“How to Succeed in the Video Game Blog Niche” plus 1 more

How to Succeed in the Video Game Blog Niche

Posted: 18 Aug 2012 01:06 PM PDT

This guest post is by David Edwards of A Sitting Duck.

A screenshot from my game, Candy

This year was a land mark year for A Sitting Duck. What started as a blog and creative community has evolved into a limited company that is on track to publish a multi-platform game very soon.

As John mentioned yesterday, gaming is a large and growing niche, with a massive, very passionate audience. It’s a great space to operate in as a blogger, and a business person.

Monetization

The Candy menu

When it comes to making money, development companies like Thegamebakers.com use a blog to capture a free audience to save money on banner advertising, and sell their own games.

Large video game blogs sell ad space, from a bespoke full skin (like Pocket Gamer), where they fully re-brand the home page to promote the sponsor’s game, to the regular box ads at a more reasonable price.

Monetization gets interesting when you look at the smaller blogs in this space (avergaing 5,000 – 50,000 hits a month). These guys usually go for the approach of selling paid reviews, where developers pay, say, $300 to look at your game and write a positive or neutral review of it (it’s never bad—hence the fee!).

If you did ten or more reviews a month, it would start to work out as a full-time salary. Pocketfullofapps.com is a great example of this approach in action, and that blog’s founder is looking to expand quickly over the coming year.

What are you waiting for?

Overall I’d say you should start off by building up your volume of blog posts and video catalog, as this market is very much focused on quantity rather than quality, thoughtful stuff.

Then, once you have that base, work with other active blogs on videos, get them in on the commentary, and you'll have the kind of banter that really brings in the video views (thousands, and in some cases millions!).

David Edwards is the founder of http://www.asittingduck.com and produces animations over at www.youtube.com/asittingducktv.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

How to Succeed in the Video Game Blog Niche

Stand Out in the Popular Pet Blogging Niche

Posted: 18 Aug 2012 07:03 AM PDT

This guest post is by Kimberly Gauthier of Keep the Tail Wagging.

When I was planning the launch of Keep the Tail Wagging, I heard the question "Do you know how many pet blogs are out there?” As John pointed out yesterday, this is a big niche, with a lot of competition.

But when I was asked this question, I would simply smile politely, while thinking, "Who cares?!” I'm not one to run away from a challenge; I'd been blogging since 2009 and planned to put everything I'd learned into practice on my new site.

Keep the Tail Wagging launched January 1, 2012. In less than six months, I had a page rank of 2 (I'm convinced I deserve a 3 or 4), over 5,000 likes on Facebook and over 5,000 followers on Twitter.

Succeeding as a small fish in a big pond

To anyone looking to start a blog in a popular niche, don't let the crowds discourage you. It is possible to carve out your own section of the pond. I get emails daily asking how I've managed to build Keep the Tail Wagging's following and it was actually pretty easy. I've boiled my success down to five things that I do consistently.

1. Keyword research

Before Keep the Tail Wagging was launched, I downloaded a free version of Market Samurai to help me find an opening within the niche that could be monetized. I didn't find the opening I was looking for.

But, using the free Google Keyword tool, I did find keywords with the right combination of competition and searches, and I apply these to each blog post I wrtie.

It’s a thrill to know, for example, that a dog owner researching her dog food options found my site through a Google search; this let me know that I was choosing the correct keywords for my audience.

2. Simple SEO

I remember the "Of course” moment that struck when I realized that I could put keywords in the captions and meta-tags of my images. I'm not an expert in search engine optimization, but I do comprehend the basics and use the plugin WordPress SEO, and I invested in an SEO-friendly, premium WordPress theme.

SEO doesn't have to stop on our sites; I send those keywords to every site that uses my content—Flickr (as in the image below), Pinterest, and Stumble Upon to name a few. Any content or site that's going to be indexed by the search engines is another opportunity for someone to find my site.

Not only is this great for Keep the Tail Wagging; properly tagging on social networks also benefits the pet companies that send me products to review.

3. Promote like hell

I spent the first two months after launch on a PR campaign to make my site stand out. To start, I told friends and family, handing out business cards, hung flyers, wrote press releases, and added links to my email and forum signatures.

I paid for a Facebook advertising campaign during the first month my site was live. It asked people to click Like if they're tired of long commercials showing abused animals. My first few hundred likes came from that campaign—and those clicks led to more referrals.

Then I discovered Reporter Connection as unexpected PR sources. People became curious about Keep the Tail Wagging after seeing my regular inquiries and began to check the blog out. During my second month, a PR professional was promoting my site to friends for free.

I landed several interviews and, most recently, a monthly feature on a local podcast about pets through these sources.

4. Interact with fans

I focus most of my time on the fans that liked my Facebook page, encouraging interaction, and getting feedback and article ideas. Word of mouth is big on social networking sites and each week, friends of fans stop by to like my page.

Creating that back-and-forth made people feel comfortable to email me with questions about their dogs, which inspired articles I wrote for Keep the Tail Wagging. We're told to become authorities in our niche. Well, what better way to do that than to answer questions asked by our fans?

Over time, I got over my shyness and started asking people to tell their friends about my blog, share a post, and comment on an article or status update.

What makes a blog stand out is the blogger

I chose to be more personable with Keep the Tail Wagging followers by sharing my daily life with them (pictures, stories, frustrations). My followers came with me when we fostered our first dog, when we lost our puppy to Canine Parvovirus, and when Blue joined our family.

Sometimes it's the person, their writing style, or their short and sweet posts that makes a blog sing. There's a reason why we choose to read some social media or photography blogs instead of others.

I'm not the most popular pet blogger. I need to work on my bounce rate and I'm on the lookout for regular guest contributors. But as to my success in the first six months of blogging in this niche, I'd have to say "Not bad.”

That said, we’re all learning every day. Do you spend any time on pet blogs? Do you operate in a similar niche? Share your tips for success with us in the comments.

Kimberly Gauthier is the Editor in Chief of Keep the Tail Wagging, an online magazine for dog lovers. She's also featured on Girl Power Hour as The Fur Mom and the podcast Your Pets, My Dogs.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Stand Out in the Popular Pet Blogging Niche