CollegeHoops.net
Fo
r the last 10 years, CollegeHoops.net* has been my passion and main source of income. From humble beginnings, it became the largest independent college basketball site, visited by over 2,000,000 unique visitors per year. Besides contributing content each week, I hired a team of freelance journalists (as well as unpaid writers) that created dozens of articles each week. I frequently assigned story topics, edited their work, and I am extremely proud that former CHN writers have graduated to positions with national outlets such as CBSSports.com and Slam Magazine.
Besides quality content, the site also grew because of my expertise in SEO (search engine optimization.) Due to extensive work generating return-links and optimizing pages, CHN reached a peak of being ranked 3rd on Google for such highly-visited broad terms as “college basketball, “ncaa tournament”, and “nba draft.” Beyond SEO, traffic was also generated through social media efforts (learn more) and other publicity efforts (covered here.)
Of course, the purpose of all this effort was profit. I was able to negotiate direct advertising deals with global brands such as Adidas, Jeep, and Sprite and other companies such as PartyPoker, Bodog, and RetroCollegeCuts. Besides these ad sales, revenue was generated through ad networks such as Google Adsense, Burstmedia, and Contextweb.
Lastly, I negotiated partnerships with the likes of Fantasy Sports Ventures (Big Lead Sports) and HuffingtonPost to generate traffic and revenue.
*Also known as collegehoopsnet.com.
Shawn: You’ve been busy…this is a great hoops site…did not know it was out here until you visited my Elm Drive Images…thanks for stopping and I’ll be watching your hoops site.
Shawn: You’ve been busy! Thanks for stopping by my Elm Drive Images and I’ll be watching your hoops site. I’m a big Illinois fan!!!
Thanks for leaving the note. It should be a very interesting year for Illinois with the new coach.