A gaming blog is a website or blog dedicated to discussing video games. Gaming blogs usually cover news, previews, and reviews of video games and offer tips, tricks, and cheats for gamers. However, some gaming blogs also focus on specific aspects of gaming culture, such as cosplay, fan art, and game modding.
Many popular gaming blogs cater to different audiences. For example, Kotaku is a gaming blog covering video game news, while IGN focuses on video game reviews and previews. Smaller niche gaming blogs also focus on specific genres or consoles, such as Nintendo Life (which covers everything Nintendo) or PlayStation Lifestyle (which covers everything PlayStation).
In this article, I’ll give you a bird’s eye view of setting up a successful gaming blog.
Let’s take a look.
Why you should create a gaming blog
There are several reasons why you should consider starting your own gaming blog.
First, it’s a great way to connect with other gamers and discuss your favorite games. When you start a gaming blog, you quickly become part of a community of like-minded people who love games as much as you do. This can lead to great friendships, but it can also lead to healthy competition! Building a community around gaming can also provide you with additional networking opportunities that can eventually lead to work or a job in the gaming industry.
Second, starting a gaming blog is a great way to hone your writing skills. When constantly writing about video games, you improve your ability to communicate clearly and concisely. This valuable skill will come in handy in many different areas of your life. I started writing about games right after graduating with a degree in game design, and it’s helped me immeasurably over the years.
Third, a game blog is a great way to showcase your gaming industry knowledge. When you write about video games, you show the world you know what you are talking about. This can be a considerable advantage when looking for jobs or networking with others in the industry.
Fourth, owning a game blog offers the opportunity to make money writing about games. There are many ways to monetize a game blog.
One way to monetize a game blog is through advertising. You can sell ad space on your blog directly or join an ad network like Google AdSense. Advertisers will then pay you to have their ads appear on your blog. How much money you make depends on how many visitors your blog has.
Another way to fund a gaming blog is through affiliate marketing. In this, you promote products or services on your blog and receive a commission for each sale you make. For example, if you have a blog about PlayStation games, you can promote PlayStation consoles and games on your blog and get a commission for every sale you make.
Finally, there’s another way to monetize a gaming blog: Sponsorship. This is where companies or brands pay you to promote their products or services on your blog. For example, a blog can get paid by companies to write about their latest games or hardware.
Ok, now you know why you should create a gaming blog. A blog allows you to interact with other gamers, improve your writing skills, show off your knowledge of games, and make money from your hobby.
In the next section, I’ll go over the different types of gaming blogs you can start.
What types of gaming blogs can you start?
In the last section, I gave several reasons why you should start a gaming blog.
Now it’s time to look at the different types of gaming blogs you could start.
Gaming News Blog
The first type of gaming blog is a news blog. These blogs focus on writing about the latest news in the gaming industry. This can be anything from new game announcements to DLC releases to industry news like console wars.
As a gamer, staying up to date on the latest news in the industry is important. That way, you’ll be sure not to miss any big announcements and always know what’s new.
Many things make a good news blog. But before we get into that, let us first discuss what all news blogs have in common. Of course, they all report news, but they usually report the same news. That’s because they all work with the same news stories. This means that all blogs typically report on the same news. They just cover it in a slightly different way. Each blog has its own angle on the same news. For example, imagine that a new Call of Duty has been announced. One site might cover the news from the perspective of the multiplayer game. Another blog might look at the news from the standpoint of computer graphics. Both report on the same event, but a different perspective means the news is entirely different.
You’ll notice many similarities when you first look at news blogs. Most of these blogs report on the same news stories. Some blogs may not report on everything new that comes out, but they report on the most popular games. You’ll also notice that these blogs focus on only one or two genres, such as FPS or RPGs. Some blogs cover multiple genres, but they usually only report on the biggest games from those genres.
For example, I’ve just recently written a blog article about Void Salts in Skyrim. This shows you can write about anything game related in your blog.
A good news blog will focus on one or two genres. This helps them focus on the best news in that genre and allows them to cover those types of games in more detail. This also helps them stand out from other news blogs.
Game Review Blog
Another type of gaming blog is a review blog. These blogs focus on writing reviews about video games. Review blogs usually have a star rating system that rates games with 5 stars. Review blogs can also be helpful for gamers who want to know if a game is worth their time and money.
These types of blogs are very popular with gamers. With thousands of new games every year, it is impossible to play them all. Therefore, game review blogs are an essential resource that helps gamers play games worth their time.
Moreover, running a game review blog is a very lucrative business. Smaller game companies, such as indie developers, will approach you as a blog owner to get you to review their games. In the beginning, they may just offer free access to their game. But as your site grows, game companies approach you and offer to pay you to write reviews for them.
Game tips and tricks Blog
The third type of gaming blog is a blog with tips about games. These blogs focus on giving readers tips and tricks for video games. Tips blogs usually focus on specific games or genres, such as first-person shooters or puzzle games.
Generally, you should have a good command of the games you are giving tips on.
However, that’s not always the case. For example, I have written blog posts about games I have never played. But since I like to write and make the information as easy to read as possible, I often write my own guides.
Gaming Hardware Blog
The fourth type of gaming blog you could create is a gaming hardware blog. This type of blog would be about anything hardware-related.
You could write blog posts about PC hardware like video cards and CPUs. Or you could write articles about console peripherals like controller charging stations or third-party controllers.
As you can imagine, there are many different types of gaming blogs that I have not mentioned yet. You can create a news blog, a review blog, a tips and tricks blog, or a hardware blog.
And there are so many more ideas than these. In the next section, I’ll discuss choosing a gaming blog niche.
Selecting a gaming blog niche.
When I started CareerGamers, I was told that choosing the wrong niche would lead to failure before I even wrote a word. So I spent weeks trying to find a gaming niche that was not too crowded and still offered plenty of potential to make money.
Looking back, I know I made a mistake selecting my niche in such a logical way. Yes, a website needs to make money. But my idea lacked one crucial factor. I wasn’t passionate about pro gaming.
And that showed through in the early days of my articles. So you need to learn from my mistake.
You should build a blog around your passion.
Do you love to play Minecraft? Then start a Minecraft blog. Do not worry about the competition. Do not worry about how you can make money. All you need to do in the early days of your blog is create lots of content. Making money will happen. You just have to focus on creating content first.
Another example: imagine you like to play the game Dwarf Fortress: a very niche, challenging game. Could you write a blog about it? Of course, you could! It might not have millions of visitors every month (you’d be surprised), but a blog in this niche can be as successful as any other blog.
As a general rule of thumb, the smaller the blog’s niche, the easier it will be to sell customized products to that group of people.
If you focus on a niche blog, such as one that only has 10,000 views per month, you’ll find that these people, who are as passionate about the game as you are, will be very receptive to you selling the products.
So when you pick a niche for your blog, make sure you pick one you are passionate about.
You are not sure what you are passionate about. Ask yourself this:
What specific hobbies or interests have I been continuously interested in for the past 3 years?
If I had to answer this question, I would say eco-friendly cars, soccer games, fountain pens, non-fiction writing, content creation, woodworking, drawing, and self-education.
These are the areas of my life in which I have shown consistent interest. What areas have you consistently shown interest in?
If you love games, try to say what about games has sustained your interest over the years. Maybe it’s a particular genre of games.
Once you have an answer, you’ll have a good idea for a game blog.
So in this section, we learned that the blog niche you choose should be based on your passion for games. And that you should have been interested in this field for at least 3 years.
The next section will briefly discuss how or where to set up your gaming blog.
Choose a name for your gaming blog.
Now that you have decided to start a blog, you need to come up with a name. This is an important decision because the name of your blog is the first thing people will see when they search for your blog online. It is also the name that will appear in your blog’s URL (web address). Therefore, choosing a name that means something to you and represents your blog’s content is important.
Here are some tips for choosing a blog name:
1. Do NOT pick a name that is already taken. This is an easy mistake to make! To check if a name is already taken, you can do a Google search for the name. If you find that the name is already taken, try different variations. A blog named “COD gamer” could become “COD Gamer Den” or “The COD Gamer Den” If that does not work, you can also search the blog’s domain name on GoDaddy to see if the domain is available.
2. Make sure people can pronounce the name of your blog. This is very important. You do not want your blog to be mispronounced or misheard by the blogging community or your readers. An easy way to get help is to tell friends and family that you are looking for a name and ask them if they can think of any good names for you.
3. Keep it simple. This is a crucial tip: keep it simple! The name of your blog should be easy to remember. Otherwise, people will be confused as to what your blog is about. If people do not know what your blog is about, they will not visit it very often and will tell their friends to stay away from it.
4. Beware of names that are gross or offensive. I have seen very offensive blogger names. Do not be that kind of guy! Blogging is a form of writing, so choose a name that will make people think highly of you.
5. Stay away from trademarked names. Do not use names of well-known companies, celebrities, or other blogs in your blog names.
6. Do not use hyphens unless you use them to make a catchy word, like “tech crunch.”
7. Make sure your blog name is not too long. I have seen some very long blog names. In some cases, the name was more than twenty characters. This makes it hard for people to remember your blog.
8. Avoid using acronyms for your blog name. Acronyms are very hard to remember!
9. Do not use underscores. Underscores make your blog name look like it’s from 1999.
10. Make sure the blog name you want to use is available on all the social media sites you want to use. There is no point in buying the URL CandyGamingGirl.com if the name CandyGamingGirl is already used on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and other social sites.
How to set up a gaming blog
In my opinion, there is only one easy way to set up a gaming blog that gives you enough freedom to run ads for ad revenue and gives you enough power to grow in the future.
That way is to use WordPress. Now I have to admit that I hate WordPress. Yes, that’s right, I am recommending software that I loathe with a passion.
But I am recommending it because, quite simply, there is nothing better that offers the flexibility you’ll need in the future.
WordPress is a complex, over-engineered software that is better suited for developers than for the people who actually create content.
I would recommend something nice and simple like Medium or Ghost.io if I could.
But I can’t because their beautiful yet simple nature means they are almost impossible to use with ads enabled.
And believe me, you’ll want to enable advertising early in your game blog’s career because then you can spend some money on additional tools and web hosting.
So I’m recommending you stick with WordPress.
Before we start setting up your WordPress blog, you’ll need to buy web hosting. I recommend Dreamhost because it’s one of the most reliable and affordable web hosting providers. Plus, they offer a free domain name if you sign up for an annual plan. So be sure to pick a name for your blog.
Once you have purchased the hosting, your next task is to install WordPress. Dreamhost, as well as many other WordPress hosts, make this as easy as possible.
Dreamhost offers a simple one-click WordPress installation.
Once completed, you will be redirected to your WordPress installation and can log in anytime.
The first thing most people do when they first install WordPress is changing the theme.
All I can tell you is this: do not bother.
The default WordPress 2022 theme is fast, easy to use, and looks modern.
You will not need to change the theme for at least 2-3 years, if ever.
What you should do, however, is install a security plugin. I recommend Wordfence. Once the plugin is installed, you can start creating content for your blog.
So in this section, you have learned that you need to buy web hosting, install WordPress and then install a security plugin to protect your site.
The next section is about the content that is so important and how often you should create it.
Start creating content.
In the last section, I explained that you need to buy web hosting to create a WordPress website.
In this section, we will talk about content.
By now, you should know what kind of gaming blog you want to create. For example, you might have decided to create a gaming news blog.
Now it’s time to start writing and creating blog posts for your blog.
I can tell you from personal experience that this is the hardest part of creating a blog. Anyone can set up a WordPress blog. Anyone can buy hosting. But not everyone can make hundreds, and I do mean hundreds, of blog posts on one topic. It can, and I promise you it will, feel like a slog. There are over 350 blog posts on Career Games. That’s almost 1,000,000 words of content. Sometimes the need to create a large amount of content has felt overwhelming. But I promise you, that feeling trudging through a never-ending swamp does end, eventually. I have some advice on creating content below.
Tip 1: Focus on one article at a time.
For your blog to succeed, you need hundreds, and I mean hundreds, of pieces of content. This can feel pretty daunting if the amount of content on your blog is zero. The most important advice I can give you is this: Pick a problem gamers are currently facing, focus on it and it alone, then write a 1500-word solution. Then do the same thing the next day. And then the next, and the next. Nothing contributes more to the growth of your website than creating content for it. So sit down every day and write a blog post that is at least 1500 words long. If you do this 3 to 5 times a week for a year or two, you will end up with a successful blog.
Tip 2: Focus on keywords.
Have you ever noticed that when typing in a search on Google, Google suggests lots of other searches?
Well, those suggestions are actually keywords. And they are crucial to your success as a blogger. 80% of the time, you should write articles that target keywords. The reason is simple: every keyword typed into Google is a problem that is typed by thousands of people. So, if you write an article that targets a specific keyword, there is a very high chance that thousands of people who type the keyword into Google will visit your article to solve the problem.
It is also easy to find keywords to target. Go to Google and type in a topic that has something to do with your website, such as PlayStation 5. You will find that Google will suggest you several keywords related to PlayStation 5 that have been entered by real people. You can target any of these keywords suggested by Google.
Another method to find good keywords is to type in one of the main topics your website is targeting, for example, PlayStation 5, and press enter. Scroll down the main results page until you find the “People also asked” section. Here you will find some good questions you can answer on your blog.
Tip 3: Create as much content as possible.
You should create as much content as you possibly can. When I started CareerGamers, I wrote about one article daily for a month. Unfortunately, because I had other commitments at the time, it took me six months to write the next 30 articles. But I learned something valuable during that time. Creating large amounts of content fast makes websites grow faster. If I put 100 articles on my website in a year, and you put 500 articles on your website in a year, the 500 article website will naturally grow faster. That’s why I recommend you write small articles of about 1500 words daily if possible.
Tip 4: Make sure your articles are over 1500 words long.
Regarding Google’s ranking of articles, the biggest and most important factor in ranking your article is the article’s length in words. When content marketing came along about 15 years ago, you could get away with writing thousands of very short articles that were barely 250 to 400 words long. Those days are long gone. As a rule of thumb, the absolute minimum for an article on a modern blog is 1500 words.
Tip 5: Find a way to write faster.
I have been a content writer for 15 years. When I first started, writing any kind of content was a slog. Do not get me wrong, I love to write. But it was easy to get bogged down in the details.
Luckily, I have learned to write content extremely fast over the years. I can now write a 2000-word article in about an hour. And I am getting faster and faster. You need to get faster and faster if you want to succeed with your blog. As I said in a previous tip, the more content you can create, the faster your site will grow and the faster you will succeed. So you need to create content more quickly. Here is what I suggest you do to speed up your writing:
- Do your research. Make sure you research a topic thoroughly before you start. If you do not, you’ll get stuck halfway to the article.
- Create an outline for each main section and subsection of your article. This should be a roadmap, showing you precisely what you will be writing about.
- Use existing articles on the topic as inspiration. Do not reinvent the wheel with your article. Look at past articles by other authors and build on them.
- Write with your voice, not with your hands. Use the dictation software built into Google Docs to write your content. Generally, you can write about 150 words per minute using your voice. That’s about five times faster than the average person types. Plus, you’ll make fewer mistakes.
- Use an AI writer to assist you. An AI writer like WriteSonic or Sudowriter can help you write articles much faster. First, you can use an AI writer to write some basic paragraphs. Then, you just need to tweak the content. Second, if you get stuck or do not know what to say next, you can have an AI suggest ideas to help you overcome writer’s block and write faster.
- Remember, good is good enough. Many writers take forever to write articles because they are trying to write the perfect article. However, there is no such thing as the perfect article. The goal is to write a good article as if you were telling a partner or parent about the topic you are talking about. Once the first draft is done, edit it, proof it, and publish it.
In the section above, you learned how to write more content for your website so that it grows quickly.
In the next section, I’ll cover how to promote your content and blog to grow even faster.
Promotion for your blog
In the previous section, I explained how you can produce more content faster.
In the next section, I’ll discuss how to promote your content across multiple channels.
You should take blog promotion seriously from day one when starting a new gaming blog. Fortunately, I have developed a system to repurpose a blog post to create many different forms of micro-content so that your content attracts as many eyes as possible on many promotion channels.
I call my content promotion technique the Content Re-purpose Package or CRP. The goal of the CRP is to create about 60 new pieces of content each day from your original article.
If you create 60 additional pieces of content daily, you will publish about 420 pieces of full-size and micro-content each week. That’s almost 22,000 pieces of content per year!
Here is how my content creation package works:
First of all, a package includes the following:
- 1 article
- 1 Medium post
- 1 Tumblr post
- 1 Linked post
- 1 Youtube video
- 1 podcast
- 5 Youtube shorts
- 5 Ticktok short videos.
- 5 Instagram videos
- 10 tweets
- 5 tweets with video
- 10 Instagram posts
- 10 Instagram stories
- 10 Facebook posts
That’s 66 bits of content in total.
That looks like a massive amount of content, doesn’t it? Well, it is. But creating that amount of content is easy when you have a plan.
Just keep in mind that you don’t have to start with that amount right away. You can also start with a smaller amount of content and build up to creating 66 pieces of content every day.
Here’s how you can get started creating additional content.
First, you should create the most crucial content: an article. This article will be the heart of your content reuse package.
Your article must have many features. That means the article should have many images, quotes, and maybe even an infographic.
Regarding promotion, we’ll use all that extra content you created across multiple social channels.
First, you should post your article in its entirety on sites like Medium and LinkedIn and include a link to your website.
Next, you should create a video from your article. This can be as simple as reading the article aloud with the WebCam on your laptop. Video is a potent content tool. So you should get used to being comfortable in front of the camera early in your blogging career. Don’t worry about how you look or how you feel. I remember the first time I stood in front of the camera and thought I looked like a fat fool. Now I’ve built up my confidence in front of the camera and feel natural. So honestly, if I can do it, you can do it. Yes, it’ll feel hard at first, but you’ll get better with practice.
Once the video is created, post it to YouTube and paste it at the top of your article. Next, take the audio from your video and turn it into a podcast. Once you’ve taken the audio from the video, upload it to various podcast marketplaces.
Next, you should be able to use your video to create multiple TikTok short videos. Upload these videos as YouTube shorts as well.
Upload the infographic if you created one on Pinterest. Pinterest is a fantastic place to market your blog, so use it.
Next, you’ll want to create 10 Twitter posts. Some should include images. However, it’s fine if some contain only text. At this stage, something is better than nothing. Publish these posts on Twitter over the next few days. Then reuse the image-based tweets and upload them to Facebook and Instagram.
I know this sounds like a lot. But if you create lots of micro-content and reuse your article daily, you’ll create thousands of extra opportunities for people to find your blog. You’ll publish hundreds of pieces of online content weekly, all of which will link back to your blog. If you manage to create this kind of micro-content, your blog is guaranteed to be successful in the long run.
Monetizing your blog
In the section above, I talked about promoting your blog using the content repurpose method.
In the following section, I’ll talk about how to monetize your blog.
Regarding blogging, it’s usually recommended not to start monetizing your channel immediately but to wait until you’ve written at least 30 blog posts and have 1000 page views per month.
I think this is nonsense.
You should monetize your blog from day one. There are two ways to do this:
- Affiliate marketing is when you sell a product for another company, such as Amazon, and get a sale cut.
- Google ads are where you place ads on your website. Every time someone clicks on an ad, you get paid.
Do you want to include affiliate links in your articles from day one? For example, if you’re reviewing a PlayStation 5 game, you should link the game with an affiliate link. You get a small commission, a payment, for sending the person to Amazon to buy the product.
As your site ages, you may be better off using better affiliate links. Some sites, such as Canva, can pay up to $30 per person you send to their site. You can make a lot of money if you send at least 10 people to their website every month.
At the very least, on day one, you should sign up with the Amazon affiliate program and start placing Amazon affiliate links in your articles. You won’t make much money doing this at first. But at least your blog and mindset will be geared towards making money early on. And the great thing is that by the end of your blog’s first year, you should be making enough money to pay for your web hosting.
Next, you should run ads on your website. You can use Google Ads on small websites like a new blog. But, I’ll be honest with you, you will not make much money doing this at first. When I started CareerGamers, I was thrilled if I made 10 cents a day. That’s right, we were making about $3 a month. But I was still excited. And you should be too, because there’s only one way to go regarding ad revenue: up. So sign up for Google Ads from day one, and put ads on your blog.
Continue to grow
Finally, the most important thing: you need to be persistent. It can take a long time to make a success of a blog. Sometimes it’s barely visited by anyone for the first 6 to 9 months. It’ll feel like you’re speaking to an empty room.
Please keep at it. Keep producing content, keep repurposing it, and your blog will get noticed and grow. I promise you that it will. The reason so many people fail at blogging is that they give up too soon.
If you can publish hundreds of articles on your site, I promise you that after a year, your gaming blog will be able to pay for hosting. And in the third year, you’ll probably be able to quit your job. So please, please, please, keep creating content, keep striving to produce an article daily, and stick with it.
Summary
Wow, that was a long article! I touched on a lot of important information in this article, so I want to summarize everything at the end so you can remember all the crucial points.
Let’s take a look at them:
- You should start a gaming blog because:
- It can improve your writing style.
- You can share your love for games with the world.
- You can earn money.
- A game blog can be written about anything related to games.
- but you have to be passionate about the topic
- A gaming blog should have a good name.
- Keep it as simple as possible and make sure all social media channels are available for that name.
- You should buy hosting and set up a WordPress blog.
- Install Wordfence for security
- Don’t worry about changing the theme; it won’t matter this early in your blog’s life.
- Create as much content as possible and as fast as possible.
- Promote your content and blog with the content repurpose package.
- You should create a lot of micro-content from your original blog post.
- Monetize your blog posts from day one with Google ads and affiliate links.
- Be persistent. It can take a long time to get a blog going. But if you keep creating lots of content, your site will succeed.