2014 November 05 Archive - EXEIdeas

The best gaming bloggers often happen to be those individuals who are passionate about gaming. If you want to start a gaming blog these days, however, you have to be more than passionate. You have to be knowledgeable about the games you review, have a unique “take” or angle on those games, or be able to present unique and interesting information to the community. Here’s how to get started.Be Realistic About Your Writing Skills:Are you a write, or do you just want to be a writer? There’s a difference between the two. For many, the answer will be the latter. If you’re not a good writer, you’ll have to hone your chops, and the best way to do that is to write. But, first, you may want to read a few books on how to write or study the greats, like Jack London. His big secret? Write thousands of words a day. Of course, that’s the essential, but not the only, step in becoming a good writer.Improve Those Writing Skills:Once you’ve digested a few books on grammar and how to write for the web, it’s time to write. Your first few pieces won’t be all that great. You’re going to struggle with a thesis. You’re going to be a bit wishy-washy on what you want to say and how best to say it. That’s OK.One of the best ways to get over this hurdle is to create an outline. Actually create the “hook” or closing statement first. That is what you really want to say in the article and everything should move toward that end.If you’re writing about a particular game, for example, write the end of the post as a “takeaway” statement or “bottom line.” So, you might say something like, “The bottom line: this game has a few quirks, the characters are a little 2-dimensional, but the gameplay is awesome overall and I’ve yet to see the variety of weapons the characters have in this game replicated.”See what a finishing statement does for the entire post? It gives you direction. No matter what you say before this statement, you know where the post needs to go, and that makes writing it so much easier.Define The Scope Of Your Writing:Most new writers get carried away with their writing. They try to write these massive tomes of knowledge fit for the Library of Alexandria. Don’t do that.Blog posts are supposed to be tightly focused and, with most posts, you only have enough space to cover one or two major points. Anything more than three, and you’re going to lose readers’ interest. You’ll confuse them.So, for example, instead of trying to write a single blog post on all of the many payment options available for online gaming sites, try focusing on Bitcoin in gaming in one, Paypal in another, using traditional methods like Visa and Mastercard in another. You get the idea?By having this kind of focus, you can “go deep” into the article instead of having to cover everything thinly.Get In Touch With Your SEO Side:It’s something a lot of writers struggle with these days, but SEO comes with the territory. If you’re writing online, you must know SEO. The basics, fortunately, aren’t all that hard and can be learned by spending some time on Google’s Webmaster Tools and reading the Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide.Once you’re finished with that, you should start reading some of the news-oriented sites like MOZ, SearchEngineLand, SEOBook, and SearchEngineWatch. SERoundtable aggregates a lot of data from across the web and Search Engine Journal also posts some really useful articles from guest contributors.Focus On Your Own Site, and Reach Out For Backlinks Intelligently:Bloggers won’t link to you just because you happen to be a kindred spirit. You have to have something really interesting and useful to say. You also have to do something that others have done before you that’s already proven itself as being successful. Yes, you read that right. Most bloggers try to be totally unique and, while this can pay off in some cases, more often than not it doesn’t pay off at all.Think about it for a moment. If you focus 100 per cent of your energy on creating something that’s never been done before, you’re bound to fail more than you succeed. Unique ideas that are successful (and clever) just aren’t that common. If they were, everyone would be CopyBlogger or, in this industry, Rock, Paper, Shotgun.