What makes a successful gaming website?

Websites are key in the contemporary world. Not only do they have the ability to inform, but works of web-design wizardry have proved that they can provide strong, memorable experiences to their users. This makes a good website an indispensable tool for video games.

While that’s enough to convince you to commit to making a good website, it’s no secret that most gamers spend a lot of time online - and we mean a lot. Meaning it’s important to make sure your website stands out from the crowd, in order to cut through the noise and appeal to a wide, modern audience.

These are three things you should consider to do just that.

Strong, Moving Visuals

Visual style is undoubtedly one of the key factors which draws people to a project. Be that project a new game, a community or a service. Thus, it is paramount to ensure that your website’s visual design is strong and coherent.

But we can go further.

With decades of experience with websites, the modern user gobbles up the average website without giving it much thought. But you don’t want that to be the experience they have with your site. There are many ways to harbour users attention for longer periods, but the most direct is through motion.

The easiest way this can be achieved is through moving images such as videos and gifs which can breathe character into your site. While it may be tempting to draw these directly from your game or service itself, we urge you to be a touch more creative by using things like concept art or clear backgrounds to add extra flair.

A more complex way of achieving this movement is through web design itself. This can lead to the most unique website, resulting in an incredibly memorable experience for users. Thus, it’s no surprise that some of the world’s biggest brands often choose to reveal their new products with interactive websites such as these.

Create a Blog

While visuals may wow viewers who do end up on your site, it can be challenging to draw new eyes to your site in the first place. That’s where a worthwhile blog can come in.

By hosting a blog you have the opportunity to voice opinions, provide useful information, give users explainers and donate value to the world in the form of the written word, in turn drawing in users organically from search engines.

While it may be tempting to use this thought to create a jam-packed blog, hold your horses. Remember that you want to be drawing in users by providing them with real value, in turn establishing you, your brand and your game/gaming service as an authority within your niche.

This means that it’s worth ensuring that your blog provides useful, well written information. The best way to do this is for you and your team to write about what you are really passionate about.

Similarly, a blog is best served consistently. In other words, you should be looking to release blogs at a steady pace. So set your team measured writing goals which you can meet.

A great example of one such blog comes from Eldorado.gg, a site which acts as a broker for in-game currency, various items, different types of accounts, such as Rust accounts, latest addition of New World boosting and LoL rank boosting.

Cultivate a Community Spirit

I don’t need to tell you that many gamers’ favourite part about playing games is the community that it creates. Be it fans of single-player games or massively multiplayer titles, gaming communities are at the core of the gaming world. Thus, this is certainly a feature of gaming you should try to tap into.

While it can be hard to engage a community thorough a website, there are a few ways you can instigate the creation of community surrounding your game or product.

First, and most easily, you can prompt users to join your social channels. But how, I hear you ask. Well, just like with the blogs you’ll need to give users a good reason to get involved. Given, that reason can be the value of your product itself, but it can also be directly related to you and your team as creatives.

Secondly, you can promote community activity through competitions, giveaways and collaboration. Prompting users to get creative around the theme and/or aesthetics of your site. These social events can further double-up as great promotional tools.

Whatever product, game or service you are offering up, your website will be the first port of call for many users. Especially if your project is yet to be released. Thus, working hard to ensure that your site not only represents your product well, but actively draws in new people (potential customers), is a must for growing your business.

And with these three key areas of focus in mind, you’re ready to start building a site which will do just that.