A How-To on Launching Your Ultimate Fan Website

A great way of connecting with like minded people is by creating a website about the thing you love to talk about. Fan websites are a great way to geek out to people who are just as excited to talk about it as you are. But why start your own fan website? Websites like these can turn into viable businesses, meaning you get to talk about the thing you love most every single day and make a living from it – sounds perfect, right?!

Identify your passion

There is a good chance that you already know exactly what passion you want to explore, but if you’ve got a few things you love to geek out about, it’s important to pick one particular niche and stick to it. It’s also important to consider fast people search. That’s not to say that in the future you can’t create another website for one of your other passions, but it’s best not to overload yourself right now. Creating a successful fan website is no easy feat!

Evaluate popularity and engagement

Once you’ve identified which passion your website is going to be about, it’s time to evaluate the popularity and engagement surrounding that topic. You may already have some idea, but conducting thorough keyword research is your best bet here. Once you know that your website is going to be full of keywords that people actually search for, you can settle on that topic and get to work.

Select a domain name

Now that you’ve decided exactly what your website is going to be about, it’s time to pick a domain name. Here are some tips to make sure you pick the right one for your fan website:

• Keep it short and memorable. You’re creating a whole new brand for yourself, so anything too complicated might be troublesome in the future.
• Avoid using hyphens or numbers. This can make it harder for people to remember your name.
• Include keywords from the SEO research you did if possible, as this will also help people find your website easier.
• Use a .com extension if possible. Most popular domain extensions are .com, and therefore people are more likely to naturally type that in. 

Consider using a domain name generator if you’re stuck for ideas, but continue to follow the above rules to make sure you end up with the perfect domain name for you.

Choose a hosting platform

Next, you’ll need to decide where you’re going to host your website. There are a plethora of websites that offer hosting for free, but you won’t be able to use your own domain name. For example, if you chose to use WordPress’ free hosting, your domain would end in .wordpress.com. This isn’t good for authority, so it’s recommended that you pay for your hosting. Getting your brand off on the right foot is imperative, especially if you’re producing content around a popular niche – you might find your website gets a lot of hits instantly! Take your time to choose a hosting platform that works for you and your needs. If you’re inexperienced in creating websites you’ll need to take that into consideration. Some hosting platforms do all of the heavy lifting for you, so do your research.

Customize the website design

Now you’ve got a website with your very own domain name it’s time to think about how you can customize your website to fit your niche. Most hosting platforms offer free themes you can use, but as mentioned earlier, it’s a good idea to get your brand going properly from the get go. You might choose to hire a website designer to capture your ideas for your brand image, or you could pay for a theme that already exists and edit it to make it on brand.

Create engaging content

Now comes the juicy stuff, creating the content for your website. You’ll need a mixture of written, video and images for the best effect.

Written content

For written content you will need to do more keyword research. Create a process that allows you to create well researched and written content that will provide your readers with useful information. Eventually you may consider outsourcing the writing to a freelance writer, but for now you’ll need to do the heavy lifting. 

Not putting the best quality written content out from the get go could damage your reputation. When you are writing you always need to keep SEO in mind, as this is what will help you rank on Google, and therefore drive visitors to your website.

Video

You may have already thought about starting a YouTube channel to go alongside your website, and that’s great! Adding your YouTube videos to your website is also a really great idea. It can be great for SEO, but can also provide visitors with another way of consuming your content. Make your videos insightful, interesting, and always try to provide information they may not have known otherwise.

Images 

Original images are also really important for your website. Not only is it illegal to use copyrighted images, but stock images don’t do anything for true fans. If your niche is regarding a game, for example, taking real screenshots from your game time and adding context to the image is a great way to add another depth to your website.

Reviews

Consider adding reviews to your website regarding your niche. For example, if your website is about a band you love, take the time to review their most recent gig or their latest single. Not only is this extra content for your readers to enjoy, but it gives you authority, and readers will come back in search of more reviews and information in the future.

Create social media pages

Social media will play a large role in directing people to your website, especially to begin with before your pages have ranked on Google. Set up pages on all of the social media platforms with a brand logo (or you if you’re the face of the brand) and start following accounts that follow similar niches to yours. Take the time to introduce yourself and invite them to follow you for more content they will love.

Build a following

Building a true following isn’t as easy as it seems, especially in today’s world. You will need to put the effort in! This could mean talking to people and gaining their trust before they follow you back. The use of hashtags and giveaways is another great way to entice people into following you.

Integrate a chatbot

A chatbot, we hear you say?! Yes! Did you know that a chatbot can help grow and support small businesses? If you choose the best chatbot for website queries you could find your fan base growing larger by the day! Why? Here are a few things a chatbot can do for you:

• Answer questions while you’re unable to work on the website
• Help users find the information they need quickly
• Chatbots can solve customer concerns in different languages, meaning your website could reach further
• They can offer discounts and detect when people are heading off the page, nudging them to check out something else before leaving
• Help with time sensitive lead generation, and also prevent the loss of them.

There’s a good chance this website will be a side hustle to begin with, and a chatbot could help handle things while you’re away doing other things.

Manage your website security

Website security is imperative in this day and age. Plus, you don’t want to lose everything you’ve worked so hard for! Make sure to invest in an SSL certificate for your site. This also tells visitors that your website is safe, and adds another layer of trustworthiness.

Alongside an SSL certificate you should take the time to learn how to perform backups of your website and how to update it, especially if you’re self hosting. The last thing you want is to lose a chunk, if not all of the work you’ve put in.

Offer premium memberships

When your website starts kicking off, a great way of monetizing it is to offer premium memberships to your readers. Here, readers could have access to the latest news faster than you’d usually update it, receive some merchandise from you and have a badge against their name in any forums you may have. There are many things you could offer, and people are often more than willing to pay a premium for something they love.

Sell merchandise

Speaking of merchandise, why not create some? You could make t-shirts, keyrings, mugs, sunglasses – the lot! Once you’ve got into the groove of creating entertaining content that people keep coming back for, there’s no reason to doubt why people wouldn’t want to buy your merchandise.

Continuously adapt and improve

Finally, maintaining and contributing to a website takes a lot of work, and patience. Take the time to learn on the go about how you can improve your processes, investments that will pay off, and new ways to wow your audience with your content. Knowing how to track your traffic and revenue will also help out massively when things really kick off!