Welcome to the FirstLightSports.com Media Page
Our Mission:
It is the mission of FirstLightSports.com to produce and publish high quality original content articles and photographs. We are individuals interested and passionate about outdoor sports and travel and we want to share those passions with our readers. FirstLightSports.com has been, and continues to be, fiercely independent and focused on developing interesting and engaging original content. Through the places we go and the things we do, we seek to bring 360-degree panoramic and experiential stories to our readers.
Our History:
Originally started with a focus on downhill skiing and winter sports in 1999, we have expanded our topics to also cover golf, cycling, travel, and even scuba diving. Our articles have reached people all over the world. We are a reliable and safe place on the internet where people can come to get information and stories about great places to visit and fun things to do. Over our many years of publication we have engaged a variety of writers and photographers to contribute to our site.
Our Readers:
The folks who read and view articles in FirstLightSports.com are people who share our mission’s interests. While we do have “sports” in our name we are truly a resource for anyone who likes to get outdoors and be active. We are especially interested in reaching those who travel for recreation; whether it’s family activities, skiing, biking, golfing, cruising, or just sight-seeing. We are a family friendly site that seeks to reach all demographics.
Our Distribution and Volumes
We are an exclusively online publication unaffiliated with any physical magazine or newspaper. Our website traffic volumes vary widely based on the release of our content and email reminders. We currently have 700+ individual subscribers who receive email notices when we have newly published content. Our monthly readership numbers in those times are in the 500 – 800 range, with most of the participants hitting 1 – 3 pages (including the new content). We don’t pretend to be a huge player in the media war over webspace and print media. We’re small, and we own that along with our history of interesting original content, and great readers.
Our Sponsors
We have been blessed over the many years of our publication to have been sponsored by many excellent partners. A quick review of our Sponsor Page will show lots of notable and recognizable national names, venues, and resorts. We work with each sponsor for individual writing assignments, no two are the same. Generally we look to our sponsors to provide media passes for activities, attractions, and venues that they believe our readers will want to learn about. Occasionally our sponsors have provided discounted travel, lodging or other perks as well. Upon first publication, sponsored articles are always presented at the top spot of our Home Page so that readers will see them immediately upon entry to our site. We love our sponsors, and we hope that it shows!
Our Articles
We write original content feature articles, not point-and-shoot blogging. Our articles, generally containing 1500 – 3000 words, are products of first-hand experience, thoughtful solid writing, and integrated photographs. We avoid fancy and unnecessary font and color changes and instead focus on bringing experiences to life by means of good storytelling. We utilize an animated slider-type display for our photographs which provides visual interest and interactive control. All of our sponsored articles also carry graphic image, clickable logos with embedded hyperlinks to our sponsor’s website. We believe that providing visual cues directly in our article space drives more interest and activity back to our sponsors.
Platform and SEO
FirstlightSports.com is a fully responsive website visible on all current channel platforms (PC’s, SmartPhones, Tablets, etc). We utilize a WordPress development environment to deliver fast, safe, intuitive, and interesting web content. Our photos are high quality original content that are presented in-stream with text content. They are delivered via animated photo sliders which double as full-screen viewers. We have selected to use the Yoast SEO optimizer tool which we have built into every page of our site. Yoast SEO is a search engine booster that that does not seek or harvest personal information from individuals accessing our site.
Need More?
If you need more information or want to chat with us, please drop us a note directly to [email protected] or through our Contact Us page. We’d love to hear from you if you have ideas for articles, interesting things for us to do, or places to visit.