So you want to make a gaming website. Gaming is one of the world’s most popular hobbies and there are thousands of websites dedicated entirely to gaming.
What you might not realize is that building a gaming website is really easy: thanks to modern web design and website building tools, you barely need any technical expertise to build a website. You certainly don’t need any coding or graphic design skills.
First, let’s talk about the types of gaming websites you can build.
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Most Popular Types of Gaming Websites
Gaming websites come in all shapes and sizes and address all corners of the gaming industry. Your website can be ultra-specific – like a fan forum for one specific version of a game. Or it can be more general – like a news site covering all Xbox One video game releases.
What are the most popular types of gaming websites available today? Here are some suggestions:
- A forum website for members of a specific gaming group, like those who play a certain game or fans of a specific console
- A gaming news website where you cover news from across the industry or for a certain game/series
- A games review website where you write your own reviews for all different types of games
- A game retail website where you sell certain games
- A website where you cover tabletop gaming and other “non-video game” types of gaming
There are thousands of other gaming websites out there, but those are just a few ideas to get you started.
How to Build a Gaming Website Using a Site Builder
Today, there are countless free website builders available, all of which let you build a pretty good looking website without a significant amount of technical expertise.
Gamer Launch
Gamer Launch is one popular web development platform that was specifically created for gamers. The website promises to help improve your guild, clan, or team by building a free website.
The service is available to gamers who play all different types of games, but is specifically advertised to certain types of gamers. The site is split it up into sections for all of the following:
eSports Teams and Clans: eSports teams, like MOBA players involved with DOTA2, League of Legends, Smite, Overwatch, and similar games, can enjoy full support for teams, tournaments, scrimmages, and more. You can even use Gamer Launch’s “Scrimmage Finder” tool to find a scrimmage or find teams to scrim against.
MMO Community Hosting: Gamer Launch claims to host over 250,000 community sites for World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2, SWTOR, TESO, and many other MMOs. Specific MMO-related features include roster imports from various APIs, rostering, role information, image galleries, and DKP support for any game. You can even setup your own Wiki.
FPS and Other Cleans: Gamer Launch promises to help free your clan “from forum systems not tailored to the needs of FPS” games. The service is offered to FPS games as well as console clans for games like Destiny, Call of Duty, Battlefield, and more.
Minecraft Server Sites: Gamer Launch’s Minecraft section lets you build forums, image galleries, and other features, allowing you to focus on your Minecraft server community without worrying about the technical site of building a website.
Ultimately, Gamer Launch gives you a free website catered specifically to your unique gaming needs. few other web hosts offer the same level of service specifically for gamers.
Of course, the free version of the site is supported by advertisements. It also only offers a measly 10MB of storage.
Meanwhile, those who want to pay a little more for their website can upgrade to the Essential plan ($7.49 per month), which removes ads and lets you add an unlimited number of games.
Other plans include the Premium plan ($15.99 per month) and the Ultimate plan ($23.99 per month), both of which come with their own voice servers (25 slot or 50 slot voice server).
If you don’t want a site builder catered exclusively to gamers, then you can save money and enjoy a little more freedom by working with some of the other web development platforms.
WordPress
Editor’s Note: I highly recommend using HostGator for your first website, and you can get started now at only $3.95/month. HostGator make it incredibly easy to get a new site up with their one-click automatic WordPress Blog installation.
WordPress is one of the most popular website platforms available today. With thousands of themes available, it’s easy to build a stylish, unique gaming website using WordPress.
Meanwhile, those with a little bit of coding knowledge and CSS skills can customize their WordPress template even further, changing it to meet whatever unique needs you may have.
Most people, however, will be perfectly happy to customize their WordPress website using a theme. With thousands of themes available, you can find plenty that meet your unique needs.
In fact, there are entire categories of WordPress themes that cater specifically to gamers. Just Google Search “WordPress Gaming Themes” to find some that work for you.
Just like with Gamer Launch, you’ll find themes that meet your specific needs whether you’re running tournaments in DOTA2 or managing your Battlefield clan.
Perhaps the biggest endorsement for WordPress is that it powers 25% of the internet. The platform welcomes 50,000 new sites every day, and even larger websites like CNN and TIME rely on WordPress.
You can create a gaming website for free using WordPress, although that site will be found as a subdomain of WordPress (like YourGamingWebsite.WordPress.com). You can also sign up to host your own custom domain name through WordPress – although you’ll obviously need to buy the domain first.
If WordPress isn’t tickling your fancy, then you’ll find plenty of other gaming website builders out there.
Wix
Wix is one of the best-looking free website builders we’ve found. The site tends to cater more to businesses and individuals designing websites for themselves. However, you can customize your site however you like to make it a full-fledged gaming website.
If you like drag and drop UIs and an easy-to-use interface, then you’ll probably like Wix. Its UI is famously user-friendly. Wix offers free website hosting packages, although they come with the same restrictions as most other free websites (low storage space, ads, and slow speeds).
If you want to pay a little extra money for your gaming website, then Wix’s paid hosting plans start at around $5 per month.
Weebly
Weebly, like Wix, is a free website builder that lets you create a pretty good-looking gaming site. It’s hard to mess up your website too badly with Weebly, but you will need to put in a little extra work to make sure it looks good.
Like with most other website builders here, you pick a template with Weebly and that template will form the core foundation of your site. Then, you can build out whatever gaming stuff you want on top of that – like forums or image galleries or links to your server.
Squarespace
Squarespace, Weebly, and Wix are all often mentioned in the same articles. They’re three very similar website builders that all compete with each other for your attention.
Squarespace tends to be one of the better-reviewed ones on the market. It features a stylish and modern interface that tends to lead to more minimalistic websites. It also has extensive design options that give you surprising control over how much you customize your website.
If you’re the type of person who likes to rely on customer support for assistance, then Squarespace may be your number one option for building a gaming website: the site is famous for its 24/7 support and 1 hour email response turnaround time.
Learn How to Build your Own Site
You don’t have to use a website builder to build your own gaming website. You can learn how to code and make your own custom website from the ground up. If you already play a lot of games, and you’re interested in the development side of things, then you may have already learned some coding languages.
With that in mind, building your own site isn’t as difficult as you might think. Free online coding schools like W3 Schools will walk you through languages like CSS, JavaScript, HTML, and PHP, all of which can play a crucial role in your gaming website.
Promote your Gaming Site
There are thousands of people just like you out there who all enjoy gaming and want to build their own gaming website.
Your job now is to differentiate yourself from the competition and advertise your services to the world.
Use social media to get your brand out there. Change your username to your website name and start gaming. Launch a YouTube “let’s play”-style channel. This is where you can get creative with your marketing and learn how to dominate the gaming website world.
Ready to Start Building your Own Gaming Website? It’s Easier Than You Think
Ultimately, building a gaming website is easier today than it’s ever been before. Thanks to a suite of new web development tools available to today’s users, building a gaming website requires little technical expertise. If you love a game, love gaming, or just love your gaming clan, then that passion is all you really need to start building your own gaming website.
Editor’s Note: I highly recommend using HostGator for your first website, and you can get started now at only $3.95/month. HostGator make it incredibly easy to get a new site up with their one-click automatic WordPress Blog installation.