I Want To Start A Gaming Blog. Where Should I Start?

[The Derrit]

This is something I've been thinking about for awhile but I think I really want to move forward in actually doing it. Who here has experience with blogging, has a particular client to recommend, or other miscellaneous advice?

My basic topic will be marketing and advertising in videogames, with company analysis, campaign case studies and who does it right/who doesn't.

There's a lot of smart people on this site, so I'm interested to see what experience people here have.

EDIT: To explain further, I am currently a marketer at a small B2B company, so the scholastic tenets of blogging I understand pretty well. I am particularly interested in the nuts and bolts, where should I host it/how have you in the past established a blog of your own/maybe some of you have gaming blogs. But of course all advice is awesome!

Edited January 8, 2014 by The Derrit

[XPRTNovice]

This is something I've been thinking about for awhile but I think I really want to move forward in actually doing it. Who here has experience with blogging, has a particular client to recommend, or other miscellaneous advice?

My basic topic will be marketing and advertising in videogames, with company analysis, campaign case studies and who does it right/who doesn't.

I'm interested to see what experience people here have.

This might be a bit tangential, but one of the things that I found to be the most helpful to drawing readers was guest blogging. Find some people who are already successful in the industry you are trying to write for and then pitch articles to them. It helps them because it gives them a different POV, and you will definitely draw readers.

Speaking from experience, building a platform from scratch is really, really hard, so it helps to "stand on the shoulders of giants" if you can.

EDIT: The other small bits I can offer are: Tag your posts appropriately and write regularly (once a week if you can). The more content on the blog, the better your search engine results (and the more loyal your readers will be).

Best of luck!

Edited January 8, 2014 by XPRTNovice

[The Derrit]

This might be a bit tangential, but one of the things that I found to be the most helpful to drawing readers was guest blogging. Find some people who are already successful in the industry you are trying to write for and then pitch articles to them. It helps them because it gives them a different POV, and you will definitely draw readers.

Speaking from experience, building a platform from scratch is really, really hard, so it helps to "stand on the shoulders of giants" if you can.

EDIT: The other small bits I can offer are: Tag your posts appropriately and write regularly (once a week if you can). The more content on the blog, the better your search engine results (and the more loyal your readers will be).

Best of luck!

Thanks for your advice! All very solid.

Where did you host your blog? It sounds like you have started one of your own in the past.

[Meteo Xavier]

I have experience in Blogger and Wordpress.

Blogger is simple, but not too flashy.

Wordpress is flashy, but not too simple.

Both eventually require HTML or CSS surgery to get them working and looking decently. Both are also free to use.

[DarkeSword]

Just start a tumblr and go from there

[The Derrit]

Just start a tumblr and go from there

would tumblr be the right format for potentially multi-page posts? what i've seen of it (which is admittedly not as much as some other clients) is that it's often geared towards shorter pieces.

[Toadofsky]

I wouldn't recommend Tumblr if you're doing multi-page posts. Those will not work for it. If you don't mind breaking up articles or keeping them short, it's not a big problem.

I use Tumblr for my own little page for reviews and posts on games, but nothing too fancy.

[Radiowar]

i dont know that its possible to do multi-page posts with tumblr, but i think even though the most popular stuff on tumblr tends to be short text posts and gif sets, long-form blogs are not uncommon. one thing tumblr has going for it imo is the subscription/feedback/sharing system is built in, which could potentially help a blog reach a wider audience than through something isolated like wordpress.

[XPRTNovice]

Thanks for your advice! All very solid.

Where did you host your blog? It sounds like you have started one of your own in the past.

I actually have two, but neither is really a shining example of how to be a successful blogger (I suffer from not following the advice I gave you). I have one that I do all myself in wordpress for my writing career and one that functions on wordpress but was professionally designed. IMHO, I actually think I like the free one better, but I kind of got hosed on the development side, which is a different story.

[The Derrit]

I think I am definitely leaning towards wordpress as a starting block

[XPRTNovice]

I just heard of this yesterday and thought back to this post:

http://www.helpareporter.com/

You can basically list yourself as an authoritative source on any subject, after which you may/may not be contacted by people looking to gather sources for an article. You can also find queries already posted where someone is looking for someone who knows a lot about gaming, and pitch a reply to them. Might be a little more work, but definitely a way to expand your platforming reach.

[The Derrit]

Nice! It's funny that this thread just reappeared, I just got a gig writing for smashboards so that will probably take up more of my time in the foreseeable future, but I definitely still intend to start up my own site at some point.