Are you interested in creating a gaming website on WordPress? Gaming has never been more popular than it is now. With our own gaming website, we can build a gaming community, run a popular gaming blog, and even earn extra income.
What do we need to create a gaming website using WordPress?
Initially, we will need the following to create a gaming website on WordPress.
- Domain name . This will be the name of our website that people will type to find our site online. For example, com.
- Web Hosting Account. Our website files will be stored in this account.
- WordPress theme. The theme will be responsible for the appearance and functioning of our site.
- Correct and suitable WordPress plugins. Plugins will help us add certain gaming features that we need.
- SSL certificate. We will need an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate if we plan to sell products or add Twitch streams.
Depending on the type of gaming website we’re building, it’s entirely possible to do this in less than an hour. Let’s see how to carry out this process, step by step.
1. What type of WordPress gaming site do we need?
If we like video games, there is nothing better than participating in this segment.
Gaming blogs and websites serve a large community of gamers who are looking for articles about the latest games, consoles, hardware, events, and more.
Let’s see what kind of gaming sites we can create using WordPress:
- A site that sells products to the gaming community.
- A site that hosts simple and fun online games and lotteries (see our sample Fastloto).
- Website with game reviews and news blog.
- A gaming forum dedicated to our favorite game.
If we make the right choices, perhaps we will compete with IGN, Kotaku or GamesRadar.
No matter what type of gaming website we want to create, this guide will help us create it using WordPress.
2. Choose the right platform for your website
To begin with, we must choose a website builder that best suits our idea.
We will definitely choose WordPress. However, there are two types of WordPress software that have the same name, so it’s easy to confuse them.
First, we have WordPress.com, a blog hosting platform. The second is WordPress.org, a standalone version of WordPress.
We recommend using the local version of WordPress.org as it gives us more freedom, control and access to all WordPress features.
Next we will need a domain name and web hosting. But we don’t need just any hosting company. We need a high quality hosting provider like SERED to support our WordPress website as it grows.
After purchasing hosting, the content management system (CMS) WordPress will be automatically installed.
If we prefer, we can install WordPress ourselves. For more details, we recommend reading our complete guide to installing WordPress.
Once we’ve installed WordPress, it’s time to set up the rest of our WordPress gaming website.
3. Choose the perfect responsive gaming WordPress theme.
After setting up our WordPress site, the next step is to choose the perfect WordPress gaming theme.
When we search for the best gaming WordPress theme, we find several options with built-in gaming features.
While this may seem like a good idea, we should actually avoid using these themes.
We don’t want a WordPress theme built for games.
Most WordPress gaming themes are bloated and will make us use them forever. We may even encounter compatibility issues when trying to add new features to our site.
It’s better to choose a high-quality, flexible theme and add more functionality using WordPress plugins. There are a large number of different plugins that will help us select the functions we need.
By adopting this approach, we have the ability to change themes in the future while maintaining the same functionality without having to hire a WordPress developer.
The magazine template can be ideal for gaming websites because it models what other large and successful sites in the gaming space are doing.
4. Install the correct game plugins
It’s time to add more functionality to our site using WordPress gaming plugins.
Plugins are supporting applications for our WordPress site. They allow us to add all sorts of features to our site. There are approximately 60,000 free plugins for WordPress.
Let’s see what gaming features we can add to WordPress:
- Sale of goods related to the game or for instance, lottery tickets.
- Live games that visitors can play.
- Streaming video on Twitch.
- Detailed video game reviews.
- Gaming community forum.
- Selling Game Related Products on WordPress
Perhaps our goal in creating a gaming site is to sell our own gaming manuals and equipment.
These can be special gaming glasses-accessories that are designed to reduce eye strain.
Or masters who are specialists in a particular game, and we want to sell courses and walkthroughs. WordPress makes it easy to create your own online store selling digital or physical products.
To start selling products using WordPress, you need to use the WooCommerce plugin.
Add Attractive and Simple Games to WordPress
We might be wondering how to add games to a WordPress site.
Adding games to our site can provide entertainment for our visitors and hopefully leave them with a positive experience. The best way to add games to our site is with a WordPress gaming plugin.
There are plugins such as Dinosaur Game and Word Search Puzzle Game that allow us to add simple games to our site.
If we want to turn our WordPress website into an online gaming platform, we recommend using MyArcadePlugin. This is a premium plugin used by over 100,000 WordPress sites.
Add Streaming Feature to WordPress
If we broadcast or want to include popular Twitch and Esports video streams on our gaming site, we can easily do so.
The best way to add this feature is to use a WordPress plugin. We recommend using the Twitch TV Easy Embed plugin. This plugin allows us to embed Twitch.tv streams into WordPress and customize the appearance.
After installing and activating the plugin, go to “Settings” -> “Easy insertion for Twitch TV (Rail)”. On this screen we will find the main settings in which we can configure the shows we want to display.
With the free version of the plugin we can enter the game or channel that we want to broadcast. Finally, we made sure to click Save Channel before the screen appears. This is what the screen will look like when you add a Hearthstone game to Twitch.
To add Twitch streams in WordPress, we can use the [getTwitchRail] shortcode.
We simply copy the shortcode and paste it into any post or page or even into our sidebar widget.
We just need to make sure to click the Publish or Update button to save our page and start our Twitch stream.
If we want to add an entire wall of Twitch streams to WordPress, we can use the Twitch TV Easy Embed (Wall) plugin. This plugin was created by the same team of web developers and follows the same setup instructions as the previous plugin.
Add game reviews to WordPress
If we’re gaming bloggers writing about games, hardware, and consoles, we’ll probably want to add advanced review features to our site.
This way, when we write product reviews, we can add star ratings and improve their appearance. Let’s see below how our reviews will stand out in search engines:
The best way to do this is to use the WP Product Review Lite plugin. This plugin allows us to manage reviews games and display them on our website.
Additionally, this plugin gives us customization options that allow us to add pros and cons, product images, ratings, and more to our reviews.
There is even a feature to add a sidebar, top products and review widgets to our site.
We may also be interested in using plugins like Pretty Links or ThirstyAffiliates to better monetize our website with affiliate marketing for beginners.
Create a gaming forum in WordPress.
Another great feature we might want to add to our site is our gaming community forum. A forum can be a discussion forum, a place to share tips on a specific game, or even a question and answer platform.
Forums allow our visitors to feel like they are part of our site. When they engage in discussion and share information with others, they are more likely to return to our WordPress blog and engage in other ways.
The best way to add forum functionality is to use a WordPress plugin such as bbPress or BuddyPress. These are two of the best WordPress forum plugins that will help us easily add forum functionality to our website.
5. Take our WordPress gaming site to the next level
WordPress is a very powerful and flexible platform that gives us access to thousands of different plugins that we can use to develop our gaming website.
The following plugins can help us grow our gaming website today.
- WPForms Lite. This is one of the best contact plugins for WordPress that allows us to quickly create contact forms using a drag and drop builder.
- AIOSEO. This is the best SEO plugin for WordPress that will help you rank higher in search engines.
- MonsterInsights. This plugin allows us to easily install Google Analytics in WordPress so you can understand where our visitors are coming from and what content on our site is most valuable.
- Break the balloon. This is the best social media plugin for WordPress that allows us to add our social media channels directly into WordPress.
- SidProd Light. This is the best page builder plugin that allows us to easily customize our website using a drag and drop builder without the need for HTML.
We hope you found this article on how to create a gaming website with WordPress helpful.
