How do you keep your community of players updated with the latest league news and leaderboard point standings? A poker league website is key in running a successful poker league wether it’s an online league at sites such as Full Tilt Poker or PokerStars, a bar or pub league or a home poker league. Additionally, a poker league website is a great way to build your community of players as it will serve as a gateway for new players to find out more about your league.
If you already run a poker league website using Wordpress and need help managing the league events and leader board, you can skip ahead to STEP 4
STEP 1: Web Hosting
In order to get started you will need to have a web hosting account. There are literally hundreds of web hosting companies available to host your website ranging from free accounts to shared hosting through to a dedicated server. The typical poker league administrator will fit nicely in a shared hosting environment.
Shared hosting means that you will be sharing the server with a few to many other websites. You will be sharing, and thus competing for, server resources like disk space, bandwidth, RAM and processor cycles. Sharing a server is what helps keep the costs down over having a dedicated server.
- HostGator is our preferred Web Host with plans starting at only $4.95/month.
STEP 2: Wordpress
One of the fastest ways to getting your poker league online is by using Wordpress. Wordpress is traditionally used as a blog platform but it is being used more and more as a CMS, or Content Management System. By using Wordpress you will have access to a robust web publishing platform that has a community of developers providing free and cheap plugins that extend it’s power and features.
STEP 3: Theme
Wordpress installs with a very basic default theme but this is where the community of developers really shows it’s strength. There are thousand and thousands of Wordpress themes that you can install that will change the appearance (color, font size, structure/layout) of your new website. Like most things, Wordpress themes range in price from free to relatively expensive. Applying a theme is as simple as downloading it, uploading it to your themes folder and activating it. Some theme have additional options that you will want to configure after activating it (like custom logo, navigation structure, etc.)
STEP 4: League Management
Once you have your website setup with Wordpress and a shiny new theme, the next step to creating and running a poker league website is to download and install the WP Poker League plugin. This plugin will allow you to manage many aspects of your poker league right from Wordpress. You will be able to setup and score new events and display the event schedule and results for your players to see.
- Learn more about the WP Poker League plugin.
