Football Blog

[camino]

Hello new to the forum.

I bought a football team exact match domain name a couple of years ago. It is now sitting on the second page on G. I have not had much time to do anything with it except a few posts.

I am thinking of getting someone to write it for me and using gambling affiliate links/ banners to monetize it. It has had adsene sitting on it for the last few years and does about 50c per click.

Any thoughts, do football fans sign up much? UK based football.

[PingPong]

depends on the team and traffic you can generate. although from my experience conversion on general sites is disastrous compared to gambling related.

[baldidiot]

I experimented with doing sports previews on my site and I receive decent traffic (probably around 500-1,000 views per preview) but they didn't lead to any increase in sign ups, even using something like valuechecker.

You're probably in a slightly better position by having the site about one team in that you know exactly what the readers are interested in and can adjust the ads accordingly - eg: banners branded with the team colours/logo/name, banners with specific CTA's - "Think Liverpool will wipe the floor with Everton tomorrow? Put your money where your mouth is - Get a £25 Free Bet!" etc...

I'm actually looking at doing the opposite, creating a sports site with the intention of switching from affiliate links to adsense - gambling ads are available on the adsense network in the UK now (you have to opt in) which could lead to much higher CPCs. You could also look at promoting other affiliate links - football shirts, scarves etc...

If you don't mind me asking, what was your CTR for adsense on your site? I know you can't give exact numbers or the adsense police will come and slap you, but ballpark should be fine! That'll help us figure out what would be a better option for you!

[TheBoyMitchell]

Dont forget that some sportsbooks - for example one of the operators I consult for is Coral - can provide you with creative that explicity features odds for just the team you want. So if your site is based around Chelsea, I could provide you (by inserting an xml feed into the banner that only has Chelsea odds data in it). This would mean that the banner automatically updates game to game and makes the content more relative.

I would also consider putting up some SkySports/Setanta/ESPN banners to get potential satellite subscriptions....

If you want any help then just ask

Neil

[imac52]

It would be worthwhile putting some links on as it might make you some money you didn't expect.

[universal4]

I would be careful with domains that are an "exact match" to ANY trademarked name.....whether a sports team or any other brand....

If at some point down the road the site becomes popular and scores well in searches it may bring attention to the brand and if they happen to not like what you are doing with the name, or they would rather have the revenue for themselves they might just decide to take it from you....

Rick
Universal4

[rak]

I would be careful with domains that are an "exact match" to ANY trademarked name.....whether a sports team or any other brand....

If at some point down the road the site becomes popular and scores well in searches it may bring attention to the brand and if they happen to not like what you are doing with the name, or they would rather have the revenue for themselves they might just decide to take it from you....

Rick
Universal4

Agrees with Rick.. I would avoid domain names which have sporting team names in them - if u start to rank with them in the SERPs.. you can expect a letter asking you to hand over the domain because the name could be trademarked. No point fighting it - you'd lose out.