Will That Gaming Critic Find His Course?

A fellow gaming blogger who runs That Gaming Critic wrote an article recently about not knowing what they were doing or where to go with their blog.  After having some frustration with my comment not going through 4 passes of CommentLuv I am leaving my feedback and advice in an article here on my personal blog for Scott Craighead.

Scott, I started from scratch blogging in August 2008, didn’t know what I was doing, never blogged before and just read that you could earn a 2nd income blogging part time and figured I would do it.  I immediately had the passion for writing, reviewing and spawned 11 blogs (pared down to 7) over the last 5 years. 

For me passive income sales (banner ads, amazon affiliate) were not my initial ways to bring in funding and didn’t bring in income until years later when site had a lot of traffic, it was the sponsored reviews, review posts and other items that brought in income.  If you haven\\\’t yet, you really should be reading and checking out the programs in the make money online page on Dragon Blogger, I have used 21+ programs over the years and some still earn me a lot. 

When you site establishes with a PR2 or higher you will be able to start selling more banner ads directly and offering sponsored guest posts as well and earning that way.  Regardless, you can’t run a blog with thoughts of how to earn, until you have established your 1st 4 questions. 

What do you want this site to be, how do you want your personality to be and shine through.  Are you about gaming, if so then take it up a notch you need to do video game reviews constantly, showcase, start a YouTube channel showing play tips, tactics, sign up for every beta possible that is open and be the early ones to get videos. 

I make $25 per month just from AdSense on my YouTube channel, not even my site, it isn’t much but this more than pays for the web hosting fees and DNS names of all the sites combined, so you will be combining multiple revenue streams.Build a newsletter and mailing list where you feature the best games of the week or month, each one can be a logo, about the game and link to your amazon affiliate link of the game.  Promote the games via social media with social media review blurbs and shortened Amazon link, some months I can net over $200 in Amazon affiliate and most of these clicks come from my Social Media shares not the blog (I use separate tracking codes for the azon affiliate links I share on Social Media) compared to those I use on my blog so I can track them all better.

Always remember, there are 10,000+ others doing the exact same thing trying to carve their way online, you need to be a brand that people can respect, trust, and get solid information from.  

Some would say the most piggish, annoying, prickish ones get the attention and the traffic, and this would seem true if you see the YouTube traffic levels for some of these people but I always take the professional and respectable route myself.    Don’t put cursing in your titles/articles, this will cause Google to brand your site adult content and potentially put a warning or remove from safe search filters, very bad idea man.

People have to entertain and inform and the combination of two works best, so focus on exactly how you will present your messages, what you love to do and present it.  To grow your site you will need to be active on all major social media channels, you will also need to offer unique insights and opinions and a style that resonates with a following.  It is very hard to SEO game articles, I know I have tried, sometimes solving a how-to specific problem in a game helps bring in traffic, doing a serious of them can help a bit.  The IGN and the gaming guides that have full walk-through of every game step by step make it really tough though.  I see more success in YouTube with video game bloggers earning from monetized video.  Even people who just record themselves talking while playing can find an audience that resonates, but again just solve a problem, showcase achievements in the game…etc.  Eventually one of several things happens, you either get bigger and get noticed, or you build up enough of a resume that you can officially work for one of the bigger sites doing the same thing but for more pay perhaps.

Source article on That Gaming Critic.