Sign in to follow this  
Psy

Running Your Own Fansite

Recommended Posts

If the website is quite guide-based, I can always modify the CMS or the homepage to make it look similar to iGTA rather than iGTA5. That's one of the points I was getting at. The more features I build into the CMS, the more features there will be for everyone to choose from. Then from admin you can just choose which home page you want on the site. iGTA5 (blog style) or iGTA (block style).

I'm glad there's some interest though. Running the website is fairly straight forward once it's all set up. It'll automatically post news articles to Twitter and Facebook, automatically submit pages to Google for indexing, it'll be optimised for search engines so eventually you should start showing up quite high up in google. Images can be uploaded, renamed, re-categorised and even hidden from the gallery all without reloading the page.

I need to make some changes to the iGTA5 CMS first, but once I'm happy with how everything works, it should be pretty simple to turn it into a re-usable CMS which can be used across many sites without much need for tweaking.

Also I don't mind if some of you want to run websites which won't be very active, e.g. Agent, or Skate as DiO mentioned. Once they're set up they're not really gonna require much work from me so the more the merrier. Can build up a decent network of websites.

Also Marney, you should definitely stick Google Adsense on your website. It creates ads based on the keywords on your pages, so it's somewhat relevant, and they pay pretty well. I generally see a 0.5% to 1% click rate, so the more traffic you get, the more you'll make.

---

The only issue I haven't covered so far is forums. I'm not sure how that would work. We have to pay for a license for Invision Power Board, and some of the main website features are tied into IPB (login system, admin authentication etc), so if you wanted a standalone forum on your own site, you'd have to cover the costs of the yearly license (which is something like $60 a year I think). If you didn't want a forum and just wanted a website then that wouldn't be a problem, but if you do want your own forum, it's something to bear in mind. Otherwise it's possible to set up sub forums on iGTA5.com or something for each individual hosted site although that's not ideal for various random sites, it saves on costs and means everyone can use the same login on all sites.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Well, if there's a decent group of people that want to do a Fallout site, I'd be on-board to run it. Fuck having our own forums, though, I don't want to pay for that shit. Just put a separate forum section below the GTA stuff. Besides, if we do it that way, we'll be getting Fallout fans (cynical assholes), which should balance out the GTA fans (stupid noobs and wiggers).

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The comments are halfway to a forum. If you want a place to let people speculate you could make a news/info page for people to do so. The thought of having an actual network using these forums as a basis sounds appealing though. iGTA/iRD taken to a bigger level.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The comments are halfway to a forum. If you want a place to let people speculate you could make a news/info page for people to do so. The thought of having an actual network using these forums as a basis sounds appealing though. iGTA/iRD taken to a bigger level.

Would that mean having to create a forum theme-that-no-one-will-use for each website? >_>

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

hmm... there is a lot of data in the fallout series, and i fear that we wouldn't be able to add all that stuff to the site... i would love fan submissions on guides, but how would we organize that?? if i recall guides showed up as they were submitted... none of them followed a specific order... is it possible to set up up sub- guide sections in order to better organize? fallout has about 20x the data that GTA has...

:bones:<{ vote for me!! }

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

i was thinking of just doing a quest guide, and perhaps the fallout bible as well... i wouldn't want an incomplete website with no help... and if we did that, wouldn't we have to include info from all fallout games?? or perhaps we should just stick to current gen games... i would want more than a news site...

:bones:<{ vote for me!! }

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It may be best for you to run websites related to future or soon to be released games. A website about a series could work, but I know from experience that your site would get the most traffic in the lead up to the games launch and then within the few months after release. For a fallout website you might be best just building a site around the newest game in the series rather than covering all of the old games and content too.

Either that or you could do a site covering the whole series, but keep it up to date with the latest news as you add the older content.

My CMS is definitely built with guides in mind and there are categories and subcategories to allow guides to be organised in more than just date submitted, but I can add more filters and categories to go along with whatever is needed.

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

for those that are interested in a fallout site, we should start conversing in a group PM... i am serious about wanting to help out, but we need to conjure up a plan first... invite psy to the group too so he can advise us...

i am about to go play some golf or i'd start it right now... but i look forward to discussing this at great lengths when i get back...

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

icon11.gif

Also I don't mind if some of you want to run websites which won't be very active, e.g. Agent, or Skate as DiO mentioned. Once they're set up they're not really gonna require much work from me so the more the merrier. Can build up a decent network of websites.

Still the cost of hosting and forums wouldnt be worth it. I dont think it would make much money for ads.

It'll be something to look at once a new one comes out...if one comes out.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
Sign in to follow this