Starting a blog on any topic takes work, but growing an entertainment blog poses some unique challenges. For instance, it’s an incredibly broad niche that could encompass everything from celebrity gossip to movie reviews, news on the next big project a popular producer is taking on, and everything in between.
There are many things to consider when you’re trying to grow a blog in the world of entertainment, such as identifying the right keywords, social media promotion, using social listening to tap into trends and breaking news, creating unique images, and much more. While it may seem daunting to break into such a competitive niche, growing an entertainment blog is possible — even for brand-new bloggers — if you follow proven blogging tips and strategies.
To help you get started on the path to successful entertainment blogging, we reached out to a panel of entertainment bloggers and blogging experts and asked them to answer this question:
“What’s your number 1 tip for growing an entertainment blog?”
Meet Our Panel of Entertainment Bloggers & Blogging Experts:
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Keep reading to learn what our panel had to say about the most effective ways to start growing your entertainment blog today.
Chad Barnsdale
Chad Barnsdale is the founder of Unfinished Man, a popular men’s lifestyle website that he founded 10 years ago. With a decade of experience and an eye for style, he offers practical advice on everything from fashion to travel to grooming.
“My number one tip for taming that wild unicorn and growing your entertainment blog is to get weird with it. I’m talking about embracing the quirkiness, the strange, and the unexpected and using it to your advantage.
You see, in the vast digital landscape of the internet, there’s a lot of samey content out there. But if you want to stand out like a neon pink flamingo in a sea of boring grey pigeons, you gotta be willing to let your weird flag fly. Trust me, your audience will thank you.
Think of it like this: if you’re trying to catch a fish and you’re using the same old bait as everyone else, you’re not going to catch anything big. But if you use a strange, funky, off-the-wall bait, you’ll reel in something truly unique. And isn’t that what we all want? A unique and interesting catch.
So don’t be afraid to get creative and put yourself out there with your content. Take a chance and write about the bizarre, the strange, and the offbeat, and trust me, you’ll be reelin’ in the readers.”
William Hogsett
William Hogsett is the Chief Executive Officer at Seota Digital Marketing.
“My number one tip for growing a successful entertainment blog is to be quick to post any updates about people and events in your niche while using headlines that grab the reader’s attention, causing them to click on your article. It can be difficult to be the first to break any sort of entertainment news, so you can use shocking or outrageous headlines that may or may not be true but are based on things that actually did happen. You can also use questions as a headline, making readers naturally want to find out the answer to the question you posed.
Setting up a mailing list with exclusive emails is also a huge help when trying to grow your blog. Value-providing exclusive emails will make your readers feel like they’re in a special club with access to information that you don’t share with just anyone, which makes them more likely to read and engage with your blog.”
Harry Morton
Harry Morton is the Founder of Lower Street, a podcast production agency that operates remotely.
“Collaborate with fellow creators. The reason why collaboration works incredibly well, especially if you can find a creator that mirrors your style, is because you can reach an audience that’s bound to be interested in your blog. Their audience will likely be similar to yours and find value in the information you share. This is a much more efficient way of reaching out to people rather than doing it blindly and targeting a large group of people that may either be a hit or miss.
More importantly, collaboration fuels creativity and helps you push beyond your own limitations — you could just end up with new ideas that you may not have even considered before through this new and budding partnership.”
Victor Karpenko
Victor Karpenko is the CEO and Founder of SeoProfy.
“My top tip for successful entertainment blog development is to get to the bottom of your target audience. Almost everything depends on it: the subject of articles, their size, design, and style, as well as the quantity, quality, and matter of visual content.
Look for future visitors on forums and in thematic groups of social networks. Start chatting with them in discussions and comments. This way, you can find out the interests of the people you blog for.
Use lots of images. Our company’s marketers regularly analyze successful blogs. Recent analytics have shown that visual content is increasingly essential in entertainment blog articles, with more visitors on those pages where the image-to-text ratio is approximately 2:1. This refers to the area occupied by text and pictures on the page. You can use high-quality images downloaded from paid or free stock photo sites. I recommend making unique images. Good-quality photos can be taken even on a smartphone. Plus, creating or editing short videos is easy if you’re purposefully blogging.
Create diverse content to encourage visitors to return to your blog. You should post a variety of content. Don’t limit yourself to one type of content that’s easier and faster for you to create. You will see an increase in traffic if you post text, photos, and videos. Consider what type of content your target audience will be interested in. Additionally, it can be polls, tests, quizzes, and contests.”
Jared Floyd
Jared Floyd is the Founder and Executive Producer at Ajax Creative.
“If you’re looking to take your entertainment blog to the next level, here is my number one tip: Create content that is engaging, informative, and entertaining. When readers come to your blog, they should be able to find something that captures their attention and interests them. Quality content is key when it comes to growing an entertainment blog.
Engaging content should keep your readers coming back for more. Focus on writing content that is enjoyable to read and share, such as reviews, interviews, and interesting news updates. The key is to make sure that your content is unique and provides helpful information.
When creating content, it’s important to ensure that the content is optimized for search engines (SEO). This means making sure that you are using keywords and phrases in your titles and content that people may search for. Doing this will help your blog show up in search engine results and attract more readers.
It’s also important to stay up-to-date on the latest entertainment news. Keep an eye on the entertainment industry and create content that covers the hottest topics and current trends. This will make your blog stand out from the crowd and keep your readers coming back for more.
Remember to promote your blog. Utilize social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to spread the word about your content. Encourage readers to share your content and reach out to influencers who might be interested in featuring your work.”
Tory Gray
Tory is the Founder & CEO of the SEO consulting firm The Gray Dot Company.
“Your ultimate connection to blog growth is to build a strong subscriber list. When your followers receive updates for every post you release straight to your inbox, your content practically markets itself.
70% of users visit a website once and never return again, so creating a compelling call-to-action (CTA) that convinces people to subscribe during that first visit is critical. Use pop-ups with strong opt-in messages along with the promise of free content extras for subscribing. Since too-early pop-ups annoy users and those timed too late may miss a large portion of users, the sweet spot for most pop-ups is 5 seconds after pages load.
If you don’t want to use pop-ups to entice potential subscribers, play around with other CTA locations, like inline or after-post opt-ins, floating bars, or slide-ins.”
Michal Suski
Michal is the Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder at Surfer, a content intelligence platform that bootstrapped to $7 million ARR in four years. He manages a team of five product development experts. He also has 10 years of experience in SEO and has appeared at major conferences.
“Growing an entertainment blog can be challenging but with the right approach, it is achievable. My number one tip is to focus on optimizing both organic traffic sources (SEO) as well as paid sources (paid advertising).
When it comes to SEO, you need to make sure your website’s technical setup – such as page speed, mobile responsiveness, and structured data markup – is up-to-date so search engine spiders can easily crawl through your site’s pages and understand its content better. You also need to optimize titles, descriptions, and keywords on each page so they accurately describe what visitors will find when they land there.
Finally, strive for quality links from other websites back pointing toward yours; this helps to establish trustworthiness in the eyes of search engines like Google or Bing, which ultimately helps boost rankings within their search engine results pages (SERPs).
When it comes to paid advertising, you should create campaigns targeting the right audiences and reach out to potential readers through different networks and channels. You need to ensure your ads are relevant and interesting enough for people to click on them – this can be achieved by testing different ad copy variations or images until you identify what works best. Once users land on your website, make sure there is a clear call to action encouraging them to read more articles or sign up for newsletters.
By optimizing organic traffic sources as well as paid sources, you will get one step closer towards achieving success with an entertainment blog.”
Brian Nagele
Brian Nagele is the CEO of Restaurant Clicks, a top entertainment publication in the hospitality industry.
“Match your blog topics to the latest trends in your niche. Entertainment content works best when it relates to trending topics currently circulating in the industry. These are the themes that readers are most likely to be discussing with their peers and inquiring about on the search engines. Your expert insight could prove helpful to people seeking explanations and unique perspectives. Of course, this would require you to be active within the social circles of your niche in order to stay on top of relevant issues. So it’s also a call to invest more heavily in continuous market research.”
Kacper Rafalski
Kacper Rafalski is a senior-level digital marketing strategist specializing in SEO, ASO, PPC, Demand Generation, and Digital Data Analytics. He is the Demand Generation Team Leader at Netguru.
“My number one tip is to look up unanswered topics that people are searching for on Quora or other question sites so you can create content that will capture their interest. This will help you generate more organic traffic as well as establish your credibility as an expert in the field. Using tools like AlsoAsked and AnswerThePublic can help you identify the topics people are asking about and provide you with fresh content ideas. Both of these tools are free and help a great deal when seeking topics to write about.”
Alexander Hollingsworth
Alexander Hollingsworth is an SEO Marketing Associate at Oyova.
“My number one tip for growing an entertainment blog is to focus on creating high-quality, engaging content. In today’s digital landscape, content is king. So, you need to make sure that your blog is offering unique and valuable content that resonates with your audience.
To do this, you should start by researching your audience and identifying their interests and preferences. What topics are they passionate about? What content formats do they prefer? Once you have this information, you can start creating content that is tailored to their needs.
It’s also important to use SEO (search engine optimization) to help your content reach a wider audience. This means optimizing your blog for search engines by using keywords, meta tags, and other strategies that make it easier for people to find your content.
Another important tip is to build relationships with other bloggers, influencers, and media outlets in your industry. This can help you gain exposure and build your brand in the industry. You can do this by collaborating on content, guest posting on other blogs, or pitching your content to media outlets.
Finally, it’s important to engage with your audience and build a community around your blog. This means responding to comments, sharing your content on social media, and participating in industry events and conversations. This will help you build relationships with your audience and keep them coming back for more.”
Sam Chan
Sam Chan is the founder of PiPiADS.
“Bet on infographics for your entertainment blog to attract more audience and build authenticity to grow. Infographics are fun to look at and easy to understand in a short period and therefore are great to entice the target audience of an entertainment blog. Being versatile in formatting, infographics can also be repurposed for flyers, email marketing, videos, and other marketing materials. In addition, they are also shareable, with the potential to go viral.”
Adam Fard
Adam Fard is the Founder & Head Of Design of Adam Fard’s UX Agency.
“Choose a fascinating niche. Many kinds of blogs can and do earn money, but certain categories are far simpler to monetize than others. A blog with an obscure or unattractive subject might not attract enough readers to generate much revenue.”
Brad Anderson
Brad Anderson is the Executive Director of FRUITION.
“Consider using visual aids. If a blog makes use of images, it will be more interesting to its readers. Blog material is sometimes the sole concern of many bloggers. They rarely use visual content, even though it has been shown to increase click-through rates.
Readers are favorably affected by the use of color schemes, blog themes, and videos. Although content is king, beauty is queen in the realm of blogging.
To make your blog entries more engaging, you should include photographs that readers can relate to. To give your readers a taste of what they can expect from a particular blog post, you can insert an animated clip. It will pique the interest of your blog’s readers, and readership on your blog will increase as a result. So, if you want to stand out as a blogger, you need to use as many interesting features as you can. One method that has been shown to increase participation is the use of visual content.”
Joe Troyer
Joe Troyer is the CEO & Head of Growth of DigitalTriggers.
“Get experts to contribute. Join forces with other bloggers and authorities in your niche. Inquire if they would like to contribute a guest post to your website. It will generate interest in your blog and boost its visibility. It will give you access to credible sources that you can reference in your writing.
One of the most effective methods to increase a blog’s visibility is through guest posts. It’s a great way to attract readers to your blog. With this strategy, you can attract a larger audience to your site. SEO-friendly guest posts are possible. The guest posts will consequently improve your blog’s position in the search engine results pages.
In addition to what has already been said, guest posting can also boost your reputation in your field. Having a professional writer contribute to your blog will make it the talk of your audience in no time. It will facilitate communication with your mailing list. Thus, guest blogging is yet another approach to increasing a blog’s readership.”
Casey Jones
Casey Jones is the Founder & Head of Marketing at CJ&CO, an award-winning and top-rated digital marketing company that serves clients across the globe.
“Invest in youth-centered content for quick and long-lasting growth of your entertainment blog. It’s important to understand that Gen-Z is the current and future generation of digital consumers. So, you need to create content tailored to their needs.
To stay relevant, create humanized content that is transparent, honest, and authentic. Plus, use an engaging tone that feels like a two-way conversation. Think about talking to them through your blog and tempting them to share their own views through comments and feedback.
Also, include eye-catching visuals and bright colors in your entertainment blog because Gen-Z loves imaginative experiences. If you use these strategies, you’ll get more eyes on your entertainment blog and grow it at a good pace.”
Aima Irfan
Aima Irfan is the Editor in Chief and Marketing Manager at InsideTechWorld.
“Go where your competitors won’t! To differentiate yourself from your competitors, go the extra mile. To grow your entertainment blog, lean into your strengths and discover innovative strategies to stand out from your competition.
Provide readers with information they can learn from. There is no point in writing an article on ‘10 Ways to Save Money’ if your reader isn’t able to get anything out of it.
Stop stuffing your blogs with useless and fancy words just to make them look appealing. There should be actionable steps and concrete evidence present in your blogs so readers can act upon them. Avoid repeating information. Add a new perspective to your old subjects. This way, you can write better than your competition and grow.”
Ryan Faber
Ryan Faber is the founder of Copymatic, a cutting-edge AI-powered platform that guides businesses in creating compelling and engaging content.
“My tip is to focus on converting video and audio blogs into written blogs. Users all around the globe use different devices, like laptops, desktop computers, mobile phones, etc. to read blogs. So, to make your blog responsive and accessible on all devices, you should convert video and audio content into written blogs.
Also, you need to take into consideration the speed of the internet. Some might have slow internet speeds, and they can’t access videos and audio. After some time, they will lose interest, so make it easy to access by converting your content into written format. This way, you can also gain more active readers.”
Jessica Luna
Jessica Luna is a Marketing Analyst for Net Influencer.
“My number one tip for growing an entertainment blog is to consistently produce high-quality content that resonates with your target audience. Here are some specific steps you can take to achieve this:
- Know your audience: Identify your target audience and understand their interests, preferences, and behaviors. Use this information to create content that appeals to their needs and desires.
- Stay up-to-date: Keep yourself informed and up-to-date with the latest trends, news, and developments in the entertainment industry. This will help you create timely and relevant content that resonates with your audience.
- Create engaging content: Develop content that is engaging, entertaining, and informative. Use multimedia such as images, videos, and infographics to make your content more visually appealing and shareable.
- Optimize your content for search engines: Use search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to ensure your content is discoverable by search engines and appears at the top of search results for relevant keywords.
- Promote your content: Share your content on social media platforms and other relevant websites to increase visibility and attract new readers. Use email marketing, paid advertising, and influencer marketing to expand your reach and attract more followers.
- Engage with your audience: Respond to comments and feedback from your audience, and use their feedback to improve your content and website. Build relationships with your readers to create a loyal and engaged community around your blog.
By consistently producing high-quality, engaging content that resonates with your audience, optimizing for search engines, and promoting your content, you can grow your entertainment blog and attract a loyal following.”
Serge Volokonskyi
Serge Volokonskyi is a Product Owner of LinkChecker.PRO.
“Start promoting your blog as soon as you create high-quality content. What’s the point of having a great blog if nobody reads it? If you want to attract an audience, you must not only create excellent content but also promote it effectively.
Connect with other bloggers in your niche and explore opportunities for collaboration. You could guest post on each other’s blogs, share each other’s content on social media, or even team up to create joint projects.
Social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are great for promoting blog content. Share your posts on these platforms, engage with your followers, and use relevant hashtags to reach a wider audience.
Build an email list. Encourage visitors to your blog to sign up for your email newsletter. This allows you to stay in touch with your audience and promote new blog content directly to their inbox.
If your content is valuable to readers, your site is SEO optimized, and you follow these guidelines, you are destined for success.”
Matthew Caiola
Matt Caiola is a Co-CEO of 5WPR, a leading PR agency.
“Practice blog etiquette. In the sphere of blogs, there can be unprofessionalism. People can write whatever they want, and trolling and mean comments are common. Some bloggers break rules when they are beginners and later realize that breaking rules went against civil behavior. Below are some rules of blogging etiquette that every blogger must follow.
- Think before you write. Today, if an ill-considered comment is published in a public forum, it can spark an immediate and heated response from other bloggers and readers. There are mean people on the internet, and every blogger will have their share of mean comments. The best thing is to be nice.
- Be discreet. A blog can be an online diary but when it is used for business purposes, a blogger cannot treat it as an invitation to share private thoughts and post indiscreet photos of oneself in questionable poses. Everything that goes in a blog is for public consumption, and that reflects on the individual professionalism of the blogger and the credibility of the organization. Readers will understandably assess the person behind the blog based on the posts published. Sometimes employers check out the blogs of job applicants to catch a glimpse of the person behind the professional resume.
- Be careful about the language used. Business blogs exist for business purposes. There is no place for hostile, blunt, rude, insensitive, obscene, abusive, and discriminatory language on a business blog. Offensive language in blogs can lead to legal claims and monetary fines. Bloggers might be tempted to use the power of blogs to gossip about or defame anyone, but nothing is worth legal claims.
- Avoid blogging anonymously. People might like to use anonymity to write in a defamatory, offensive, inappropriate, and irresponsible manner. There is no guarantee that anonymous blogging will protect bloggers from detection.
- Be careful about spelling, grammar, and punctuation. A blog should never have errors. An important goal of professional blogging is to attract and grow a loyal following of leaders who will turn regularly to a blog as an expert source of timely and useful information. It will be difficult for a blogger to establish their position as an influential one if their blog lacks professionalism.
- Do not repost without permission. It is never okay to copy somebody’s post without obtaining their permission. Not only is there the issue of duplicate content, but the readers will not check out the original post, which means copying also results in stealing traffic from another blogger. This can also lead to a blog getting shut down. Before reposting anybody’s content, it is better to send them an email to get their permission.
- Be gracious. Not everyone will agree with the content of a blog. There will be people who will disagree, and many of them will tell the blogger about it. Bloggers should learn to handle criticism and not resort to insults in their responses. Negative feedback on a blog and name-calling are common. A blogger should continue to be gracious to their readers and commentators.”
Abdullah Prem
Abdullah Prem is a Full-time Blogger, SEO, Digital Marketer, and Founder, CEO of Bloggersneed.
“The key to growing an entertainment blog is consistency. Posting content on a regular schedule helps to keep readers engaged and coming back for more. It is also important to use different types of content, such as videos, interviews, and written articles, to keep things interesting.
Additionally, it is important to promote your content on social media platforms. For example, when I launched my entertainment blog, I made sure to post regularly and promote my content on Twitter and Instagram. This helped me to reach a larger audience and grow my blog.”
Milo Cruz
Milo Cruz is the Chief Marketing Officer at Freelance Writing Jobs.
“You can grow your entertainment blog by creating valuable content and networking with bloggers relevant to the industry. Define your niche and create engaging content that speaks to your target readers. You can also leverage SEO techniques like keyword optimization and link building to optimize your blog for search engines
Moreover, offer unique content by networking with other entertainment bloggers, where you can initiate exclusive interviews or behind-the-scenes coverage. This differentiates your content from others in the same niche and ultimately helps your blog stand out. And, of course, be consistent with your content publishing and audience engagement to build a loyal following over time.”
Daniel Sand
Daniel Sand is the Co-founder & CEO at Wedio.
“Nail organic traffic with community-driven content. Growing an entertainment blog requires a strong focus on SEO and organic traffic.
Last year at Wedio, we were able to increase our organic traffic from less than 10,000 monthly readers to over 100,000 by focusing solely on SEO. Our secret? We turned to community-driven content.
We engaged our members to create content for us, including articles, videos, and photos. The reason this tactic was so effective is that Google now values expert knowledge over generic content. This shift occurred during the Helpful Content update in August 2022.
Instead of relying on content from one author, we involved hundreds of creators and produced both video and written content. This allowed us to present a collective perspective rather than a single point of view.
If you’re looking to grow your entertainment blog in 2023, my top recommendation is to focus on publishing community-driven content. No matter what area of the entertainment industry you represent, this approach can help you increase your organic traffic and drive greater success for your blog.”
Allan McNabb
Allan McNabb is the VP of Image Building Media, an internet marketing company based in Tampa, serving clients throughout the U.S.
“In my opinion, the number one tip for growing an entertainment blog is to be passionate about your topic. If you’re not passionate about the movies, TV shows, or music you’re writing about, it will show in your writing. Your readers will be able to tell if you’re just phoning it in, and they’ll likely move on to a different blog that covers their favorite topics with more enthusiasm.”
Susan Gagnon
Susan Gagnon is the Editor in Chief & Fashion Blogger at Costumes Heaven.
“An entertainment blog must use all marketing methods. Running an entertainment blog cannot be based on a single form of marketing. Entertainment is viewed through different mediums, so your blog must be accessible. Marketing across multiple platforms is the right thing to do.
Form a strategy and post your content accordingly. Incorporate interviews with celebrities, get them to write for the blog, or even start a podcast. This will significantly boost interaction. Also, audiences will be thoroughly invested. Moreover, make your blog SEO-friendly. This way, your blog will be the first result that comes up when people search for content.”
Nicole Bolton
Nicole Bolton is a fashion designer and the co-founder of Iconic Celebrity Outfits.
“If you want to grow your entertainment blog, make sure that you have a thorough understanding of plugins and themes. WordPress has a vast library of plugins and themes. This consists of two kinds: free and premium. In many cases, free plugins will be more than enough to get the job done, especially when starting out.
But as your website grows and demands increase, it is worth paying for more powerful tools. Through plugins, you can add additional features to your blog that can help extract data and even generate insights.”
Dan Troha
Dan Troha is an entrepreneur, blogger, gamer, marketer, former Jeopardy! contestant, and the founder of Trivia Bliss, the largest source of trivia questions on the internet.
“If you want to build an audience for your entertainment blog, my number one piece of advice is to always be aware of what’s happening in your industry. Being a former Jeopardy! competitor, I can attest to the industry’s propensity for rapid transformation and why you need to stay abreast.
Maintaining an up-to-date, entertaining, and useful blog is easier if you keep up with the current happenings in the entertainment industry, and combining it with increasing your content’s exposure on social media is a great way to gain traction.
Also, don’t be afraid to infuse some self-deprecating humor, a distinct point of view, and anecdotes into your writing to give it some much-needed character. After all, it’s always a good idea to have fun at your own expense, right? Yes, it actually is if you’re confident enough.
Here’s a perfect illustration of how keeping up with the newest trends and offering a fresh perspective can draw in new readers to your blog: I was writing a blog article about a big streaming hit show in the past for another website we were doing a backlink swap for. Since I contribute to and run trivia/entertainment sites, to increase our marketing cross-pollination, I wrote a piece critiquing this program and offering my thoughts on the influence it has had on the culture at large.
I was amazed at how quickly the piece got traction and was shared by many people when I promoted it on social media because it translated effectively.
This exercise showed me the value of being on top of things, especially in the fast-paced world of trending topics. Developing a distinct point of view when writing for also helped to expand the readership of my trivia/entertainment blog at the end of the day.”
Growing an entertainment blog will take consistent work over time, but that doesn’t mean it has to be difficult. Install social media share buttons so your visitors can share your content with their social networks with just one click, expanding your reach to a larger audience and bringing more visitors to your blog.
