How to Start a Gaming Website Using WordPress
If you are an esports junkie and want to start a gaming website using WordPress, you are in the right place. This article will show you every step to help you start a gaming website. Let’s start with what a gaming website is.
What Is a Gaming Website and What We Can Publish There
A gaming website is an online platform dedicated to games and gaming culture.
These websites can serve various purposes and audiences, from casual gamers to hardcore enthusiasts. Creating dedicated gaming websites is essential for displaying your game, building an online presence, and engaging with your audience. There are different kinds of gaming websites that you can start using WordPress. For example:
- Game news and reviews: These websites allow you to post reviews, updates, and news about the gaming industry. These often feature articles, editorials, and opinion pieces.
- Gaming communities: Gaming communities are the platforms where gamers can interact, share content, discuss strategies, and form groups or clans.
- Game portals: These websites contain different games that users can play directly on your website.
- Streaming and video content: Websites dedicated to video content related to gaming, including gameplay videos, walkthroughs, and live streams.
- E-sports: Platforms that cover competitive gaming, including tournament schedules, team profiles, match results, and live streams of events.
How to Start a Gaming Website Using WordPress
Here are the steps to start a gaming website using WordPress.
Purchasing a Hosting and Domain
Domain Name
Domain names are part of the Domain Name System (DNS), which translates these words into IP addresses that systems use to identify each other on the network. A domain name is a human-readable address people use to visit any website. You can create any available domain name for your website. It would be best always to select an intuitive domain name. An easy domain name is vital for various reasons.
- Memorability
- Brand recognition
- Effective marketing
- Ease of typing
- Avoiding confusion
You can get a domain name from sites like Hostinger, Bluehost, GoDaddy, etc.
Hosting
Web hosting is an online resource that allows individuals or companies to make their websites accessible via the World Wide Web. These services provide the technologies and server space required for a website to be viewed online. When you sign up for a web hosting service, your website files are stored on a server, and the server makes your website available to users who visit your domain name. Here are some key features that you should look for in a hosting provider:
- Reliability and Uptime
- Performance
- Support
- Storage and bandwidth
- Server location
- Cost
Another factor to consider when picking a host is whether they allow domain name registration or if you must use an independent registrar. If you’re creating a gaming server website, ensure they have a package for that.
Research the game you want to run and look for room to grow, which means the freedom to upgrade your hosting plan or add more resources as your website’s traffic and data storage needs increase. There are different web hosting providers in the market that you can use to start a gaming website using WordPress. Some of them are Bluehost, Hostinger, and GoDaddy.com.
Installing WordPress on the Hosting Server
After choosing the domain name and host, you must install WordPress on the hosting server. WordPress is a content management system (CMS) that allows users to easily create, run, and publish websites and blogs. It is easy to use and open-source software. Many hosting companies offer WordPress bundles, or you can also download it manually.
For auto downloading with Hostinger, ensure your domain points to Hostinger and is added to your hosting plan. Now open the auto-installer and navigate to Websites > Dashboard > Auto Installer. Click on auto installer.
A new screen will open; click on “WordPress.”
Enter all the required details and click the “Next” button.
Select the WordPress version on the next screen and click “Install.”
After a few minutes, the installation will be completed.
There are two types of WordPress: WordPress.com and WordPress.org. We will use the self-hosted version because it provides more access, freedom, and control over all the available features.
Doing Initial WordPress Configuration
After installing WordPress, enter your credentials for logging. To do initial WordPress configurations, go to Settings > General. Here, you can configure different settings, including:
- Site title
- Tagline
- WordPress address (URL)/Site address (URL)
- Email address
- Time zone
- Date and time format
Go to Settings > Permalinks and choose a URL structure for your posts.
Choosing the Right WordPress Theme
The next step is selecting a suitable WordPress theme to start a gaming website using WordPress. Dedicated WordPress gaming themes are specifically built for gaming websites.
These themes offer features and design elements that cater to the unique needs of gaming communities and content. Here’s how they differ from other WordPress themes:
- Design: Gaming themes have bold, dynamic designs with high-impact visuals, dark color schemes, and graphics. In comparison, other themes have more general or versatile designs that are not as specific to any particular purpose.
- Features: Gaming themes often include game reviews, game listings, leaderboards, forums/community integration, and streaming/video Integration. Other themes offer features like blog layouts, portfolios, or business-centric functionalities.
- Performance: Gaming themes work better than general themes because they are optimized for high-resolution images and media content.
Here are some of the top dedicated gaming WordPress themes.
- Godlike
- Qamico
- Cloux
- PlayerX
- Youplay
Let’s look at the offerings of some dedicated gaming website themes.
Godlike
Godlike is a versatile and powerful theme for starting a gaming website using WordPress. Its two flexible demos allow it to create multiple gaming websites. The first demo helps you develop a general-purpose gaming website, while the other promotes a specific game.
Godlike works well for gaming news sites; social networks focused on gaming, and online game stores because the general-purpose gameplay demo can be customized to suit a range of projects.
Godlike makes it easy to set up your website and enable community features like discussion forums, networking tools, and e-commerce functionality, such as the ability to sell digital and physical products online and create a subscription content site.
You can also use blog post templates to update your audience on gaming. Moreover, Twitter and Instagram integration allows you to display social media content on your site.
Key Features
- 250+ Options powered by WordPress Customizer
- Powerful Page Builder
- 27+ Pre-build shortcodes
- 20+ Header Variations
- Visual Color Changer (Unlimited Colors)
Pricing
Godlike is a premium theme that costs $69 for one end product. You can download it from ThemeForest.
Qamico
If you are a game developer, the Qamico theme is for you. It is a highly visual and animated theme. This theme also includes pages highlighting news and achievements, displaying games, and sharing information about teams. It has five homepage demos and different header and footer options. You can add parallax effects to content and rows and control the site’s layout.
Qamico lets you list games and provide information, including features and trailers. Site visitors can search for games by platform and genre. This theme was created using WordPress’s Elementor page builder. Additionally, it has a mobile-responsive design and a high loading score.
Qamico is cross-browsing compatible with Firefox, Chrome, Opera, and Safari. It supports WordPress customizers, which can configure the theme’s functions via WordPress options.
Key Features
- Maximum features and customizable options
- 5+ homepage demos
- Mobile responsive design
- High loading score
- Many header and footer options
Pricing
Qamico is a premium theme that costs $48 for one end product. You can download it from ThemeForest.
Once you have chosen a suitable theme for your website, go to the WordPress dashboard to activate it. Navigate to Appearance > Themes. Please search for your desired theme and activate it.
You can manually add a theme by clicking “Add New Theme” and choosing the theme file you downloaded from a third-party site.
To customize the theme, click “Customize” in the “Appearance” menu.
Now, you can customize your site according to your preferences, even with the front-end view.
Installing Necessary Plugins
Once you select a suitable theme to start a gaming website using WordPress, it’s time to add the necessary plugins for extra functionality. Here is the list of plugins that will help you boost your gaming site.
- bbPress: For creating forums
- Gamipress: For website gamification and adding achievements
- WooCommerce: For e-commerce integration
- BuddyPress: For community integration
- Gravity Forms: For creating forms
- WP Review: For a gaming review website
- Yoast SEO: To improve site visibility in search engines
- Wordfence Security: To protect your sites from different threats
Launching Your Gaming Website
Once you have selected your domain, hosting, themes, and plugins, it’s time to launch your website. But before launching, there are some steps that you should perform to ensure your website is ready.
- Finalize your content and design: Review your pages, blog posts, and game reviews, verify that all multimedia elements (images, videos) properly function, and ensure the theme is visually appealing and responsive on all devices.
- Key settings: Configure permalinks, title, tagline, and reading settings and enable comments.
- Test your site: Ensure all interactive elements (forms, forums, search bars) and links are properly functional. Also, check your site on different devices/browsers and check site performance using tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix.
- SEO and analytics: Use SEO plugins and configure meta titles, descriptions, and keywords for your pages and posts. Register for a Google Analytics account to monitor traffic and user behavior.
- Security and backup: You need to Install active security plugins to protect your site from threats and backup plugins to protect your content.
- Prepare for launch: Double-check everything and ensure the Search Engine Visibility box is unchecked. Finally, you need to deactivate maintenance mode to make your site live.
- Promote and launch: To promote your website, share it on gaming forums, social media platforms, and gaming communities, and run promotional campaigns. Regularly monitor site performance to make improvements and stay connected with the audience by responding to feedback and keeping the audience engaged with fresh content.
Once you have done these, you can add your website to the Google Search Console platform.
Adding the Website to Google Search Console
The last but not the least step is adding the website to Google Search Console (GSC). GSC is a free tool that helps you improve, monitor, and maintain website performance in the search results.
Here are the steps to add the website to the Google search console.
Search Google Search Console on your browser and click the “Start now” button.
Now, you have to add the property. Here, you will see two property options: domain and URL prefix. We will use the URL prefix because it is easier than the domain.
Go to your WordPress dashboard > Settings > General and copy the site address (URL). And paste the address in the GSC URL prefix option. Click the “Continue” button.
Once you click on “Continue,” a “Verify ownership” popup will appear. This popup lets you choose different methods to verify your site’s ownership. We will select “HTML tag” to confirm the ownership.
Click on “HTML tag” and copy the meta tag below.
Now install and activate the Yoast SEO plugin on your WordPress.
After activating the plugin, navigate to Yoast SEO > Settings > Site connections, paste the code into the Google platform, and click “Save changes.
Return to the Google Search Console account and click the “verify” button.
After verification, your account site will be added to the Google Search Console.
How GSC Helps You With Your Website
Google Search Console is a valuable SEO tool that monitors and improves your website’s performance in Google search results. It gives you a report about your site’s performance in Google search, showing metrics like clicks, impressions, average position, and click-through rate (CTR).
Moreover, GSC helps you optimize your content by showing which search queries bring visitors to your site and which pages perform best.
Conclusion
In this article, we have discussed all the steps to start a gaming website Using WordPress. As we know, WordPress is the most famous and widely used content management system. We have learned how easy it is to start a WordPress gaming website. You can create a fantastic gaming platform by selecting the right domain, hosting, plugins, and themes.
Do you have any gaming websites?
Which plugins and themes do you use?
Tell us in the comment section below.
If you want to know more about building your website using WordPress, you can get detailed help from our articles listed below:
