Bleacher Report intern success story: Ethan Norof

Ethan Norof is a Bleacher Report internship success story. A former star intern, Norof has published 350 articles, earning more than 2.6 million reads.

He even got a mention in a Shoutout post this week.

His success as a writer has earned him a job working with B/R’s NBA and Swagger teams.

In the weekly email to Bleacher Report writing interns this morning, he wrote about his time at B/R so far:

B/R has helped me to find a voice. I’ve always been able to write, and I’ve had Internet access for a long time, but having both doesn’t indicate success. B/R has given me an outlet to not only share my opinions, but to voice them to an audience that would otherwise be inaccessible.

Sharing my thoughts with fans of the game is what has allowed me to gain a legitimate following in the writing sphere and it continues to grow with each article I publish. The placement of my pieces on the website and the partners that picked them up really helped me to get my name “out there.”

My improvement as a writer has been astronomical. Not only have I been taught how to write a good lede (introduction) that resonates well with search engines, but I’ve also learned how to get my voice “heard” by others reading despite the fact that there is no vocal inflection.

The growth in my writing is evident in terms of reads that I’ve gathered and comments being left on each article. It’s a long road to navigate, but one that can be done through hard work and dedication to improving and honing one’s writing prowess.

Currently at B/R, I am working as a breaking-news NBA writer and occasionally contribute to the Pop Culture/Swagger team as well. Despite the fact that the lockout is in full effect, there is still plenty to write and report about, and as an absolute NBA freak, I truly enjoy my current work and where it has led. I am a full-time employee and couldn’t be any happier about how I have progressed on the platform.

In terms of being a good online writer, the best thing to focus on is really writing a good lede and getting to the point of what you’re going to be talking about.

There is no point in building up a flair for the dramatic and burying the lede, because it will lead to significantly fewer read counts. When news breaks about anything in the sporting world, thousands (or even millions) of people flock to Google to see what’s going on.

The better lede you write, chock-full of keywords and topical items about what you’re writing on, the more likely that you’ll show up in search results. In a generation that values convenience above all else, you want your article to be at the top of the page.