Monetize Your Sports Blog with a Niche Store

Ok, let’s really fire up this blog with a case study/project I am working on that you guys can follow along with me. I am hoping this can be a model all sports bloggers can adapt to monetize their blog.

It is a known fact that the best and most profitable way to make money online is by selling your own product or service. I mean you can’t really beat 100% of the revenue going into your own pocket. But not everyone has the drive, wherewithal, resources or time do develop a brand new and unique product or service.

That is where affiliate programs come into play. As most of you already know these programs allow you to offer other people’s products or services for a percentage of the revenue. All without having to deal with customer service issues, fulfillment and managing inventory.

With those benefits in mind I have decided to create an Amazon and eBay affiliate-based store as part of my overall blog monetization strategy. What the hell does that mean?

Project: The Philly Sports Store

My blog the Recliner GM Philly Sports Blog caters heavily to Phillies, Sixers and Eagles fans. That is who we promote to, our primary audience and regular readers. In order to monetize that traffic effectively I will create a store with products targeted to that specific demographic.

At the outset the product listings will consist primarily of Amazon and eBay merchandise from books, jerseys, dvds, sports memorabilia and anything else Philly sports-related I can find through those affiliate programs.

Now this is not some dinky “store” page added to the blog with text links and banners to affiliates. I created a subdirectory of my blog called Philly Sports Store with a new Wordpress install in order to create a full and completely flexible store that will house tons of product pages and reviews. This allows me to keep a uniform look and feel that blends with the branding of my blog as well interlinks the two seamlessly.

Benefits of adding a niche store to your existing sports blog

• Sports blog monetization - This creates a portal for you to sell relevant products to your audience in an unobtrusive way. You can easily reference and link to your store and products in posts without completely sending people into the abyss of the web, and provides them an easy path back to your blog as well.
• Passive income - Niche stores are huge right now. I myself have already created two BANS stores and have plans for multiple others in the near future. But why all the hype? Building niche stores creates a passive income stream. Do something once, and get paid over and over again on that one effort. It isn’t that simple; there is some maintenance over time, but it is very minor for the most part.
• SEO and targeted organic traffic - Amazon and especially eBay product listings are keyword laden therefore they have built in SEO benefits. For example on my BANS sites I was ranking on the first page of all major search engines for long tail keywords within a matter a days without any immediate SEO work (disclaimer it doesn’t last if you don’t build on it). By having a niche store attached to your blog you will get targeted search traffic (i.e. people looking for Sixers jerseys) showing up at the store. If you place a link or graphic to your blog in a prominent location many of those people interested in Sixers jerseys will wander over for some Sixers hoops talk as well.
• Growth potential - If you do decide to develop your own products or services that cater to the niche of your sports blog you will have already built a medium to promote it. And if you did your job you would have a head start with a store that is already generating targeted traffic.

In my head the possibilities seem endless. Now it is just a matter of getting to work and putting all this into practice. Over the course of developing my Philly Sport Store I will write several posts outlining things such as my thinking, progress, what tools and resources I’ve used, what expenses I’ve incurred and of course my success (or failure).

Will it work? I don’t know. I think so otherwise I wouldn’t be trying and putting in the time. But honestly if it doesn’t, so what? It will likely have cost me very little money, my own time and the learnings I get will be well worth the effort.

What do you think?