1: Purchase a virtual host
You need to purchase a virtual hosting space . It is strongly recommended that you have a credit card and PayPal account before purchasing.
I purchased a virtual host from ixwebhosting, which is relatively stable and has good speed. My ping value in China is about 200ms.
Access from other foreign countries is faster , and most importantly, they provide independent IP addresses, which is very important for building a website. An independent IP address can prevent it from being dragged down by other websites.
I purchased it with a China Merchants Bank credit card. They will call you to verify the authenticity of the credit card. Don’t be nervous. They will mainly ask you the last digits of your credit card number .
After purchasing, you will receive an email telling you some information about the space. Domain names are usually given for free (for the first year).
2: Build WordPress
Log in to your admin panel on the ixwebhosting website. The admin panel is pretty good and easy to use. Find the EasyApps Collection icon. Once you are in there, you will see a lot of apps. Find the WordPress app and install it with one click. When you install it, it will default to creating a subdirectory (wordpress), but we can set its WordPress Address (URL) to your domain address in the admin backend of wordpress.
3. WordPress game plugin
The plugin I chose is myarcadeplugin, which is used by thousands of small game websites . It allows you to automatically obtain games from the world’s top 10 game publishers. You can use the free version, but I use the paid version because the free version has many restrictions. If you want to make a decent small game website, you should buy the paid version, which costs 30 euros. As for the settings and usage of this plugin, I won’t say much. It’s very clear and simple after you install it.
4. WordPress game theme
You must want your game station to have a beautiful and fully functional interface, so choose a theme. Myarcadeplugin comes with a theme called Fungames, which looks good, but not what I want, so I spent 25 euros to buy a new theme. The purchase address is http://exells.com, which has a variety of themes, and there is always one that suits you. Note that you should carefully check whether the theme supports social functions and other additional functions. The more functions, the better. Otherwise, it will be bad if you can’t achieve the effect you want after purchasing it (refunds are very troublesome)
5. WordPress social plugin
For social functions, I use BuddyPress, which has full functions, similar to LinkedIn, with forums, user groups, user status information, users can become friends, send messages, etc. So when purchasing a theme, check whether the theme supports BuddyPress.
6. WordPress Security Plugin
In order to protect your website from being hacked, it is necessary to choose a security plug-in. Of course, installing this plug-in does not mean that there will be no loopholes, it can only be said to be relatively safe, but I think that powerful hackers will not be interested in your small game station, haha. I use the Better WP Security plug-in. You can follow its instructions to strengthen your website, but be careful not to make random changes. Some of them require your careful consideration, and some will affect your existing theme functions.
Another plug-in is Akismet, which comes with WordPress by default after installation and can prevent spam.
There is also a plug-in called BP-Registration-Options, which can make login more secure.
7: WordPress performance optimization plugin
After completing the above, your website can be accessed normally, but is it a bit slow to access? This is because your website is not cached. You need to install WP Super Cache. This plugin is easy to use. After enabling it, I found that my website is much faster. However, when you change some content on the website, you may need to delete the cache. This plugin has a cache deletion function. However, you do not need to delete the cache for functions such as publishing games and forums.
8: Player points function plug-in for small game websites
This can be achieved using the CubePoints plugin. Note that you also need to install the CubePoints Buddypress Integration to achieve the integration of BuddyPress and CubePoints.
9: Website SEO
Once your website has completed the above steps, it’s good to go, but in order to promote it quickly, you need to do something.
1) Install the MyGameListCreator plugin, which is a built-in function in myarcadeplugin. It will generate a list of all games on the homepage of the website, which will help search engines crawl.
2) Install a WordPress SEO plugin, which can make your website more SEO-friendly.
3) Install social sharing buttons. This feature allows your players to share your game to Facebook, Twitter, etc. If you search, you will find many such plug-ins.
4) Website keyword selection, use Google Ads tools to analyze the long-tail keywords related to the mini-game, do not choose particularly popular keywords, and do not choose particularly unpopular keywords. This requires you to use your brain, and note that once the website title and keywords are determined, do not change them, otherwise it will easily reduce the weight.
5) Submit your URL to major search engines. It is recommended to submit it to freewebsubmission.com. You can submit it to N search engines at a time.
10: Promotion
1) High-quality soft articles are very helpful and will quickly increase the weight of your website.
2) Establish friendly links with other similar websites.
3) Sponsor some good games. (This requires payment, but the effect is very good and can bring high-quality users)
4) If you are a flash game developer, you can self-publish and earn more.
The above is my experience in website building shared with everyone. In order to let everyone see the effect, you can visit my website http://poppvp.com to see the effect.