Do you have an interest in toys that you wish to share with others? Maybe you are a toy collector? Are you interested in toy design? Or perhaps you revive and repair disheveled toys as a hobby.
Within the ever-expanding online era, starting a blog is one of the best ways of sharing your ideas. Both the visual and virtual nature of a blog space lends itself perfectly to showcasing and sharing details related to toys.
Furthermore, successful bloggers are able to monetize from their blog content and can accumulate a successful online presence as a result.
While we may traditionally associate toys with children, specific areas such as toy collectibles draw significant interest and profit from adults. Additionally, many parents partake in online research in order to inform their choice of toys for their children.
Whatever your reasons for starting your toy blog, we will lead you through the process so that you are informed, confident, and equipped to begin blogging about toys.
Identify Your Niche
Given the vast and evolving nature of the toy industry, establishing your niche is essential. Ensuring that your topic is sufficiently specific will enable loyal and interested traffic.
Traditionally, toy makers designed toys to be gender-specific, whereas now there are gender-neutral ranges. Within this, there are toys made by renowned brands such as Lego, Nerf, and Fisher Price.
Then, there are toys that are made in collaboration with films, television programs, and books, such as the Marvel action figures and toy ranges and film franchise toys such as those created by Disney. There are even toy ranges bought out by well-known children’s influencers and YouTubers such as Ryan’s World and Blippi.
Whether you are a collector of toys or whether you have an interest in a specific brand or type of toys, the scope for content is huge.
Make a list of ideas related to your blog topic and conduct a keyword search. Your niche should not be over-saturated within the blogging community, but it shouldn’t be a rarity that nobody is likely to search.
Moreover, it may be worthwhile for you to explore Google Trends to allow you to assess your niches’ current and past readership trends.
Here are a few of the niche toy blog topics that you may wish to consider:
- Marvel/DC comics toys superheroes
- Prehistoric themed toys (dinosaurs)
- Lego
- Toy repairs
- Collectibles
- Action figures
- Vintage toys
- Brands: Fisher Price, Little Tikes
- Sustainable toys
- Age appropriate toys
- Gift guides
- Toy reviews/information
- Film franchise toys: Star Wars, Disney
- Toy design
- Customising toys
- Toy trading
- Conduct market research
Whether your audience is parents and their children, or whether you want to target fellow toy collectors, it is crucial that you consider your demographic carefully. Consider their needs and pinpoint what it is they want to gain from reading your content.
Alongside this, identify your competitors. Search for and explore other successful toy blogs. Make note of their strengths and limitations. What is their blog name? How do they create their brand?
Read their content. What do they write about, and how often do they post? Identify the various ways in which they market and monetize their toy blogs.
By the end of this stage, you should have established your blog’s topic. Hopefully, you will also feel inspired and have gathered a range of ideas from other successful bloggers.
Name Your Blog
Your name is the first step to creating your brand. Consequently, it should be simple, easy to remember, and easy to pronounce.
It should also represent or link to the content of your blog so that audiences can associate your name with your blog. Toy blog names could include: Toy Tribe, Terrific Toys, Collector’s Castle, Lego Lovers, etc.
You can try our blog name generator if you need help coming up with name ideas for your toy blog. It allows you to input relevant search terms and then generates lots of ideas to inspire with this first important step.
Create A Website
Here comes the technical side. Setting up your blog is simple enough. There are many blogging platforms from which you can choose. Most of these platforms offer free and paid options, the latter of which allow you more freedom to personalize and monetize your blog.
We recommend using a renowned platform such as WordPress.
Here, you can create your domain name which should ideally be the same as your blog name so that audiences can locate you easily.
Once you have completed the setup process of your blog, you can start to think about furthering your brand by creating a logo. Depending on how serious you are about monetizing it and your budget, you may wish to pay for somebody to design it.
Your logo again should be memorable and simple. Find out more about creating a successful logo here.
Market Your Blog
Utilize Social Media
Creating accounts across various social media platforms is a fantastic way to promote your toy blog. Consider the social media that your target demographic is likely to use and create blog-related accounts.
Furthermore, you can remind readers about new posts, publish sneak peeks to content, and involve audiences using surveys and polls using such platforms.
Sites such as Facebook also contain many fan groups for niche toy areas that you can join and use to publicize your blog. Here, you will also be able to find beginner blogger groups where you can share ideas and seek advice.
Join Forums
Niche toy forums are an excellent means of marketing your blog. They allow you to evaluate the current toy trends while giving insight into popular toy-related content. Forums such as Toyark and Toy News are a great place to start.
Create Your Content
By now, you should have a range of content ideas that you can work with. You may wish to write toy reviews for parents, your content may be about collectibles or antique toys, or it may be focused on electronic or technologically advanced toys. Whatever your niche, you must create content that is engaging and relevant.
Firstly, consider your content schedule. Consistency is key. Make a plan to create content, let’s say, once a fortnight on a Wednesday, and stick to it. As you grow a following, your audience will come to expect content according to your schedule.
Toy-related content should include images and even videos of the toys in action. Ensure that your content is organized into sections and pages, with clear subheadings and internal links to ensure that readers explore different aspects of your blog. Remember to refer back to your market research and allow it to inspire your content.
Adhere To Toy Blog Conventions
It’s beneficial to follow some of the conventions that successful toy blogs conform to. Here are some of the commonly used features within the top toy blogs:
- Forums: they enable your toy community to chat, stay within your website, and allow you further insight into your audience members
- YouTube channel: linking to your video content
- Podcasts: record conversations about toy-related content that your audience can then listen to when they are on the move
- Merchandise: the possibilities are endless when it comes to toy-related merchandise, from everyday clothing and cups to toy-related costumes. You will be spoiled for choice
- Toy News: As most toy brands/types are constantly evolving, there is always exciting toy news to publish within your blog.
In addition to the above, consider the following features:
- A search bar that allows users to search specific keywords so that readers can locate content quickly
- Webpages with relevant titles to allow audiences to navigate to content quickly
- An ‘about’ page that explains your toy niche and outlines why you started the blog and how you plan to develop it
- A ‘contact’ page that audiences can use to ask you questions
- Permitted commenting functions so that readers can engage with your content
- Social media page links so that your page can be shared and promoted
Boost Your Traffic
Once you have published several posts and have a regular, albeit small following, you may be looking to increase your toy blog’s traffic.
Partake In Guest Blogging
One of the many advantages of the internet is that you can easily contact bloggers, regardless of their geographical location. Reach out to other toy bloggers and ask them to collaborate with you. Begin by liking and commenting on their posts and ask them if they’d like to jointly review a product or share your blog in some way.
Start An Email List
Once you have a regular following you can use Convertkit or MailChimp to send out emails and weekly newsletters to your audience. This method can be used to promote your content and later to help monetize your blog.
Ensure That Your Content Is SEO Optimized
Make sure that content is search engine optimized. Research various ways in which you can use keywords, create high-quality content, and gain organic traffic to ensure that your blog ranks highly on Google and Bing, and other search engines.
Monetize Your Toy Blog
If you have a substantial following and have become relatively successful within the blogging community, you may be in a position to monetize your blog.
Using Display Ads
Utilize advertising networks such as Google Adsense. They will help you by providing adverts, which you are paid to display, within the advertising space of your blog.
The adverts will be relevant to your content and your blog’s visitors. Notably, the price you receive will vary according to the prices that different advertisers pay.
Affiliate Links
Schemes such as Amazon Affiliate are a popular way to make money from blogs. Toy blogs could promote specific toys accompanied by a link to purchase the toy on Amazon. If the visitor then purchases the product, the blogger receives a percentage.
Sell Goods
You may wish to create a digital item or a physical item that you can then sell. Your audience can easily download them, and you will receive payment in exchange.
You could sell:
- Merchandise such as t-shirts, mugs, costumes, pens
- E-books such as how-to-guides for specific toys or gift guides to help parents with their Christmas and birthday purchases
- Courses, you may wish to run lego building workshops or write a course that teaches your audience how to master a skill.
Successful Toy Blogs
Why not start your blogging journey by exploring the following toy blogs to inspire your ideas:
This toy blog provides a wealth of information and reviews to assist both parents, grandparents, and any gift buyer in making their purchase. It provides information on a vast range of toys from electronic video games to traditional toys. Its website offers giveaways and features the top trending toys. It has produced its own gift guide and has its own Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram accounts.
3 The Dino Toy Blog
This blog focuses on prehistoric figures only. It reviews prehistoric figures and models and includes guest reviews and recommendations. Additionally, it features an accompanying forum that hosts the views of its vast community. It has its own Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube and makes money from its links with eBay and Amazon.
Conclusion
You are now ready to embark on your blogging journey. If you are a toy enthusiast with a keen interest that you wish to share, a blog is a perfect place to start.
The great thing about starting your own blog is that initially, it can be as simple as you need it to be. With hard work, growing knowledge, and experience, you can develop a following, leading to something very exciting.
There is plenty of room for you within the toy blogging community, so don’t hesitate to get started.
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Dominika Kaminska
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