You can start making money blogging about video games just by writing about the games you like to play! Video games are one of the fastest growing industries and video game blogs are growing increasingly popular. You can make passive income by blogging about your favorite video games, video game genres, video game platforms, and more! Blogging about video games lets you make passive income just by writing about the games you’re already playing! Keep reading to find out how to make money blogging about video games in 4 easy to follow steps.
Disclaimer: There are affiliate links used in this article. Passive Pete may receive a commission when you click affiliate links in this article. Clicking affiliate links in this article will not cost you anything extra. Thanks! – Passive Pete
Disclaimer: Information available on this website, WorkSmartEarnMore.com, is not financial advice. Information on this website, WorkSmartEarnMore.com, is not legal advice. Passive Pete is not a financial advisor, a lawyer, or an accountant, and Passive Pete is not your financial advisor, lawyer, or accountant. Any action you take upon reading information in this article or on this website is solely at your own risk. Information on this website is solely for educational purposes and individuals should consult qualified professionals (i.e. Not Passive Pete) for financial or legal advice.
First Step to Make Money Blogging About Video Games – Deciding your Niche
The first step in making money blogging about video games is deciding what kind of content your video game blog will feature, or the niche for your video game blog. Your niche can be anything! Centering your video game blog around a niche gives your gaming blog authority. Most people don’t want to get a recipe for dinner, learn how to beat Dark Souls, and figure out how to fix their car on the same blog!
There are a variety of niches you can use to make money blogging about video games, with a few gaming blog examples including:
Specific video games as niches:
- Popular video games like Pokemon, World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Clash of Clans, etc.
- Less popular video games like Europa Universalis or Viva la Piñata.
Video game genres as video game blog niches. With some video game genres including:
- First Person Shooters
- Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games / MMORPGS
- Strategy Games
- Rhythm Games
- Party Games
Video game platforms as video game blog niches:
- Mobile Gaming
- Console Gaming
- PC Gaming
In general, the more specific your niche, the better. There are tons of blogs writing about general topics like mobile games, but how many are writing about niche topics like free mobile games for tablets that you can play with your friends?
Read about more niches for your video game blog here!
Second Step to Make Money Blogging about Video Games – Setting up your Gaming Blog
Setting up your gaming blog is an important step, perhaps the most important step, in making money blogging about video games. After all, you can’t make money blogging about video games if you don’t have a gaming blog! 3 main steps to setting up your video game blog include registering your domain name, acquiring hosting, and designing your website.
Want to learn about more ways to earn passive income online? Click here!
Domain Name
Picking out the right domain name is an important part of creating your video game blog or any blog. The perfect domain name should communicate the purpose of your video game blog while not limiting the scope of your gaming blog. For example, an article on the best Mario games for the Nintendo Switch may seem out of place on a domain name like PCGamerMaximillian.com vs. a site like VideoGamerMaximillian.com. Your website name should be short and easy to remember too if possible.
We recommend you get a .com website as well, although you could try other extensions like .games or .blog. You should use a .com domain extension simply because it is the most well known, with .com being seen by many as the default extension.
There are many different ways to purchase a domain name. Often you can purchase domain names from your hosting provider. While many recommend purchasing your hosting and domain name from separate providers, it can be easier for newcomers to set up hosting and domain names when purchased from the same provider.
Google Domains is one of the leading platforms for purchasing domain names. Whether this is your first blog or your fifth blog, we recommend Google Domains for bloggers of all experience levels.
Hosting
Picking the right hosting plan is integral to the success of your gaming blog and your ability to make money blogging about video games. Balancing the needs of your website with your budget is key to running a successful video game blog. Don’t feel pressured to buy the biggest hosting package you can find, you can always upgrade your hosting as your website grows. You don’t need a blog built for thousands of concurrent users when you’re getting 10 visits a day! Basic hosting packages are more than enough for most beginning bloggers as blogs take time to grow.
Server uptime, speed, bandwidth limits, disk space, and customer support are all key factors to keep in mind when choosing a hosting package for your video game blog. iWebFusion provides affordable and fast hosting starting at just over $5 a month.
Sign up for iWebFusion for all your hosting needs!
Designing your Video Game Blog
Picking the right aesthetic and design for your gaming blog is an essential component of making money blogging about video games. No one wants to read an article with a blaringly bright background and tiny text that looks like it was made decades ago! Design your website to be easy on the eyes and easy to read. Video game blogs often employ dark colors like black and dark blue, but you can design your video game blog however you’d like!
Images are a great tool in video game blogs especially; you should place images to help describe different video game concepts as well as to break up text in your articles. These images can be screenshots from games or just stock photos to help prove a point.
Designing your website is no longer the monumental task it once was. You can design a website today with just basic computer skills, no coding necessary! Building your video game blog can be as easier than playing some video games!
Assigning your articles to the right categories is another important part of designing your video game blog. Using appropriate categorization lets users on your blog find what they want to read easily. You could have categories for different types of video game content like guides and walkthroughs, categories for different game genres like strategy and party games, categories for different video game platforms like mobile and console, or any other ways you could think to group your content together.
In addition to designing the function and aesthetic of your video game blog, there are key pages you should include on your blog as well. Make sure to set up an ‘About Us’ page, a ‘Privacy Policy’ page, and a ‘Contact’ page. These important pages are crucial to making your gaming blog official!
Third Step to Make Money Blogging about Video Games – Monetize your Gaming Blog
There are a variety of different ways to make money with your gaming blog. Some of the most common ways to make money blogging about video games include ad revenue, affiliate marketing, digital products, and sponsorships. You should try employing many different forms of monetization to make money with your video game blog. By monetizing your blog in multiple different ways, you increase the total earning potential of your video game blog!
Ad Revenue
Ad revenue is one of the main sources of income when making money blogging about video games. Ad revenue is based on your blog traffic, or the amount of people reading your blog.
Your niche also influences your ad revenue. Video game blogs are among the lowest earning blogs in terms of ad revenue when compared to other niches. You will receive ad revenue for your video game blog based on how many people see your ads and how many people click on your ads.
Some popular platforms for earning ad revenue include Google AdSense, Ezoic, AdThrive, and Mediavine. Ezoic is an especially popular platform as there is no minimum traffic needed to join!
Sign up for Ezoic here to start earning ad revenue from your blog!
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is another large source of income for many video game blogs. Gaming blogs have a large option of different affiliate programs for monetizing your video game blog. Affiliate marketing basically means that you get a commission or percentage of sales when people click on your affiliate link and buy a product. Using affiliate links never costs the user anything extra, the company pays the affiliate marketer for driving traffic to the product.
The Amazon affiliate program is a very popular way to make money blogging about video games. You could advertise a variety of products related to gaming to make money blogging about video games. Some products on Amazon that you could use affiliate marketing for on a gaming blog include video games, video game accessories like travel cases, video game gear like controllers and headsets, video game merchandise, and much more.
If you are using affiliate marketing on your video game blog, you must provide a disclaimer saying so. The more obvious the disclaimer, the better.
Digital Products
Digital products are a leading way to monetize your video game blog. From e-books to digital courses, there are a wide variety of ways to make money blogging about video games with digital products.
You could write your very own unofficial gaming guide or walkthrough for a video game and sell it through your gaming blog. Walkthroughs and game guides are a very popular digital product used to monetize video game blogs.
Digital courses are another popular digital product used to make money blogging about video games. You could sell a digital course teaching a niche skill in gaming, like how to play a certain video game on a competitive level, how to speed-run certain games, or how to find Easter eggs in games.
Sponsorships
You can make money blogging about video games by getting sponsored by video game studios or other video game related companies to write sponsored posts. Sponsored posts are posts paid for by an external company to review or advertise a product like an upcoming game or gaming gear. The amount you can earn from sponsored posts varies drastically based on how much traffic your video game blog receives and what kind of product you are advertising. Monetizing your gaming blog with sponsorships may be a good idea once your video game blog starts receiving large amounts of traffic.
Fourth Step to Make Money Blogging about Video Games – Keep Writing!
Blogging certainly won’t make you rich overnight, but consistent writing may result in a consistent passive income. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t see immediate results, blogging can take months or even years to become a substantial source of income. Many blogs see barely any traffic in the first few months, which is the point where many bloggers decide to give up as well. Just remember that each and every article that you publish increases the chance of success for your gaming blog. High quality content and consistent posting are essential factors for success in making money blogging about video games.
Researching Video Game Blog Niche Articles
Consistently publishing high quality content is the most important part of a successful gaming blog, but it can be challenging to keep coming up with article ideas. Luckily, there are a wide range of free tools you can use to get inspiration for writing articles for your video game blog.
Since a large majority of your traffic will likely come from Google, that makes Google a great way to research ideas for blog posts. One popular method is called the ‘Alphabet Soup’ method. This method consists of typing in a basic phrase and a letter like ‘Video Games For E’ into Google Search. Google will try to auto fill your search with suggestions like ‘Video Games for Exercise,’ ‘Video Games for Elderly’, and ‘Video Games for Education’. These autosuggestions can be an amazing way to brainstorm some ideas for your video game blog.
The ‘Related Searches’ tab at the bottom of the search results also provides valuable keyword ideas. These are some suggested searches provided by Google after searching ‘Video Games for Exercise.’ Google Related Searches provides similar keywords that people are actually searching and you may not have thought of.
Basically, you want to write articles that people are searching for. There are many free tools that can help to estimate the search volume of a given term as well. Some keywords will be more competitive than others, meaning new blogs won’t be able to rank or receive traffic for that term. There are also free tools that you can use to estimate the competitiveness of a search term.
Conclusion
Consistently making money blogging about video games is easier said than done, but if done right can be a very rewarding accomplishment. With such a low cost of entry, blogging about video games can be a competitive but fun way to earn money by writing about what you enjoy. Setting up your video game blog is as simple as deciding on your niche, picking and buying a domain name for your gaming blog, buying hosting for your blog, and designing your website. Making money blogging about video games can be achieved through ad revenue, affiliate marketing, sponsorships, and digital products. Consistently writing top notch articles is the most important part of making money blogging about video games. Just keep writing and you’ll be surprised at what you can achieve!
Click here to start hosting your video game blog with iWebFusion
Click here to start monetizing your video game blog blog with ad revenue through Ezoic