catch the reader’s attention with controversy or whatever.

Now, you don’t want to be writing BlogRush titles for your blog titles, because that would probably annoy the direct visitors to your blog. So, what’s a blogger to do to have good BlogRush titles and good organic titles?

Just modify your RSS feed. Here’s a hack for anyone who uses Wordpress to create a custom RSS feed for BlogRush that will display only your single best post and title:

Create a Microsoft Word or other text-editing file, and use this code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?> <rss version="2.0">

<channel>
<title>Your Blog Title</title>
<link>http://www.your blog url.com</link>
<description>Your Blog's Description or Tagline</description>
<language>en-us</language>

<item>
<category>BlogRush</category>
<title>Featured Post Title</title> <link>http://yourblogurl.com/permalink to the post</link>
<description>
This description is not used by BlogRush.
</description>
</item>
</channel>
</rss>

Leave everything alone except the variables that are marked for your individual use.

Save the file as blogrushrss.rss or whateveryouwant.rss and then upload it to your ftp. This is only possible with Wordpress, unfortunately.

When it comes to your Featured Post Title, write something short and funny or interesting. That will get clicks. I had done some experimenting with this in the past, and some of my top titles were things like “Brett Favre is a Disgrace!” (in regards to his thoughts about unretiring) and “Mark Cuban was Right!” (about blogging and banning bloggers from his locker room).

Don’t expect 10% click thru rates to your blog. (Hell, don’t even expect 1%.) But, right now, most people are struggling just to get 0.1%. I’m getting 0.5%. With as many displays as BlogRush gives, that translates into 10-20 visitors a day for me. Consider this is free traffic. The traffic from all these sources adds up, and the more traffic you get, the more impressions you get. My impressions have been growing exponentially.

Do the same thing, and your hits will be growing exponentially as well.

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Did you know you can sell links on your site with Text-Link-Ads?

Posted 5/20/08


Mitchell Blatt, owner of Juiced Sports Blog and the Sports Blogger Forums for discussing blogging

How I Added 50 Stumble Upon Friends in One Week

Social media sites are a good way to build traffic to your blog with little effort, but most of them don’t work for sports blogs. Digg certainly won’t work, and even if it did, it offers terrible traffic quality. Stumble Upon, however, works for almost any kind of site. I’ll tell you from experience it works great with sports blogs and has great traffic quality.

Take a look at how Stumble Upon visitors compare to the average visitors to my site Juiced Sports Blog:
Source-Pages/Visit-Time on Site
Stumble Upon-2.11-1:45
Site Average-1.73-1:07

Furthermore, you don’t need a ton of friends to get good traffic volume. However, the more friends you have the better, so here are some tricks I used to increase my friend count by 50 in one week.

Give Away Free Stumbles

This is the fastest way to build your friend count. Go to webmaster forums and post saying you are going to give away free Stumbles to anyone who wants them. Tell them to PM you and reply. There are sub forums in most forums titled “services” for these kind of exchanges. Some forums like Digital Point have banned free Stumble giveaways, but many haven’t, and I’ll list some good ones in a sec.

But first, here’s how it works. How do you gain friends by giving away free Stumbles? After you Stumble their site, send back a PM saying you Stumbled them and asking if they would please add you as a friend and give them your link. 90% of the people will add you as a friend.

Here’s some forums to make such a post, ranked in order of traffic:
V7N
Webmaster Talk
Webmaster Forums
Webmaster Forums.net

For many of these forums, you will need 10 or 20 posts before you can post in the requests/services category. I know for V7N, it’s 10, so just make posts in other categories first.

You will get a lot of PM’s early on, but they eventually die down and your thread will get buried, so periodically, you should go back and make a post yourself to the extent of “Sites Stumbled.”

Message People With Similar Interests

On social media sites, people like to be interacted with, so if you make an effort to connect with them, they will likely reciprocate. Get some interesting things Stumbled on your page about the topic you are targeting, possibly write a blog post on your profile, then search for people interested in that topic, “sports” for example.

See some stuff they Stumbled, then message them about their Stumbles, offering your opinion on some of those topics, or just saying, “Nice Stumbles. Friended you,” if you’re lazy. (Actually friend them before saying that.)

I like messaging people more than reviewing their profiles, because messaging them doesn’t show up on your profile as recent activity, and if you have a lot of reviews of Stumbles on your profile instead of reviews of websites, you’re profile won’t look very interesting. Also, messages are more personal, so they seem to have a higher chance of getting people to friend you.

Add Me as a Friend

Add me as a friend here and I will reciprocate. There’s one add right there, and a good one. I like to Stumble sports stories I see, and I have a relatively large reach among my number of friends. It’s nice to have some highly friended people among your group of friends, because then if they Stumble it, it goes out to a large audience.

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Posted 5/19/08

Guest post written by James of NE Patriots Draft, a site dedicated to the wonderful world of football and the incredible amount of coverage given to the NFL draft.


Maximizing your Sports Blog Traffic

NE Patriots Draft has been operating for exactly two months. During this time, as lead writer and designer for the site, I have learned quite a bit about obtaining traffic, both quality and quantity. During our first two months, we have had just over 25,000 unique visitors and 105,000 pageviews. 80% of our traffic comes from referring links, while 15% comes from search engines. Here are my three thoughts on how to receive more traffic.

Stay Focused

My website deals mainly with analyzing the NFL Draft, the Patriots, and Patriots personnel moves. On occasion, I'll write a humor or editorial piece, such as the article that won me a free trip to the Patriots/Chiefs opening day game, courtesy of Bleacher Report. These articles don't bring in returning visitors very often, and some of my regulars have commented that they find them a waste of their reading, as they come for NFL Draft and Patriots analysis. Variety is nice, but losing focus risks losing your regular readers.

Fill a Need

There are literally millions of blogs out there. Why should someone read yours? Quality content and a nice design sometimes isn't enough. Most sites that succeed provide a service that can't be received elsewhere or at least many other places. HailRedskins and Walter Football have superb Mock Draft Databases and the Sports Dollar has advice you can't get elsewhere. We had our Undrafted Free Agent list. We were sick of looking at disjointed snippets of UDFA information, so we collected all the info and with our own sources we are able to put together a pretty accurate list in no time. Thus, need filled. That one post got over 115 links and over 15,000 pageviews in a short amount of time.

Use the Right Social Bookmarking

At NE Patriots Draft we started off using Digg, StumbleUpon, and Delicious as our Social Bookmarking focus. If you look at the popular Digg pages you will rarely see something from a blog, and even rarer to see something from the sports world. Leave Digg to tech and politics. After two weeks and about 15 total hits, we decided that we needed to find something else. Yardbarker.com was found to be an excellent way to bring in more traffic (3,000+ UV) while Ballhype hasn't lived up to our expectations (900+ UV), although perhaps we need to give it more time.

Follow your voice, provide a service, and target the right audience, and you too can reach your traffic and exposure goals.

Check out NE Patriots Draft's most recent post on their 2009 Patriots Mock Draft Database.


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Posted 5/16/08

Guest post written by Alex of Basketball Notes by Alex, a very solid NBA basketball site run by one of the top young guns in the business.


Don't Recap, Rethink: A Sports Blog Primer