[Tut] Making a Habbo Fansite
I know there are Tuts on this already, but I wanted to try one...
[1] Choosing what your sgoing to base your site on
[2] Designing your site
[3] Getting Hosting
[4] Getting a Radio - can you afford it really?
[5] Advertising
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Step One: Choosing what your going to base your site on.
Yes, this is the most important stage! You do this before anything else, because you'll want to spend around two weeks doing the first steps before you even buy your domain. You need to decide what you are going to make it about.
Because this is a Habbo Fansite tutorial, i'll make it include a radio because this tends to be the most popular way of contenting a fansite,(but I'll leave forums out, as these tend to be a seperate site nowdays).
Plan it out! Just make a list of what it will include... a good way is to pick out 5 points to start with.. (my example will be 3 however to keep it basic)
* Radio
* Habbo UK News
* Habbo Goodies
Now, we move on to the more fun, but hard-work bits.
Step Two: Designing your site.
The design of a Habbo fansite has to be original. There must be around 300 fansites for Habbo UK alone, some good, some bad, so make yours original. DO NOT COPY ANOTHER SITE. This is called ripping and you could be fined due to breaking copyright laws. The easiest way is to design how you'd like your site to look in MS Paint or Paint Shop Pro, and ask/pay someone on the forum to code it for you. However, you've got to make it work for your site.
The navigation is the first part. There is an example of this below,
http://i10.tinypic.com/4pewyaf.png
Obviously, I wouldn't expect anyone to try and take on as much as Habbox do, but it's just a demo. As you can see the first category is about their site, "Habbox". That is normal, everyone should have that as their first category. In it, it should include a link to your homepage, a contact us page, a staff page, and a jobs page. You need to give people credit for helping you, and also give others the opportunity to help you, thats why staff and jobs pages are so important, and therefore should be really shown off, if you get what I mean.
You would also (following my example) need a page for your news, which would have two pages, self-explanatory, Habbo UK news and site news.
Then it's the radio, not so easy, as you need alot of HTML which you will need to search the forum for. Your radio page should include atleast the minimum of a request line, timetable and a DJ Says, usually the easy way is to use a DJ cPanel, but this will require you to find someone good at HTML to get this working for you.
The goodies, is easy. Just make avatars and backgrounds based on Habbo, or get permission to use some off other sites. The most popular thing now is a Habbo Text Generator, which is coded for you (to be posted straight into the <BODY> section of your HTML on a webpage) from www.habbotools.de. Give that a try!
Note: When making your pages, use a 8pt Tahoma or Arial as a font, as it is easy to read and it is clear.
So thats the pages explained, now you need your layout. This is always the thing that will take time, but having your pages done first gives you a load of your mind.
So, for a template, you need your navigation on the left, content make it a iFrame!!) in the middle, and your radio, stats and DJ Says on the left. If you are going to do the whole site yourself, make it look nice with a banner than merges with the site, then it'll look much nicer. If you don't make one yourself, and you get someone else to make it for you, always give them a specification and make sure it comes coded. If someone does it for you for free, then don't be fussy about it (when you got the basic template, it's much easier to edit), but if you are paying for it, make sure you get it exacly how you want it, and ask for screenie updates of how the progress is going. I won't go into too much detail, as this is suppose to be a basic tutorial.
Step Three: Getting Domains & Hosting
For a domain, you need to pick what your site will be called. I think everyone understands that. For domains I recommend www.joker.com as they list their prices in GBP (£) as well as USD ($) so there's no hidden catches with pricing. Also, Joker allows you to make sub-domains for free, so if you were to buy www.habbox.com (obviously you can't but it's my example) you would be able to have www.live.habbox.com and www.forum.habbox.com for free!
Now hosting, there is tons of hosters out there. I personally wouldn't use a reseller, but there is nothing wrong with them. If you plan to make a really big site like ClubHabbo then go out and use a hoster like www.crisphosting.net. However, if your not planning to expand much, then use one off the forum. It gives you the chance to ask questions via PrivateMessaging, and you will have problems sorted much quicker (as an example cheekycarl is a hoster on the forum). You just need to explore, and make sure you budget it. Paying by the month is not a good idea as you have more deadlines, if you pay by the year, you will find it much easier to control.
Step Four: Getting a radio - can you afford it really?
The easiest way to get a radio is to pay for one. It costs around £1.00 per month, per every 10 listeners. Some people do occasionally have them cheaper or for free.. but you need to look around. The easiest way to run your SHOUTcast is by buying it from the same place as your hosting, and embedding it to your site. But you have to think, a average 50 listener can cost around £25 per year, can you afford that really?
Step Five: Advertising
Now, you have your domain and hosting, you have your radio, you have your layout, you have your content, or your bored and you felt like reading my tutorial. Well, now it's time to advertise!
The easiest way to advertise is on Forums, many forums have a "Show off your website..." section, like Habbox's, make an advert in here and you'll get some interest. Then, flood Habbo. Get a group of people to go through every Public Room and listed Guest Room shouting about your website, THEN flood your consoles. DO that last though, because it makes alot of 'lag'.
Get some DJs, get some music, and get rockin' punk! A handy tip is to check the Hit40 UK chart every week, http://www.hit40uk.com/chart/, and see what the top tunes are. This is because these are what are going to be requested by your listeners. Then, it makes your music collection big. Also try and get some fun music like ToyBox's Tarzan and Jane so you can run some room parties, and let the inner child of you and your listeners out.
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I hope you found this tutorial helpful, if you have any questions please PM me, and comment below on how you think it went. I did enjoy making it and would like to make more.
Thanks for reading,
Robbie
