Gaming websites have exploded in popularity over the last decade. According to the latest market research, global gaming website traffic has grown by over 428% since 2012.
With the right approach, you can leverage this demand to create a successful gaming site of your own. In this comprehensive guide, we‘ll walk you through the entire process step-by-step.
Contents
Why Make a Gaming Website?
Here are some of the key reasons you may want to create your own gaming site:
- Share your passion for gaming and build a community of fellow gamers
- Make money through ads, affiliate marketing or selling your own products/services
- Establish yourself as an expert in a particular game or genre
- Have fun and express your creativity through website design
- Learn new skills like web development, writing, and marketing
As someone who‘s been building websites for 15+ years, I can tell you that gaming sites represent an exciting opportunity right now. The audience growth has been explosive.
Whether your goal is to make money or simply share your gaming passion, now is the time get your own gaming site online.
How to Choose the Right Gaming Website Platform
The first decision is which website platform to build your gaming site on. Here are the top options to consider:
WordPress
WordPress is by far the most popular CMS platform on the web. Over 35% of all websites run on WordPress.
Pros:
- Easy to use, even for beginners with no coding experience
- Extremely flexible and scalable as your site grows
- You have full control and ownership of your site files and data
- Ability to customize with thousands of themes and plugins
- SEO-friendly out of the box for higher search rankings
Cons:
- Can slow down with bloated plugins or cheap hosting
- Theme quality varies, some expertise needed to customize
Overall, I recommend WordPress for most gaming site projects because of its newbie-friendliness and massive theme/plugin ecosystem.
Wix
Wix is a popular drag and drop website builder. It uses an HTML5 web editor for easy creation.
Pros:
- Very easy "what you see is what you get" (WYSIWYG) editor
- 1000s of templates and color schemes to choose from
- Built-in image editor and stock media library
Cons:
- Templates are restrictive, hard to customize extensively
- Must use Wix domain name and hosting
- SEO not as strong as WordPress sites
Wix is great for total beginners who want something easy. But flexibility and control is limited versus WordPress.
Webflow
Webflow is a newer CMS platform that is structure-focused but still has visual design tools.
Pros:
- Visual editor with flexibility for custom CSS
- Modern website animations and effects built-in
- Can use your own hosting and domain
Cons:
- Steeper learning curve than Wix or WordPress
- Limited integrations and app ecosystem
- No built-in blogging functionality
Webflow is powerful but the complexity makes it better suited for experienced website builders.
WordPress CMS Comparison
| Platform | Beginner-Friendly | Customization | Scalability | SEO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WordPress | Yes | Extensive with plugins/themes | Excellent | Excellent |
| Wix | Yes | Limited with templates | Good | Average |
| Webflow | Moderate | Extensive with code editing | Excellent | Good |
Looking at the key criteria, WordPress comes out as the ideal platform for gaming sites for most users. The rest of this guide focuses on building your gaming site with WordPress.
Step 1: Get a Domain Name and Web Hosting
The first step is registering a domain name for your gaming site. Your domain is the website address that people will type in to access your site.
Some good domain ideas:
- [YourName]Gaming.com
- [GameName]Guide.com
- [Genre]GamesReviewed.com
When brainstorming domains, aim for names that:
- Clearly convey the topic
- Are short and memorable
- Contain relevant keywords
- Use ".com" when possible
You can check domain availability at registrars like Namecheap, GoDaddy or Bluehost. Expect to pay around $12-$15 per year.
Next, you need web hosting which provides the server space for your website‘s files. The best WordPress hosting provides optimized servers, speed, security, and support.
For beginners, I recommend hosting from a WordPress-optimized provider like Bluehost. Their low-cost shared hosting plans start from $2.75 per month for your first term.
This plan from Bluehost also includes:
- Free domain name registration
- Free SSL certificate for security
- One-click WordPress installation
With over 15 years as a professional webmaster, I‘ve used many different hosts. Bluehost consistently provides the best value and WordPress-optimized hosting for new sites. Their 24/7 support also helps beginners when getting started.
Once you complete Bluehost signup, they will automatically install WordPress for you on your account. Then you can login to your WordPress dashboard and start setting everything up.
Step 2: Pick a Gaming WordPress Theme
The theme you choose controls the overall appearance, layout, and functionality of your gaming site.
There are some dedicated gaming WordPress themes you may come across in your search. However, I advise avoiding these.
Gaming themes tend to be bloated with unnecessary features. They can also lock you into that specific theme, making it hard to switch later without losing functionality.
A better approach is using a lightweight, customizable magazine or blog WordPress theme. Then enhance it with gaming plugins (which we‘ll cover next).
Some excellent premium magazine themes for gaming sites include:
- GameForest – $59
- Newspaper – $59
- Gamers – $59
- Himalayas – $79
These provide modern, mobile-friendly layouts optimized for web and mobile visitors. You also get 100% control to customize the design however you like.
Top free themes like Astra, GeneratePress and OceanWP are also great lightweight starting points. The main drawback with free themes is less design flexibility versus premium options.
Install and activate your chosen theme from within the WordPress dashboard. Then spend time customizing it to match your vision.
Step 3: Add Gaming Functionality with Plugins
The real magic comes from using WordPress plugins to add functionality to your gaming site.
With over 59,000+ free WordPress plugins, you‘re bound to find options that fit your exact needs.
Here are some of the most popular plugins used by gaming sites:
Game Reviews
To add rich game reviews, I recommend WP Review. It lets you build professional reviews with star ratings, pros/cons, images, videos and schema markup.
Your game reviews will stand out better in search engines like this:
![Gaming Review Search Example]
Alternative options include WP Game Reviews and IgniteUp Reviews.
Community Forum
The best free plugin for forums is bbPress. It makes it easy to setup unlimited forums for discussion.
Alternatives like wpForo and Advanced Forum have more features but cost $19+."
Live Streaming
To embed Twitch, Youtube Gaming or Facebook streams, use the Twitch TV plugin. It only takes a couple clicks to add streams from any channel.
StreamerBox is another solid option with additional customization settings.
Simple Games
If you want mini games like word puzzles, try Gamebox. For platform games like Doodle Jump, use the Dinosaur Game plugin.
MyArcadePlugin is a premium plugin ($99/year) that gives you a full arcade with 100+ games.
eCommerce Store
To sell your gaming merchandise, courses or services, use WooCommerce. It‘s the most powerful WordPress eCommerce solution.
Alternatives like Easy Digital Downloads are great for selling digital downloads specifically.
With so many quality plugins, you can find the ideal options to power your vision for any gaming site.
Step 4: Speed Up and Optimize Your Gaming Website
With gaming sites, speed and performance are critical. Slow load times will alienate your visitors.
Here are some tips to optimize and speed up your gaming site:
- Use a caching plugin like WP Rocket to serve cached pages
- Enable GZIP compression in your WordPress host
- Minify CSS, JavaScript and HTML files
-Lazy load images and videos using a plugin - Reduce HTTP requests with concatenation
- Upgrade to a faster WordPress hosting plan
- Replace high-resolution images with optimized versions
Optimizing your gaming site for speed should be an ongoing process. Faster load times lead to better engagement and conversions.
Step 5: Promote and Grow Your Gaming Website
Driving consistent traffic and building an audience is critical to growing your new gaming site.
Here are some of the most effective tactics I‘ve used successfully over the years:
- Optimize your content for SEO so your pages rank high in search engines
- Promote your site on Reddit, gaming forums and relevant social media groups
- Run contests, giveaways and promotions to attract more visitors
- Start email marketing sequences to subscribers who opt-in to your newsletter
- Guest post on other established gaming sites to gain backlinks and exposure
- Analyze your traffic sources and engagement metrics using Google Analytics
- Invest in paid ads through Google, Facebook and native networks
- Build relationships with other gaming sites and content creators
- Leverage influencers and micro-influencers to promote your brand
It takes consistency, but you can steadily grow a thriving community around your gaming site with the right strategy tailored to your audience.
Conclusion
Building a gaming site in WordPress has never been easier. Follow this guide to:
- Register your gaming domain
- Get optimized WordPress hosting
- Install a fast, customizable theme
- Add functionality with purpose-built gaming plugins
- Speed up and optimize your site‘s performance
- Begin promoting your gaming site consistently
The rest comes down to creating compelling content, building your audience and having fun in the process.
I hope this tutorial gave you the blueprint you need to create your very own gaming website with WordPress. Ready to start building? Let‘s game on!
