Starting a gaming blog, you need a few things decided right off the bat. Firstly, the blog needs a clear sense of direction. When the writing topics are all over the map with no sense of direction, readers lose interest because of the lack of predictability. Secondly, will you give the blog an interesting name to catch gamers eyes?
Web Site Design
When thinking about design, it depends on what genre of game that your company offers. If you can create strategy games, then these players will expect a certain type of content on the site with a different layout that speaks to them. For first-person shooter gamers where they’re aiming and firing at moving targets, a design that looks more tactical and impactful is going to make more sense.
There are different themed designs that WordPress, the content management system, offers. They can either be free or premium options and once WordPress is setup (any hosting company can help you out with that one) then a designed theme can be installed on it in seconds.
Domain Name
You may want a fun domain name, a genre-specific one (firstpersonavenger.com?) or related to the company name. For genre ones, e.g. gameguideworld.net, this makes it clearer what sort of content and design is to be expected from the site. A developer domain name isn’t as obvious.
It’s best to buy a dot com (.com) domain when you’re based in the U.S. or want a global business. Some developers are choosing to buy a generic .co domain instead to get the name they want. Just make sure it’s not going to compete with a live dot com site owned by another company.
It’s also a good idea to check with the U.S. trademark office to verify the name isn’t already registered to a company or an individual as a protected trademark.
Web Hosting
There are low-cost hosting providers that offer access to a cramped web server that’s hosting 1,000 websites. Other mid-tier web hosts provide shared hosting that performs faster because the server is more powerful with greater amounts of memory and solid-state drives. With web hosting, you tend to get what you pay for and being cheap about it doesn’t serve you well.
Beyond shared hosting, sites with more traffic often move up to a virtual private server that offers greater server control in a virtual environment and faster hardware. Dedicated servers for just your site or a cloud hosting setup where multiple servers host the site are also options when willing to spend more money. There is research that confirms that web users won’t wait for a slow website to load; this is likely to be even more true for impatient gamers many of whom are still teenagers.
Starting a gaming blog is an important step for developers that wish to make more of a splash. Being able to sign up visitors to a newsletter is useful to re-contact possible buyers when a new game title is being released. The site can also provide insight into development strategies and quiz visitors about game ideas to get valuable feedback too.
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