For sportswear brands, a blog is one of the best ways you can educate readers and help them learn about your products. No wonder almost all major footwear and apparel labels have one.
If you don’t yet have a blog – or your content is only updated sporadically – you’ll need a content strategy. The exact topics you include will, of course, be dictated by the market you’re in and the sorts of products you sell.
But to help you generate ideas, use my list of sportswear blog copywriting themes for inspiration. For the past decade, I’ve written countless blog articles (not to mention PLPs, home pages and more) for some of the world’s best-known and best-loved sports brands.
Most sportswear blogs cover the following seven themes.
7 blog topic ideas for sportswear brands
I’ve written everything from marathon training guides to detailed descriptions of outsole traction. Here are seven themes that most sportswear brands cover in their blogs.
1. Sports guides and how-to’s
This is your classic educational blog content. The aim is to answer search queries related to the sports your brand caters to.
For example:
- Hockey: Articles on training, rules of the game, tactics
- Hiking: Tips for lacing boots, planning routes, packing bags
- Swimming: Guides to swimming drills, diving techniques, warm-ups
A couple of additional pointers.
Accuracy is crucial for credibility in sportswear blog writing
It goes without saying, but a sportswear brand must make sure all the information they publish is accurate.
I have seen more than one big brand clearly using LLMs to produce their blogs and getting some very basic information wrong!
Lean into the science
You can add a lot of authority to your blogs by citing research papers or highly trusted information sources.
For example, if you were writing a blog about why someone should warm up before a swim, try to find a study that compares injury rates between swimmers who do and don’t do a warm-up (assuming such a study exists!).
Related: 8 data sources to use in your content
2. Interviews with experts and athletes for sportswear blogs
This is about brand authority, rather than directly marketing your products. But it will bring people with an interest in your sport(s) to your website.
If your company sponsors pro athletes, Q&A’s or in-depth interviews are invaluable (remember to promote these interviews on your socials!). Topics could include:
- Their training routine
- Mentality and performance tips
- Memories of a big event they took part in
You can also interview sports scientists or in-house experts on things like:
- The design of your products
- Ideas about how people can improve at their sport
- Health topics (injury, recovery, nutrition)
Related: How to use interviews for your content
3. Buying guide blogs for sportswear and shoes
This is content for a bit further down the funnel. Readers could be new to a sport or they might have been doing it for years. They’re looking for tips on what they need to play at their best.
Sportswear buying guide blogs typically cover things like:
- An overview of product features needed for a particular sport
- Why it’s worth investing in ‘proper’ apparel/shoes
- A summary of the main types of gear (tops, bottoms, footwear)
- An overview of helpful extras (coats, bags, sweatbands etc.)
- How seasonal factors may affect purchases (temperature, rain, wind, indoor vs outdoor)
This is obviously a strong opportunity for internal links to relevant category pages or individual PDPs. Many sportswear blogs will also use product carousel widgets in this kind of content.
4. Maintenance and care guides
If someone’s spent a fair whack on your shoes, jackets, sports bras, leggings or other gear, they will want to know how to make their items last as long as possible. This isn’t necessarily a high sales opportunity, but it’s useful for E-E-A-T, and lots of people search for this kind of content. It basically builds trust in your brand.
This kind of thing:
- How to clean your shoes (football boots, rugby studs, golf spikes, trail running shoes etc.)
- How to wash higher value clothing like sports bras, compression gear
- How to dry wet shoes safely (not on the radiator!)
- What detergents to use for your swimming costume, leggings, t-shirts etc.
- When to replace your shoes/trousers/coat
5. Blogs about your sportswear brand’s USP
A lot of sportswear looks kind of similar at first glance. For example, almost all sports t-shirts are made from polyester or nylon (and blends thereof). So why should someone choose your company’s tops in particular?
Writing sportswear blogs about your products’ unique selling points can be really interesting for people to read about. This is also a great opportunity to show off the years of R&D that go into making your wares.
- Why have you chosen a particular blend of materials for your surfing shorts? What qualities does that give the wearer?
- How exactly does your cushioning technology absorb shocks when people run and jump? Do you have internal testing data that shows shock absorption figures?
- How does the traction pattern on, say, your squash shoe, stop wearers from slipping?
- Are there any sustainability features to call out (without greenwashing)?
6. Seasonal sportswear blog content
If you’re creating a sportswear blog content calendar, make sure you keep an eye on seasonal events and produce articles around them:
- General winter, spring, summer and autumn training guides
- Black Friday sportswear buying guides
- Christmas sportswear gifting guides
- Back to school clothing and accessories blogs
- Content related to professional sports season/competitions (e.g. the start of the Premier League for football, blogs around the Grand Slams for tennis, the Tour de France for cycling etc.)
7. Lifestyle blog writing related to your sport/apparel
There are plenty of opportunities to write content related to the lifestyle around your sport. This can answer search queries and also help build trust with readers.
It totally depends on your brand, its values and the kind of market you target. But here are some examples of lifestyle blogs a gymwear brand could produce:
- What does the science say about protein shakes?
- How to use your rest days productively
- 5 films about strength training to watch
- Our favourite cardio podcasts
- Should you wear gym clothes when you’re not training?
Expert sportswear SEO blog copywriter
I’ve spent the last 10 years working with several multinational sportswear brands to produce blogs and other kinds of content – and this has contributed significantly to their website traffic and sales.
Whether you’re a founder, run marketing for a brand, or work for an SEO agency, contact me for help with copywriting for your sportswear blog. I offer support at every stage of producing blogs for sportswear brands – from content strategy and keyword research, through to researching and writing sportswear articles, through to interviewing your experts or athletes, and beyond.