How to start a sports blog: Step-by-step guide

The world of sports offers an enormous number of opportunities for both enthusiasts and entrepreneurs. If you’re passionate about sports and want to share your knowledge, insight or commentary with a wider audience, starting a sports site could be an exciting venture for you.

Whether you want to create a site to cover a range of sports, or just one, this guide will provide you with step-by-step advice on getting started. Read on below to find out more.

What is a sports blog?

A sports blog is a website where a person writes or creates content about sports-related topics. The blog might focus on game analysis or commentary, team news or rumours, or have a wider focus on a sport at large.

Sports blogs can be started by just about anyone and can come in a variety of formats. While some may focus on text-based articles, others might focus on video or image-led content.

Sports blogs can be a great way for users to stay up-to-date on the team or sport they care about. For the site owner, it can be an exciting way to contribute to a hobby they’re passionate about, or even to generate profit.

Why start a sports blog?

The world of sports is competitive, both on the field and online. But it’s also enormous.

There are thousands of sports around the world to focus on, with millions of teams and sportspeople too. That means that there’s an almost unlimited list of sports blogs that could be created.

For example, according to SEMRush, almost 10,000 people search for ‘arsenal rumours’ every month in the UK. In a different sport, there are over 200,000 searches every month for information about Usain Bolt.

Of course, not every club or sportsperson generates so much interest, but it’s clear that there is an audience to be found by sports bloggers.

The more success you see with your new sports website, the more you’ll be able to consider other avenues for growth, including monetisation and marketing across different channels.

Sports site examples

There are a huge number of sports websites and blogs out there. In this section, we’ve highlighted just a few of our favourites.

FourFourTwo – football news site
King Cricket – cricket site
Bleacher Report – general sports site

Step 1: Choose a niche

Before you start building your sports website, you need to narrow down your focus. Decide on a specific niche or area of interest. For example, you might want to cover all aspects of one specific sport; or, you might want to cover a range of sports from a specific viewpoint. Think about your own expertise to determine what you can offer that nobody else can.

Perhaps you’re a lawyer with a passion for tennis? Your website may focus on the game of tennis and the legalities around it.

Though you will probably have a smaller potential audience if you go as niche as this, you’re also far more likely to earn a larger portion of that audience as you’ll be competing with a lower level of competition than you might with a generalist sports website.

For a few more specific ideas, you might want to start a website focusing on:

A specific team
Sports news and analysis
Fantasy sports
Youth sports
Local sports
Sports equipment and accessory reviews
Sports betting and predictions.

Choosing a niche for your sports website is the best way to focus your work and make sure you don’t spread too wide a net for yourself. Sports is an incredibly competitive field, so making sure to target a niche that you’re an expert in is an important step to getting started.

Step 2: Complete market research and confirm your audience

Once you know what niche you’re going after, understanding your target audience is the next essential step.

You should conduct research to better understand your potential readers’ demographics, interests and pain points. What particular aspects of your chosen sport or topic do you need to drill into? What does your potential audience struggle with right now?

Knowing what matters to your audience will be a massive help when it comes to creating your content and marketing your website in the future. By building a clear understanding of the people you want to reach, you can make sure that you’re generating real value for them.

For more information on how you can conduct market research, you should visit our page on how to create a business plan.

Step 3: Choose a memorable domain name

Your domain name is your online identity, your brand name.

You should choose a domain name that reflects your niche and is easy for users to remember. Ideally, your domain name will also clearly be a sports-related one.

When you have an idea in mind, you can head to a domain name registrar such as GoDaddy to check whether it’s available. If it is, you can register. If it isn’t, you might need to try out a few more ideas.

Step 4: Set up website hosting and content management system (CMS)

Website hosting is needed to make sure your new sports site is accessible and secure online – visit our what is website hosting page to find out more. You’ll need to combine this with a content management system (CMS) when you get started.

At this stage, you can also decide between a website builder or a more bespoke approach to website design. If you go for a website builder, then the hosting and CMS will all be packaged together for you.

If you take the bespoke approach, then you’ll need to find the best hosting provider for your new site before you get started.

Best website builders for a sports website

Choosing to use a website builder will be the simplest way to get your new sports site started.

If you are thinking of using a website builder then you should consider a few factors.

What sort of features do you need on your website?
What sort of content will you be creating?
What sort of audience are you expecting?

If you’re creating a website to analyse sports performance, for example, then you’re likely to use a lot of video content and imagery in your content. Make sure to bear that in mind when you come to choose your website builder.

On the other hand, if you’re planning to sell sports equipment, you’ll need to choose a builder with effective ecommerce functionality.

The website builders included in the table below are good all-rounders. They all offer a range of features, including ecommerce functionality, as well as providing a high level of customisation.

Brand	Plan	Cost
Wix	Lite	£9/month
Squarespace	Personal	£12/month
GoDaddy	Basic	£6.99/month

Step 5: Design your sports website

Your website’s design is crucial when it comes to both attracting and retaining visitors.

You should prioritise user-friendly navigation and features, as well as high-quality images and video, and a clean, easy-to-access layout. You should also make sure to design a website – or customise a template – that matches your website niche.

Make sure that your website looks good and functions well on different types of devices, including desktop and mobile so that you can feel confident that your audience will have a good experience, however they access your website.

The links below will take you directly to a few of our guides on using different website builders. Take a look now for specific steps on getting started with any of them.

How to use Squarespace: 9 steps to build a website

How to build a website on Wix: 7 easy steps to get started

How to build a website on GoDaddy

How to use a website builder: 9 steps to get started

Step 6: Create high-quality content

Good content is the backbone of any website, including your new sports website. As you get started, you should develop a content strategy that makes sense for your brand.

Think back to your niche and to your audience research to create clear content roadmaps that will resonate with your potential readers or views, but also that you’re in the best position to provide.

Lean on your knowledge and expertise to make sure that you are crafting interesting and engaging content – whether in text, images, video or features – that your audience will want to see.

As you start out, you might want to consider the following types of content in your strategy:

Analysis of games or players
Match reviews and previews
Player profiles and interviews
Video content – this might include reviews, analysis or anything else
Visual content, such as infographics.

When you begin planning your content strategy, make sure to focus on ideas that are within your reach. If you’re just starting out, it might not be possible to get an interview with a well-known sportsperson – you might want to put that specific piece of content on a list of future goals or ambitions.

However you get started, you should create a plan that will allow you to regularly update your website with fresh content that will engage your audience.

Step 7: Optimise for search engines

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a form of marketing focused in improving how your website appears in the search results for search engines such as Google.

It’s an important process to consider for any new website, as it can form the foundation for your future success.

As you get started, you should begin to research relevant keywords in your niche that can be used to form the basis of articles, videos – or any other sort of content – on your site.

You can take a look at the articles listed below if you want to find out more about SEO.

What is Google Search Console? Definition, features & benefits

What is Google Analytics? Definition, features and benefits

What is keyword tracking? Definition & tips on how to do it

Step 8: Market your sports website

Once you have your website, and particularly if you start seeing success from it, you might want to consider how you can begin marketing it to reach a wider audience.

You have a range of options to consider; you might start collecting email addresses from your users so that you can send them targeted messaging. You might want to launch profiles on social media channels, such as Instagram or Facebook.

Whichever route you take, you need to keep your brand in mind. Think about how your messaging is delivered on your website and make sure to match that in any marketing materials you put out into the world.

You can take a look at the articles below to find out more about marketing your sports website.

What is email marketing in 2024? Definition, benefits & strategies

Social media marketing in 2024: What is it and how does it work?

What is search engine marketing (SEM)? Definition, types & tips

How to market your website in 2024: Step-by-step guide

Step 9: Monetise your website

Once your website is live and you’ve started seeing traffic to it, you may want to begin exploring monetisation options.

You might consider the options below when you get started:

Affiliate marketing – promote sports products or services on your site to earn a commission when users buy them.
Sponsored content – collaborate with sports brands to create reviews of their products.
Advertisements – display adverts on your websites using networks such as Google AdSense.
Merchandise and ecommerce – sell products directly to your users from your website.

You might use one of these options or a mixture of them when you begin monetising. If you do, make sure to prioritise user experience first and foremost so that you don’t accidentally make them suffer while you try to generate revenue.

Step 10: Engage with your audience

Building a community around your sports website is a great way to achieve success in the long term. You want to create an engaged user base that comes back to your site time and time again.

Interact with your readers wherever possible, whether that’s through comments on the website itself, over email or social media.

You can encourage discussions between users and create a sense of community among your audience. Done well, this can create a thriving customer base for you to connect with and, if appropriate, monetise.

How much does it cost to start a sports website or blog?

The cost of starting your sports blog will depend on one important question. Do you want to use a website builder or have a custom website developed?

If you choose the first option, the cost of your sports site will be determined by the website builder you choose, and the plan you decide to pay for.

You can expect to pay the following prices for the cheapest plan from these brands:

Wix – £9/month
Squarespace – £12/month
GoDaddy – £6.99/month

On the other hand, if you decide to pay to create a custom site that is designed and developed from scratch, you’ll be looking at the following prices:

Domain hosting – £7 to £40/year
Website hosting – £3/month
Web design – £50/hour
Web developer – £50/hour

The benefit of choosing a website builder is that you can choose a plan that has everything you need included. This is easy to budget for and can be an incredibly simple way to get online.

If you’re planning something more complex though, or if you have very specific needs for your site, then custom development – while more expensive – can offer more flexibility.

The main factor to bear in mind is that, unless you have the skills to build a site yourself, you can expect to shell out a lot to someone else to build it for you.

How to start a sports website: Final thoughts

Starting a sports website could be an exciting way for you to share your passion and interest with a like-minded audience online.

By following the steps outlined on this page, you can get started with a website that could lead to big things.

Make sure to choose a niche carefully and conduct the research you need to understand your audience. Create content that your audience will enjoy and invest your time in engaging meaningfully with that audience as it grows.

Bryn Glover

Bryn is the founder and editor of WebsiteJumpStart. He has worked in the digital field for over a decade and was editor for Startups.co.uk - the UK's leading small business website - and for NerdWallet UK before launching WebsiteJumpStart to help people and businesses get online with ease.

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