This article may contain *affiliate links. Please see our affiliate disclosure for more details
Welcome to another of our niche insights for blogs. This article we will be setting out sights on the basketball sub-niche of the larger sports niche. In recent years basketball has gained momentum around the world as one of its most popular sports.
While it still trails football in the United States its popularity has blossomed around the world. Many countries now have their own professional basketball leagues and while they may still be far behind the NBA in terms of overall talent and exposure they are beginning to really make a name for themselves.
What all this means for a basketball blog is that it now has the potential of a worldwide audience more than any other American sport. Your basketball blog will be able to go global.
Will you build one of the best basketball blogs around? Global growth simply expands the potential reach of your blog many times over. As for the niche itself, it is an incredibly popular and profitable one due in large part to this global expansion.
There Is Just Something About Owning Your Own Business. Being Your Own Boss. Building Something From The Ground Up With Your Own Hands. Especially When It Is This Easy To Get Started.
Why Start a Basketball Blog?
The first reason to start a basketball blog or any blog for that matter is that you love the subject. In this case, you have a passion for basketball. And it is this passion that will drive you to create a place for like-minded people to come and share their love of the game.
You will create the content. You will steer the conversation with that content. But your audience will become the driving force behind your content. You will have to tailor it to them and in return, you will gain their trust.
Then comes the second reason to start a basketball blog. To earn a little bit of money. Profits cannot be the main force behind starting your blog, but it is an important part of it.
It will help the blog be self-sufficient and depending on how much time and energy you devote to this endeavor it can produce a full-time income in the future. Getting paid to write about something you love. Now that is a job anyone would want.
How Can You Monetize a Basketball Blog?
Monetizing a basketball blog is fairly easy. It works the same way as any other blog in the sports niche.
Like the football niche, most of your income will come from 3 main sources. They are advertising, information products, and affiliate marketing.
All three are viable and your best bet will be to incorporate all 3 if you possibly can. However, information products are the toughest to create but can also be some of the most lucrative.
Advertising
This is the simplest way to monetize any blog. Sign up to an ad service like Adsense or Media.net and they will put contextual advertisements onto your website. Any time someone clicks on an advertisement you get paid.
In theory at least.
On-page advertising can be a bit dicey especially if you run afoul of some of these ad services. Any blip or irregular click can lead to you being thrown out of the service permanently. So be careful when you decide to add advertisements to your page.
Once there they will display all manner of products relevant to the basketball niche and probably the broader sports niche as well. It works pretty well and is something you should look into once your site grows a little bit.
Information Products
Information products have the potential to be the highest-earning products on your website. Basically, for this niche, you would create basketball-related content and then sell it to your readers. The best example would be creating training videos for various aspects of basketball.
This is where it gets tough. They have to be incredibly high quality. Professional videos and content for someone to want to pay extra for them. That means you will most likely have to spend some money producing them.
If you are good at this kind of thing then info products can be a great source of income. Something to think about once you have a decent-sized audience.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate programs are the bread and butter of just about any blog. And a basketball blog is no exception. There are plenty of great affiliate programs for a blog in the basketball niche. From apparel companies to fantasy basketball affiliate programs you will have no trouble finding ones that suit your needs.
Carefully selecting the partner programs that best fit your audience is crucial to get the types of conversion rates that will propel your basketball blog into an income-generating machine. It all comes from the great content you will create and the affiliates you choose to promote.
Potential of This Niche?
Basketball is a profitable and popular niche right now. But its potential to grow is immense. This is largely due to its growing influence overseas.
Make no mistake it is not going to challenge association football/soccer any time soon. But it has tremendous room to grow and your new blog can grow right along with it.
Trends
Interest in basketball really spikes at the start of March and at the beginning of a new season. The rest of the time interest drops a bit. However, do not be alarmed by the drop in the Google Trends graphic.
Google Trends simply shows the amount of interest over a given period of time based on a 1-100 graph. It does not show volume.
So while interest will drop to about 25% of its max interest during the offseason according to the chart, it is mainly due to the crazy amount of volume generated by March Madness and the NBA Playoffs. The audience is there. The search volume is there. The interest is there. Everything you need for a successful micro-niche.
A Look At Keywords
A quick look at the Jaaxy Keyword Research Tool gives us some great insight into the popularity and volume of the basketball niche as a whole. The simple base search for basketball generates a great search volume.
When you add in the long-tail keywords that will form the backbone of your content the possibilities become exponentially greater. Tens of thousands of variations and similar keyword searches are put through search engines on a daily basis.
Your blog only needs to grab a small fraction of all those searches to e profitable and start earning you some passive income in this great blogging niche.
Popularity
When you take the Google Trends and the search volume together the pictures start to become clear. Basketball is a huge niche. Basketball is a popular and profitable niche. But basketball is also way too big for a single writer to cover.
So when a niche is this popular the problem becomes how do you break into it. That is where micro-niches come in. So let’s dive into the next section where we break down the basketball niche even further and find some great micro-niches for you to think about.
Micro-Niche Ideas
Basketball is probably far too large a niche to try and tackle on its own. It is too broad. You will need to find a little micro-niche to base your content around. Especially at the beginning when your website is new. It will not have the authority or trust of the search engines.
This is why starting your blog in a micro0niche is so important. It gives your blog a chance to grow without directly competing with established authority sites.
Here are 5 micro-niche ideas for you to think about. I will go in-depth with some of these micro-niches in later articles but for now here are a brief look at them.
College Basketball Blog
College hoops are enormous. The regular season is pretty popular but once March rolls around, college basketball becomes the center of the sporting world in the United States. March Madness is the time you will want to push out a ton of content for your college basketball blog.
The potential of this micro-niche is huge. And you can even break this micro-niche down even further. If you wanted to make your blog about only your favorite team, that is plenty viable. Many major colleges even have affiliate programs for their team store. An excellent choice for a basketball blog.
Pro Basketball Blog
Next is pro basketball. And not just the NBA, although that is clearly the biggest pro league in the world by far.
You could find your micro-niche in one of the European leagues and try and tap into that market. If you can grab a piece of it you can do very well for yourself. NBA basketball heats up around the All-Star break in February and again during the playoffs.
You can easily position your blog as an alternative to some of the big sites by approaching it as a fan and having a conversation with your readers. You can go in-depth with the Xs and O’s but just writing content that reminds people of chatting with a friend at a bar is the best way to approach this type of niche. Not just for the Pro basketball micro-niche but for just about any blogging niche really.
Basketball Coaching Blog
Coaching basketball is a great place to start a blog. Especially if you have some coaching experience that you could pass along to your readers. Or maybe you know every in and out of the flex offense. Or you are a screen and roll guru.
All of these are places you can take your content. Teaching the game to a new generation of coaches who have gone to the internet to find help. You can deliver that help with a great basketball coaching blog. There are even some affiliate programs designed specifically for coaching blogs. So monetizing your coaching blog will be pretty easy as well.
Basketball Jerseys Blog
Another route you can take when starting your own basketball blog is writing about basketball jerseys. The market for not only new jerseys but throwback and vintage gear is huge. If you can position yourself well in this micro-niche you can make a great amount of income given the price of many of these types of products. A quick look at Jaaxy gives us a great selection of long-tail keywords to get your new basketball jersey blog started.
This micro-niche might be a little more crowded than the coaching niche for example, but that it because it has a bit more profit potential. A good one to look at especially if you are already a collector of hoop jerseys and know what to look for in a good one.
The Wrap Up
So you love hoops? Me too. It is a great sport. I love it, you love it. But most importantly millions of other people around the world love it. And that is where you come in. You can use your passion and love for this great game to generate incredible content for your new basketball blog.
You can craft it into one of the best basketball blogs on the planet. It won’t be easy. It will most definitely take a lot of hard work. It will take a lot of patience. And it will take time. But with your passion and your great content, there is no reason why you cannot succeed.
The first step is always the hardest one to take. It can be scary to try and start your own online business. Who will want to read what you have to write? You might be surprised. It is your great content that will draw in your audience and then you will interact with them.
In chat. In comments. Arguing about basketball games and concepts and everything else surrounding the game. It might seem daunting but you can do it. You can create a place to spread your love of basketball and make a nice income for yourself in the process.
I wish you good luck with your new basketball blog. I am sure it will be an incredible experience and a remarkable website. If you need any help getting started, check out the review in the link below.
Don’t go it alone. Get the best learning tools and community to help you build your online dream. Check it out here.
Thank You for visiting and as always have a wonderful day.
I really enjoy seeing this article and how it really goes into a niche. I have seen one before that was specifically about my niche and it really gave me the confidence to keep going. It gave me a sense of stability hearing that it was a continuously growing subject. I really like the break down you give and believe it would be beneficial to any niche. Thanks for the advice and info!
Thanks for the comment.
I am glad you enjoyed the article and hope you found it helpful.
Wow, what a great idea. I haven’t thought about basketball as a niche, until now. I feel like this would be a lucrative topic to focus on. I will be sharing your website with my brother, he loves basketball and is very good. I while back he wanted to start a fantasy basketball site, but proved to daunting. I like your approach of starting with a micro niche. This should help him get familiar with the basics of blogging and affiliate programs. So thanks for your advice!
Thanks for the comment, hopefully, this helps out.
Fantasy sports is its own niche in and of itself you can find more info about that here and some great affiliate programs for fantasy sports here.
Great Article! Very informative.
I am starting a Basketball Coaching Blog. What Affiliate Programs are you talking about that would be good for a coaching blog? Thanks for the Info!
There are a few that are specific to coaching basketball. You can check out some in our article here. Check Out Swish international and basketballcoach.com.
Thanks for the comment
Thanks!
You are welcome, also give CoachTube A look. They are not specific to basketball but they have a ton of training and coaching videos and programs. Their affiliate program was closed a little while back, but you can check them out to see if they are accepting new affiliate.
Thanks for the comment