Whether you already have a popular basketball blog or website or are looking to start one in the near future, you may be wondering how to monetize that blog. Ultimately, although we write about basketball and offer advice on the best offensive and defensive plays and strength and conditioning exercises, making money from your blog can be a nice motivator.
Below, we’re going to discuss how to monetize your basketball blog and how to make money from your basketball website.
These are all pretty simple and easy ways to make money from your basketball blog and will help to not only keep you motivated but may also lead to a significant sum of money in your pocket.
Selling Merchandise
One of the best ways to monetize your basketball blog is to sell merchandise to your audience and to people who come to your blog. While you may not be able to sell authentic, licensed NBA or NCAA merchandise and gear, due to specific licensing deals, you can create your own!
This is actually a lot simpler than you may think.
Perhaps before the advent of the internet, creating, sourcing, manufacturing, selling, and shipping merchandise was much more difficult. However, with the rise of the internet, there are a plethora of resources online that will help you to create and manufacture merchandise that you can sell directly to your audience.
While you won’t be able to sell NBA or NCAA gear, you can and should look to create your own. Whether you are designing new jerseys or basketballs, there are many options available for creating and selling your own merchandise.
Affiliate Marketing
If you’re not as comfortable with creating and selling your own merchandise, then you may want to lead your audience to others who do sell basketball merchandise and gear.
However, you wouldn’t want to lead your audience to a sale without getting a small commission either. And that’s where affiliate marketing comes in.
Affiliate marketing is a type of marketing which is performance-based and allows for a business to reward specific websites or individuals for bringing them leads to their website. Typically, but not always, affiliate marketing will be paid, and thus rewarded, when a lead makes a qualified purchase.
In simpler terms, affiliate marketing is where a website owner drives traffic to another website to complete a purchase. If the purchase is completed successfully, then you’ll get paid.
Affiliate marketing is a great option for smaller websites and for individuals who may not have the capital needed to begin their own merchandise. Rather than create your own, you will simply need to drive traffic to a specific service or product utilizing a unique tracking URL provided by the merchant.
For example, on this website, we have an affiliate agreement with Amazon Affiliates. Now, let’ say we are recommending the best basketball to buy for playing on an indoor court.
We could link to the Wilson Evolution Game Basketball directly:
Or we can do so with our unique tracking code URL:
Now, not only is our unique tracking code URL much easier to read, but by clicking on that link to Amazon and making a purchase, we will receive a small commission from Amazon based on the purchase price.
However, when it comes to affiliate marketing, you don’t want to be too spammy. Our audience trusts us to give them unbiased, honest reviews. And while we certainly appreciate the additional commission, we wouldn’t want to sacrifice our audience’s trust for a couple of dollars.
If you are looking to monetize your basketball blog, do so in an honest, straightforward, and non-spammy way. Be upfront and don’t push products you don’t believe in just for the commission.
Some great affiliates to consider for a basketball blog not only include Amazon, but also eBay, Target, and even Walmart.
Advertising
The internet runs on advertisements. And although you may not notice the ads on a website, many people do. Advertising online is not only a great way for brands to reach a new audience, but it can also be a lucrative means to earning and monetizing a basketball or sports blog and website.
Now, advertisements are paid a bit differently than affiliates. Whereas, in an affiliate system you will be paid on a successful purchase, for advertisements, you will be paid for every 1,000 views. This is called a CPM model. CPM simply means, cost per mille or the cost of advertising for every 1,000 views.
The rates, however, differ wildly and on a number of factors. However, while it can be difficult to determine how much a CPM rate is, there are some obvious factors that can help you estimate a CPM rate.
Typically, having an audience that is largely from the United States or Europe will pay more. In addition, having advertisements for higher-ticket items will also pay more. Lastly, certain niches will also pay more. For example, if you have a financial niche, then a financial services company would want to pay more to reach your audience then, let’s say, if you had a niche discussing drinking straws.
While placing ads on your site may seem scary and difficult, there really is nothing further from the truth.
Ads are extremely simple to place on a site. You simply need to sign-up with an advertising network and, once approved, place their code onto your website. The ads will load automatically and will be handled by the ad network.
Although there are many different ad networks, we recommend going with Google’s AdSense to begin with. Not only are they a reputable brand, but they also have an easy-to-use interface and system for setting up and starting.
Offer Membership Services
If you have a basketball or sports blog, then what better way to monetize then to sell membership services. Your audience is likely looking for advice and mentorship on basketball. So, create a training lesson, a series of drill videos, or a one-on-one basketball class that your audience members can purchase.
Many basketball players worldwide are always looking for ways to better their game and their abilities on the court. If you are a skilled player, you can offer membership services, providing coaching and basketball mentorship to your target audience.
Ask for Donations
Let’s face it, many of us don’t like asking for donations. It may feel rude or unwarranted. However, if you are providing useful, helpful, and direct results for your audience, then asking for donations is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, many times, audience members will reach out asking if there is a way they can donate or help support our site.
And, with the popularity of sites such-as Buy Me a Coffee, Ko-Fi, and Patreon, asking for donations is even easier and more seamless then ever before.