How To Build A Poker Web Site

Being that you’re a poker webmaster now and want to add a fun poker game to your website, you’re going to need to find the right plugin right? But which plugin is right for the job? WP Mini Games is perfect for this job. There are several different games available for you to provide your visitors that will keep them on your website for hours.

So far I have tested 4 games available – Governor of Poker, which is like Legend of Zelda where you interact with the community going from Hold em game to Holdem game – Pot Odds, which I tested against a calculator I wrote myself as well as the calculator over at pokertips.org, and the odds featured in pot odds are far too high to be correct  - Outs, which is a game where you have to answer how many outs you have to win the hand – and Odds, in which you select which hand is most likely to win the pot.

Governor of poker is a great game to provide your visitors if your visitors are looking to play some cards against the computer. To the best of my knowledge there is no online play where you can compete against your friends. The other three are great as educational tools to improve your knowledge of the game.

The two correct odds and outs games are going to be used to teach players how to make correct calls and understand the fundamentals of the game. Governor of Poker is simply to pass some time and beat your opponents when you get sick of playing Zynga poker.

By the way, you can also put these games in your side bar as well, as the plugin also works as a widget. This is a great plugin for any poker webmaster looking to put some poker games onto their website.

WordPress widgets are simply the content that will be appearing on your website’s navigation bar. Depending on which theme you choose, you will have different widget areas. Some may allow you to put content near the top of your website, some on the left side, some the right side, some the bottom, some even allow you to put your chosen content at the top or bottom of a post. This varies depending on which theme you are using.

To manage the content for your navigation click on the “Appearance” tab on your dashboard and select “Widgets.” You will now be taken to a screen showing you all of your available widgets.

On the right side of the page will be the available areas for you to display your widgets. Simply click on the title of the area you would like to show something on your page then drag the widget you would like to appear to that area.

Yours will be blank when you’re first starting off. Everything on the left is what you have available to use. The links widget allows you to show your links on every page of your website, categories displays your categories, archives shows your archives, pages shows your pages, etc.

The coolest one is the “text widget.” The text widget allows you to write whatever you want. If you want to show an image you’ll use this as well. If you would like to show an image in your text widget the code you would put in would be – <img src=”locationofyourimage” /> . Just simply copy and paste that into your text widget replacing location of your image with your image location. Leave the quotation marks where they are.

If you want to sell Amazon books, clickbank books, or any other “affiliate program” (you make money when someone clicks on it, or you get a percentage of the sale) you would use the text widget and simply copy and paste the code that was provided to you.

When you’re done with editing your widget simply click “Save.”

If you would like to do additional things with your navigation menu simply add a plugin that has the feature you are looking for.

The best part of WordPress has to be the plugins. Plugins are simply additional pieces of code written by some of the world’s best web programmers. Some cost money, but many are available for free on the WordPress plugins website. There are thousands of plugins available, some work with the current version of WordPress, some don’t. WordPress will alert you if a plugin has not be tested with your current version yet. If it’s an update or two behind, chances are it’ll still work.

So what are some examples of plugins? The plugin “All in One SEO” allows you to add pieces of information to your WordPress site that search engines such as Google will read. What winds up happening is you gain additional areas to write content at the bottom of your posts or pages, as well as an additional button on the left side of your dashboard to control what the search engines read. Other plugins range from allowing you to alter the way your categories are displayed, include photo galleries on your website, set up a contact form for your site, increase twitter followers, etc. We have a list of recommended plugins on the top of this website.

Now that we have that out of the way let’s get to how to add plugins to your website. On the dashboard scroll down to the section labeled “Plugins” on the left hand side. Click on it.

Now click on the tab labeled “Add New.”

You will now be given different options to find your plugin. If you downloaded a plugin already from the WordPress plugins website, you can simply click on “Upload” then find the zip file on your desktop and WordPress will install it for you. If you know the name of the plugin you are looking for you can search for it. If you just want to browse through what WordPress has available without visiting the WordPress site, simply click on either – Featured – Popular – Newest – Recently Updated.

Once you’ve found a plugin you like you’ll want to install it. On the right hand side of the screen click on “Install.”

A new window will pop up. Simply click on “Install Now.” Your plugin will be downloaded. Click “activate” and you’re pretty much done. Some plugins need to be configured. In the case of a photo gallery plugin, you simply need to add the photos you want to appear in the photo gallery.  Areas for the plugin configuration area to appear include the following tabs – “Plugins” – “Settings” or it’s own new tab.  With plugins such as a photo gallery, contact form, or link management you’ll also be given a certain code to add to a new page. It’ll look something like this [plugin code]. Simply copy that code into your page and click save and your photo gallery or contact form or link page will be live.

If you ever wish to deactivate a certain plugin simply click on “Installed” in your “Plugins” tab, find the plugin you would like to deactivate and click “deactivate” below the title of the plugin.

WordPress themes are what give your blog or website the look it has to the outside world. There are thousands of different themes available, some cost money, many are free. Wordpress.org as well as the dashboard of your WordPress site allow you to quickly browse through and install them with little to no effort. Once installed and activated, your WordPress site will have a fresh new look to it.

To both manage your currently installed themes or to add a new theme simply scroll down and click on “Appearance” on your WordPress Dashboard.

To add a new theme to your website simply click on “Add New Themes.” You will now be brought to a page with several different options, search, upload, featured, newest, and recently updated. From this page you can perform searches based on what you are looking for. Do you want a certain color theme? There’s a check box to search based on a certain color. Do you want your menu to be on the left? On the right? Both? You can search for this as well. There are also different options to allow you to find themes that allow you to use your own graphic at the top of the webpage.

Upload – This option is to be used when you have downloaded a WordPress theme either from Wordpress.org, a WordPress theme site, or created your own custom WordPress theme on one of the many “Create your own theme” websites. Whenever you download a theme it comes in zip format. Instead of having to unzip the file and use an FTP program to put the theme on your site (this can be a long process, taking up to 10 minutes for the larger themes) you simply locate the zip file on your computer and click Install Now. The theme is instantly uploaded, avoiding any need for an FTP program or unzipping.

Featured – Browse through the most popular WordPress.org themes.

Newest – Browse through the newest WordPress.org themes.

Recently Updated – As the name sounds, browse through WordPress.org themes that have been recently updated with new features.

Once you’ve found a theme that you like (click the preview button to see a test version of the theme) simply click the “Install” button.

After you click on install a new window will pop up. Click on “Install Now.”

After WordPress has installed the new theme for you simply click on “Activate” and your new theme will instantly be live on your website.

Once you have a few different themes on your website you may decide you like one theme better than another.

Under the “Appearance” tab select “Themes.” Every theme that is currently installed on your website can be viewed on this page. You have the options to “Activate” a theme, “preview” the theme, or “delete” a theme you don’t plan on ever using again.

A new tab may appear in your “Appearance” section if your theme has options that can be easily edited. Some may allow you to add your banner, others may be more advanced and allow you to control how large the left or right sides of your webpage are. Extremely customizable themes may include up to 300 features for you to change at the click of a button. Once you play around with a few themes you’ll start to get a feel for what you like and what you don’t like.

A word of caution for the new WordPress non html user. Do not click on editor and start messing with the WordPress code. Editor is used to make adjustments to your pages. The first page that will come up is your “CSS” code. CSS controls the colors, font sizes, widths, heights and much more on your site. A simple Google search for CSS codes will bring up a lot of info on CSS. A simple Google search for “html colors” will give you the six digit number for website colors. These can all be controlled in the “editor” section but should not be touched until you have an idea of what does what. If your starting out leave the editor alone and find a WordPress theme that suits your needs.

Step by step on how to add media (photos or even PDF files) to your WordPress website. For now it’s just the video, but don’t worry the photos with arrows are coming soon.

WordPress comes standard displaying your latest posts. That works for some websites, but others may want a Welcome Page. Here’s step by step how to pull that off.

You begin by creating a new PAGE. Posts won’t work here, it has to be a page. So after you’ve created your new page and published it go back to your dashboard.

On the Dashboard scroll down to “Settings” and click on “Reading.”

Once you’re in the “Reading” settings you want to check the box next to “A static page.” Now use the drop-down for “Front page” and select the name of the page you just created. Scroll down and click Save. You now have yourself a Welcome page for your website.

In the beginning you’ll probably want to link to certain websites that you have found useful in the past. Later on down the road other webmasters will contact you (or you’ll contact them) asking for a “link exchange.” Websites exchange links with each other to gain more traffic to their websites.

From the Dashboard click on tab labeled “Links.”

Click on “Add New.”

Your first box is for the name of the link. If you were linking to this website the link name would be “How To Build A Poker Web Site”

The next box to fill out is the Web Address. As the picture says “don’t forget the http://.” If you do forget it, the link will not work. The link will go to yoursite.com/www.theirsite.com whereas if you use http:// the link will go to theirsite.com. In the case of this website the Web Address is http://www.howtobuildapokerwebsite.com. Below that is a box for “Description.” Depending on who you are link trading with they may provide you with a description. This is where you would type that in (or copy and paste it in.) The description for this site would be “Learn how to create a poker website with zero web design experience.”

Now at some point your links may become cluttered if you don’t start using categories. In the case of poker the most common categories would be – poker strategies, poker tools, poker merchandise. Simply click on “+Add New Category” to start the process of creating your new category.

You would then type in the name of your new category. If we’re going with the above example this is where you would type in “poker strategy.” Click “Add” and you’ve created your new category. Click the box next to the category to make sure the link goes where you want it to.

The final element of creating a link is the “target.” You want to select “_blank.” Why? Because you worked hard to get that visitor to your site and you don’t want them navigating off your website that’s why. If you select blank your visitor will see their website in a new window with your website still open as well. This means your visitor won’t lose track of your site or won’t have to click the back button to get back to you.

There are other options available on the add new link page but you can ignore them, they don’t really do anything other than help you categorize who is who for your own record keeping.

If someone asks for an image link you can also scroll down to the “Advanced” section and type in their image location in the box labeled “Image Address.”

Once you’re done typing everything in simply click “Add Link.”

There are both plug-ins and widgets to help you manage your linking. We’ll cover the link widget and plug-in shortly.

First off, let me tell you what a page is. A page is something that you won’t be updating very often. Examples of pages would be – About Me, Contact Me, Privacy Policy, a links page, or a news feed from Full Tilt Poker. A page can also be used as a Welcome message for your WordPress blog instead of using your most recent posts. Businesses switching over to WordPress typically go that route.

From the Dashboard click on “Pages.”

Now click on “Add New.”

You will be taken to a screen that looks similar to the Posts page with several exceptions. There will be no area for Excerpts, post tags, or even categories. You do, however, have a new option on the right hand side called “Attributes.”

Once you have created a page you will have the option of placing new pages beneath it. This is known as the Parent-Child relationship. One level deeper and it is known as the Parent-Child-Grandchild relationship. Visually it looks something like this…

That’s right it looks just like post categories do. Page Parents operate in the same fashion as category parents.

Depending on which theme you are using you’ll also have the option of selecting different “templates.” A template is simply how the page looks to the visitor. Some themes have the option, some themes don’t. There are plenty of WordPress plug-in’s out there to let you start configuring what will and won’t show up depending on what part of the site your visitor is on.

Once you’ve written your page simply click “Publish.”

Now that we have the blog up and running it’s time to start writing about something right? OK, well here’s how we create your very first post. We’ll start in the Dashboard section.

On the left hand side of the Dashboard there is a button labeled “Posts.” Click on it.

Now simply click on “Add New.” You will be brought to a screen that reads “Add New Post.”

Directly below “Add New Post” is a box. This is where you will type in the title of your post. On the post you are currently reading the title of my post is “How To Create Your First WordPress Post.”

The big box is where you are going to start typing your post. This is where all your content goes. You have options to bold text, italicize text, do scratch thru’s, bulleted or numbered lists, make a section a “block quote” (more about that later), set the alignment of your page, link to other webpages, etc.

Below the content of your post is a section labeled “Excerpt.” Typically what I do is simply copy and paste the first paragraph. The Excerpt is only visible under certain settings or themes in WordPress. The Excerpt applies to categories and archives. We’ll cover that in a future post.

As of right now all your posts will be going into the “Uncategorized” category. If you want to create a new category on the fly look on the right hand side for the “+ Add New Category” button and click on it.

Now simply type in the name of your new category and click “Add.” As you can see from the picture once you have more than 1 category you will have the option to choose “Parent Category.” A Parent category is used for organizing posts. Let’s say you have a category on your website called “poker.” Poker is fairly broad. Now let’s say you want a new category called “Tournament Strategy” but you want it to be a sub-category of “poker.” “Poker” would be the parent category of tournament strategy in this case. Certain WordPress Themes allow you to use dropdown menu’s for your categories. Here’s a visual example…

In the above example taken from MMA High Performance Training in Oxnard, CA “About” is the parent of everything below it. “Trainers” is also the parent of the bios for the trainers. This would be known as Parent-Child-Grandchild categories.

Once you’ve set up a few categories you now have the option of choosing which category your post falls under. Simply check the box next to the appropriate category.

Post tags are used in a variety of ways. If you have search enabled on your WordPress blog people will be given results based on the tags you have provided for your posts. A “tag cloud” can also be created allowing visitors to search your site based on popular words or phrases. WordPress also makes use of something known as a “plug-in” which will be discussed in the near future where a popular plug-in known as “Yet Another Related Posts Plug-In” will show your visitors posts that are similar based on the tags you’ve chosen.

After you have everything set and ready to go simply click “Publish.” Your post is now on your website.