Gaming is more popular than ever these days, and that trend likely won’t stop anytime soon. That also means there’s a lot of opportunity if you know how to build a website and tailor it specifically for gaming, whether it’s a gaming blog or a streamer’s website. Depending on the games you want to focus on, you can even set up your own server that people can play on.
By the time we’re done, you’ll have a gaming website set up and ready to rock, along with a server that you can use to host multiplayer games. Let’s get started with your gaming website!
How to Create a Gaming Website in Six Steps
In this article, we will teach you how to create a gaming website by following the steps below. :
1. Plan Your Gaming Website
Like games themselves, gaming websites come in many shapes and sizes. To name just a few examples, you have:
- Gaming blogs.
- Websites for a game developer or publisher.
- Personal websites for game streamers.
- Game server websites.
In fact, you can probably think of many more examples. Although they are very different in terms of content and purpose, they all fall into the category of gaming websites.
When it comes to creating your own, you must first have a clear idea of your site. Consider what you want your gaming website to focus on and what type of content you want to publish on it. This is an important first step as it will tell you everything about how to set up your site. It will even affect your domain name choice, which we’ll discuss later. If you don’t know what your focus will be, it will be hard to find a relevant name.
For the rest of this tutorial, we’ll focus on the fourth option from the list above. , which is setting up a website for a game server. However, most of the steps we’ll cover will also apply to almost any type of gaming website, so you can still follow them.
2. Choose a website name and register it
One of the best things about learning how to create a gaming website is that you can have fun with domain names. In general, we recommend that you stick with names that are somewhat serious, related to whatever it is that you are writing about. However, if you take a look at some of the major gaming websites, you’ll notice that their names are all over the place. For example, you have:
- Gematsu
- Destructoid
- Rock Paper Shotgun
- Kotaku
- It offers more out-of-the-box configuration options than WordPress.
- The platform offers built-in support for multilingual websites, allowing you to address to a wider audience.
- You have more SEO settings to play with, without the need to install plugins or extensions (although WordPress is no slouch on this front either).
- A blog page you can use to discuss the latest gaming news.
- A About Us page showing information about the site and the people who work on it.
- Information and instructions related to your game server.
- Opt for themes with lots of good reviews.
- Stay away from options that haven’t been updated. for a while, as these may cause incompatibility issues or contain security vulnerabilities.
- Look for topics that offer comprehensive documentation for configuring and troubleshooting.
- Securing a server.
- Install the dependencies required by the game you want to host.
- Set up your server based on the game you want to host.
- Try out your new game server.
- Have fun playing with other people!
- ARK: Survival Evolved
- Team Fortress 2
- Space Engineers
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These are just a few of the more popular sites, but there are many more examples. Naturally, some sites use more traditional descriptive names, like Niche Gamer and PC Gamer. Our point is that when it comes to gaming websites, you can be quite creative in your name, as long as it’s concise, unique, and memorable.
At this point, you should already know what kind of gaming website you want. games you want to create, so you might even have a few names in mind. Your next step should be to check their availability, which you can do with Hostinger’s domain name lookup:
In most cases, we recommend sticking with .com Top Level Domains (TLDs) ). They tend to be fairly cheap, and people know and trust .com URLs, making them a safe and smart choice. When you manage to find the perfect name, go ahead and record it.
3. Sign up for a web hosting plan
As we mentioned earlier, we will teach you how to create a gaming website and how to set up a multiplayer server. Our goal is to give you the tools to set up a private or public server for any supported game. This includes popular games like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive or Minecraft. In other words, you’ll need two hosting plans, one for your website and one for the server you want to host.
For your gaming website, we recommend going with a shared hosting option. These days, it’s easy to find great shared hosting plans for less than $5 a month:
If you choose a web host with a good reputation when it comes to performance, shared hosting is a safe and affordable option. high performance option for a low price. Also, you can always upgrade to something with a little more punch at some point if you need to.
Alternatively, if you need to host a CMS website, consider CMS hosting. It’s just as cheap and profitable as shared hosting, and includes robust features that will help optimize your website’s performance.
When it comes to your game server, shared hosting, however, you may need something a little more powerful. To set up a multiplayer server that people can access, you’ll need a virtual private server (VPS). That is, a server to which you have full access and that you can configure as you want. This may sound intimidating at first, but don’t worry, we’ll help you get set up later:
For now, suffice it to say that we recommend using the same web host for your website and VPS plan. .That way, you can manage both using the same interface and set of tools.
4. Choose a platform for your website
Now let’s look at the basics of creating a gaming website. At this stage, you’ve got your hosting and domain ready, so your next step should be to choose a platform you’ll use to build and run your site.
For this type of project, we recommend using a web hosting system. content management system (CMS) like WordPress, or a simple website builder. Although the platform is often mistakenly considered to be ‘just for blogging’, WordPress is capable of handling just about any type of project you want to tackle:
In other words, using WordPress gives you the flexibility you need to create any type of gaming website you want. That includes blogs, a personal website for sharing your streams, a gaming news site, and more. Plus, this particular CMS is remarkably easy to learn, making it ideal for learning how to build a gaming website.
WordPress isn’t the only fish in the sea when it comes to Incredible CMS. . We are also big fans of Joomla. Also, by going for Joomla hosting plans, you can launch a high-performing website in no time.
We’ve already talked about the advantages of using WordPress, so we’ll give you a brief overview. why Joomla! is also a good option:
In practice, using WordPress or Joomla! it would be an excellent fit for a gaming website. However, for the rest of this tutorial, we will focus on the first one. This is because it is easier to learn if you are a beginner and offers many solutions designed specifically for creating gaming sites.
Installing WordPress is simple. In fact, the platform is so popular that many web hosts will offer to set it up for you out of the box. Even if yours doesn’t have it, the installation process is quite simple, so you can also do it on your own in just five minutes.
5. Customize Your Gaming Website
Once you’ve set up your WordPress site, that’s where the fun really begins. Now you can start working on the actual creation of your site content, your website design, including the pages you want your website to include, plus the home page. If you’re not sure where to start, here are some quick ideas:
These may sound like complex features, WordPress makes it relatively simple to implement such functionality using plugins. In case you’re not familiar, plugins allow you to extend the features that WordPress offers you, just like extensions and plugins. Right now, WordPress offers over 50,000 free plugins in its official repository, and that’s not to mention the many premium options. Suffice to say, there are plugins for just about any type of site you can think of.
For example, suppose you want to embed a Twitch stream in WordPress. You can do this using the Twitch TV Easy Embed plugin, which can show you single or multiple streams side by side:
If you want to add forum functionality to WordPress, you can also do so using one of several plugins. One of our favorites is called Asgaros Forum, which is downright simple to use and offers a wide range of features:
This is where your planning will come in handy, as you’ll know what functionality and content you want your content to contain. place. As such, you can simply search for plugins that offer those features and install them on your site.
Once you have the plugins you need, let’s move on to themes, which are another reason why WordPress is so popular. Themes allow you to change the look of your gaming website with ease. As with plugins, you also have thousands of free options to choose from:
When it comes to themes, the option you choose will depend on the style you want for your gaming website. In fact, there are several themes created specifically with gaming in mind. However, there are a few things to keep in mind to avoid problems:
Generally speaking, you have two options when it comes to WordPress themes: multipurpose and more focused. In many cases, multipurpose themes include website builder tools, which can be useful if you don’t have coding experience. With this kind of tool, you should be able to build good-looking websites without having to hire a developer to help you.
That’s a lot of information to digest, but once you try a few plugins and themes, you should have a decent understanding of what WordPress can offer you. Then it’s just a matter of experimenting with the platform until your website looks exactly the way you want it to.
6. Set Up a Game Server
Of all the steps in learning how to create a game website, this is the one that may sound the most intimidating. However, creating a game server doesn’t have to be as difficult as you might imagine. In fact, we can summarize this process in a few simple steps:
You’ve already taken care of the first step by securing a VPS hosting plan or modded Minecraft server hosting. The next step will depend on the game you want to host. In the past, we’ve written detailed guides on how to set up servers for Minecraft and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
However, there are many more games you can use your VPS for. Some other examples include:
If you come across a multiplayer game that was released in the last few years, chances are you can set up a private server for it. These games will usually provide clear instructions on how to set up the server. If you get stuck during the process, you can also ask the community for more help.
In addition to gaming, you can also use your VPS to host voice chat channels for apps like TeamSpeak, which is perfect for Coordinate with large groups. In general, there are plenty of fun apps for a VPS and if you know how to use one for gaming then you probably already have a good grasp of the basics.
Conclusion
Learning to Creating a gaming website involves a little more work than you might imagine. However, the process is more or less the same as with other types of sites. You’ll need a domain and hosting to get started, as well as a platform to run your site. However, you can also benefit from having a VPS that you can use to host games that other people can play.
Do you have any questions about creating your own gaming website? Let’s talk about them in the comments section below!
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