Sports

5 Aquatic Sports That Vacationing Professionals Should Try Out

Business professionals work hard on the daily. So, vacationing calls for playing hard!

A nine to five life offers limited excitement. Choose aquatic sports on your vacation that make up for it!

5 Aquatic Sports to Try on Vacation

Whether your trip is primarily for business or pleasure, you should fit in some fun! Don’t miss out on trying out an exciting water sport activity! 

What are watersports to try? The following five watersports are definitely something to blog home about!

1. Wakeboarding 

If you often waterskiing, try something a little different. Wakeboarding mimics snowboarding on the water.

A motorboat toes you with a rope, the same way you would waterski. But, for this aquatic sport, you stand with both feet strapped to one board.

Getting up on a wakeboard takes some practice initially, but staying up is the real challenge. It requires leg strength, balance, and agility.

This board allows you to get a little more air on the wake than waterskis. You will find it challenging and exciting.

If you own a vacation home you may want to look at scarab boats for sale. These sporty luxury boats work perfectly for this type of excitement!

2. Scuba Diving

Scuba diving allows you to view the world from a fish’ perspective. With specialized gear, you can reach greater depths and stay down longer to really observe sea life in their natural habitat.

Do not buy all the gear and think you can simply jump in. Breathing underwater and swimming to greater depths poses unique challenges. Plus, diving blindly, without knowing the area puts you at risk.

Take classes with a certified dive instructor and tour the sea bottom with a guide for the best experience. Check out some of the most beautiful dive sites in the world!

3. Paddleboarding 

If you want your vacation to provide a little more relaxation, try paddleboarding. It still gives you a fantastic workout, but this water sport activity allows you to go at your own pace.

To paddleboard, you stand on a platform that resembles a surfboard. But instead of riding big waves, you can use an oar to glide across stiller water.

4. Kite Surfing

This extreme sport puts you at the mercy of the wind, like a sailboat! You simply stand on a surfboard, holding onto a gigantic kite sail, and let the wind whip ou through the waves.

Like surfing, it takes practice to balance yourself and maneuver the waves. If you really want a rush, hit large wakes to fly through the air! This will make for amazing conversation at the water cooler next Monday!

5. Jet Skiing

No watercraft catches the waves quite like a jet ski! This is one of the best water sports for a group with free time on a business trip!

You can all ride together to site see. But, break off into the open water to hit waves head-on and catch some air!

You may also want to race each other and feel the speed of this craft over smoother water. It can literally take your breath away!

Enjoy Your Vacation on the Water

Loosen your tie and properly enjoy your time away from the office. Aquatic sports offer a change of scenery, a great workout, and endless excitement.

At Article City, we understand the importance of your work. Let us take care of your content strategy while you’re away! Visit our website for more details.

How to Monetize a Sports Blog

So you want to turn that love of baseball or football or hockey into a sports blog? And you want to monetize that sports blog to break the stereotype of bloggers living in their parents’ basements?

Someone did a calculation of that, by the way. In case you need encouragement.

Before you jump off the deep end of how to make money on your obsessive love of the New York Jets, read this to find out how to do it the smart way.

First Steps to Monetize a Sports Blog

Step one: don’t just start a sports blog.

There’s an art to writing a blog, and an art to monetizing a sports blog. Jumping in blind won’t help you on the path to having your passion pay your electric bill.

Let’s start from the ground up. Before you ever type one word about baseball, you need to have the right framework.

It starts from the moment of building your website. Because if you want to outcompete the thousands of sports blogs in existence, you’re going to have to play smarter.

Build Your Website

If you want to build a house, you’ve got to build the foundation.

Or, in this case, register the domain name.

Your domain name should only be relevant to your sport of choice – don’t name your site hoopdreams.com if you’re interested in football.

It should also be something catchy – easy to remember, rolls off the tongue. A reader should be able to hear your blog name and immediately recognize it.

You can search for a domain using Google’s domain service, or go straight to the site you plan on using to host.

Add Killer Content

Step two to monetize a sports blog: write some killer content.

Let’s have some real talk about blogs. No successful sports blog ever became a successful sports blog without high-quality blog posts to back it up.

So, how do you write blog posts that don’t skunk up the place worse than the Detroit Lions? Or, better yet, how do you write blog posts that are actually, you know, good?

Start by checking out this list of 7 tips. You can also post related game updates, news stories, and even sports videos (with the right permissions).

As a rule of thumb, you want to only post information that your readers would find useful. You could, for example, post information on what to do for sports injuries or link to relevant sites for injuries, like Axis Health.

Oh, and while you’re at it? SEO. SEO like a pro.

Next Steps: Ideas to Monetize a Sports Blog

Now that you’re done batting for the little leagues, let’s move on to how you actually monetize a sports blog.

A lot of this comes in handy after you’ve taken the time and effort to build a strong community around your blog. If you provide genuinely useful and interesting information to your readers in a readable format, they’ll reward you for those efforts.

Here are four ideas to get you started.

Targeting

This one only works to monetize a sports blog if you’re also selling something.

Translation: if all you’re doing is reporting the events of last night’s LA Lakers game, you’re going to have a pretty hard time using targeting to sell yourself.

How do you find out if targeting might work for you, you ask? Simple: ask yourself if your visitors have a need which you could meet through a product or service you sell.

And no, a subscription to last night’s sports scores when someone could Google it for free does not count.

Affiliate Marketing

Wait, what in the name of the Stanley Cup is affiliate marketing?

Here’s how it works.

You use a product. You like a product. You become an affiliate of the company or site that sells it, and you have an affiliate link on your website. You get a cut of sales every time one of your visitors uses your link to buy that product.

So, you’re essentially getting paid to recommend a product. It’s a great way to earn recurring income without even trying.

A word of advice about affiliate marketing: no one likes spam. Don’t be that person who spams their site with affiliate links. Take the time to use products, review them and only become an affiliate marketer of products you’re genuinely hyped about.

Sell Your Own Products

Ah, the golden rule of making money blogging. Sell your own stuff.

Now, if you’re knitting coasters with team logos on that, no one’s that interested in finding a website just to buy those. Leave that to Etsy.

If you want to take the time to sell your own products, make sure they’re products that are actually worth people spending what you charge. Otherwise, all you’re really doing is wasting money in the production process.

And a side note on the production process: make sure that you have the production system and overhead costs already ready before you dive in.

Allow Donations

Alright, this one isn’t so much a reliable income source as a friendly suggestion, but it’s still worth keeping in your back pocket.

If you’ve built a strong online community of loyal, dedicated readers of your posts, many of those readers would probably be happy to support you in return for putting out the content they love so much.

Just don’t be obnoxious about asking.

Welcome to the Big Leagues

So you’re ready to go big or go home, are you? Good for you.

We can help with that.

ArticleCity covers a range of topics to help your fledgling blog shine (and a few topics that speak to the true sports fan in all of us).

For ideas on how to write killer content, check out the content strategy section of our blog for posts like 5 tips for attention-grabbing online content writing.

For posts that speak to the sports fan in all of us, check out our recreation and sports posts like the guide to the latest fantasy baseball draft.

How to Become a Sports Writer Online

Do you love sports and writing? Why not combine the two and build a rewarding career?

You don’t have to be an athlete to work in the sports industry. If you have a flair for writing, you could work as a sports journalist. This way, you’ll turn your hobby into a high-paying job.

In 2017, the average salary for a sports journalist was $41,698 per year. You can earn even more by blogging about sports. Or you could write a book and sell it online.

Most people have a favorite sport. Depending on your audience, you can write about football, rugby, or baseball. Getting started is the hardest part.

Here are some tips on how to become a sports writer and make a name for yourself:

Find Your Niche

The first step is to decide what you want to write about. Are you passionate about fitness and bodybuilding? Or perhaps you know everything about soccer?

Find your niche and hone your skills in that area. Read the latest news and educate yourself. Watch live competitions and take notes.

If you want to become successful, “knowing about sports” is not enough. You have to continuously learn and stay up-to-date with the trends.

Most writers who work in this industry do it because they’re passionate about sports. Money comes second.

For inspiration, check out popular sports blogs and websites. Try to determine what they have in common. This should give a pretty good idea on how to get started.

Get Educated

One of the best things about working as a sports writer is that you can start anytime. It’s no need to have a degree in sports or journalist. However, you must have a clear understanding of the jargon.

Each sport has a language of its own.

For instance, betting involves terms like dead heat and sports picks service plays. If you write about soccer, you need to know what a free kick is.

Make sure you master the grammatical rules. Read sports articles and follow the best writers in this industry.

If you have a flexible schedule, apply for sports journalism internships. This will give you the opportunity to work side-by-side with skilled reporters. It’s also a great way to build connections and acquire sports knowledge.

Start a Blog

After choosing a niche, start your own blog. Share insights about your favorite sports, post news, and publish interviews.

Focus on building your audience. Connect with readers on social networks and let them know about your blog. Reply to comments on Quora and Reddit.

Post content at least three times a week, and share it online. This will boost your popularity and reputation.

Your blog serves as your portfolio. It showcases your work and skills. At the same time, it allows you to practice and get better at writing.

Still Wondering How to Become a Sports Writer?

Once your blog is up and running, you can finally work as a sports writer.

Search for writing gigs on LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and ProBlogger. Apply with your resume and portfolio.

Many companies pay sports writers to create content for ads, books, or movie scripts. Contact them and link to your best blog posts. Show employers what you’re capable of.

Check out the online versions of local magazines and newspapers. Pitch journalists and build affiliations. The more time you put in, the higher your chances of success.

Stop asking yourself how to become a sports writer. Take the plunge and hit Publish! Remember that everyone starts somewhere.

It’s never too late to follow your dreams. Give it a try! You can never know where it might lead.