How to start a Successful Entertainment Website in 2020

You’ve probably been told that starting an entertainment website today is not as lucrative as it was 5-10 years ago, because, unlike what it was back then, the niche has now been saturated.

But, can I tell you something different?

90 percent of the things you read about how there’s no space for beginners who intend to start a new website in the entertainment niche is completely untrue. You can still build a successful entertainment brand online today.

And in my experience as a Content Expert and Web Developer for over five years, i’m going to share with you valid reasons and strategies to build a successful entertainment website below..

Why you can still Build a Successful Entertainment Brand Online

Entertainment has changed. Unlike what it was before, the growth and massive penetration of the internet globally has created a shift in how we approach entertainment.

The internet has changed the way entertainment is consumed. Right now people are moving away from the television set, to their smartphones.

More people are moving from conventional FM radio, to online radio stations and podcasts. And even more people are getting their news from online websites, blogs and portals etc. This was hardly possible 15-20 years ago.

These and many more have increased the demand for online entertainment content. Unfortunately, we still do not have enough entertainment platforms that can provide unique content online.

This is where you and your online entertainment website come in.

So right now, there’s not only enough space for you to build a notable entertainment brand online, you can also build an entertainment brand that will provide a very unique content for a unique audience.

Now the question is, how can you start an Entertainment Brand Online?

How to start an Entertainment Brand Online

Starting an entertainment brand is almost as easy as starting a blog online. Even though an experience in the entertainment industry could be a plus, you do not need a university degree to start and run a successful entertainment website.

However, you will want to start with registering your entertainment business as a legal entity to ensure that it is legally compliant. And when this is done, you can then choose to form a sole proprietorship or an LLC as these structures are easy to form.

Although you will also need a well detailed plan, personal effort and a pragmatic system to run a successful entertainment brand, this guide will give you the step by step details you’ll need.

Before we get to the steps on how to start an entertainment website, let’s explain some terms first…

What is an Entertainment Website?

An Entertainment website is an online brand or website that focuses on producing high quality entertainment content for it’s users.

The entertainment content could be News items, Blog posts, Stories, Films, Audio content, Videos etc. The main aim of any entertainment website is to get it’s users entertained while driving its business goals.

Difference between an Entertainment website and an Entertainment blog?

The difference between an entertainment website and entertainment blog is very insignificant.

Most of the times, an entertainment website is an existing brand. It usually represents an existing entertainment company or a full fledged media company or online entertainment brand.

For this reason, the content published on an entertainment website can be limited to reflect the content associated with the brand.

Examples of popular entertainment brands includes Netflix, Youtube, Soundcloud etc. Usually, these brands publish only niched brand content on their websites and apps.

An Entertainment Blog on the other hand does not necessarily have to represent a brand. And for this reason, it can cover a very wide niche.

An entertainment blog could be just another blog producing entertainment content for either advertising or content marketing purposes.

For this reason, an entertainment blog can produce any form of entertainment content including news and aggregated content, to keep its audience entertained.

Alright so now we’ve sorted out what marks the difference between an entertainment blog and an entertainment website…

Now let’s talk about how to create a successful entertainment website.

How to create an Entertainment Website From Scratch

Before creating an entertainment website for your brand, you will need a domain name which has to reflect your brand name, a web hosting account and a web designer.

OK. So assuming you’ve gotten all these things in place and you’re ready to set up a successful entertainment website. The following are the things you should consider…

What do you want to build?

It is not enough that you want to build an online entertainment company, you also have to understand the exact kind of online entertainment company you want to build. This will help you figure out the kind of content you want to upload on your website.

At this point, you want to ask yourself, what do i want the entertainment site to be able to do? Is it to upload music and videos or text content?

Or do you want to upload Music, Videos and Podcast to the website’s home page while hosting a blog page separately on the same domain?

If you’re uploading music to your entertainment website for instance you’ll want to figure out the kind of music you’ll need on the website.

A good question to ask is, am I going to upload foreign, local, spiritual music etc?

Since entertainment is a very broad niche, figuring out your niche area or a sub niche can help you create content that will target a very specific audience.

It is important to note that while creating a niche, things like your budget, geographic location of your audience and purpose of starting the website must be put into considerations too.

What motivates you to set up an Entertainment website?

Your motivation to set up an entertainment website could be anything like money, fame. influence, public good etc.

You will want to clearly understand your motivation so you can use a tailor made approach that will help you achieve your goals much more easily.

Here is where you’ll answer the question; why am i building this? What do i want to achieve with this entertainment brand or what difference do i want to make?

Am i doing this for the fun, because i’m an entertainment enthusiast or do i want to set up an entertainment business that can make money online?

Do you have a vision you want to achieve with this journey? Here’s a good time to write it down.

Like you want to become the most popular online entertainment company etc

Knowing your goal and why you’re setting up this will help you get started on the right track. It will also influence everything you do with your entertainment brand online.

What’s the plan?

After you’re done finding out your motivation, the next step is to come up with an action plan.

Your action plan doesn’t have to be elaborate or static. It should be a collection of possible steps you can take that will drive you towards achieving your goals.

At this point, you want to take a good look at the goal you wrote down in step two above. Ask yourself, what exactly can I do today that will help me achieve this goal.

If your goal is to build one of the top ten entertainment podcast for millenials in your country in 2 years for instance, here’s where you ask yourself questions like how many entertainment podcast are eist in this country or region right now?

How long will it take me to get to where they are or overtake them? How many hours will i have to produce content that will match up with theirs? What are the keywords i will target and how much do i have to invest in content marketing before i can beat them?

These questions are very germane in helping you have an overview or a sort of plan.

Write everything down as you keep getting ideas on steps to take to grow the website.

You can also include a rough estimate of when you’ll have to monetize the website or provide added services if necessary (yeah, you can also make side bucks with your entertainment website).

PS: Even when you don’t have to get a well laid out plan before getting started, be sure your plan involves steps that will guide your success including growth strategies, if possible…

And don’t forget your plan is not something static. It’s just a guideline to get you started on the right footing. So It can be edited and made to fit in as your website grows.

What resources do you need?

Just like any other business, you will need to invest some resources upfront to build a successful online entertainment brand.

You will need money, time and other resources like gadgets, electricity etc.

For instance, you’re going to need some money to get the website designed and set up completely. You may also need some money to create visibility and awareness about your site through advertising.

Although you can cut down on some expenses, having some background knowledge of the resources you will most likely need to create a successful website will help you plan effectively.

If you’re building your website on a budget, knowing your expenses in advance can also help you cut down on expenditures like advertising etc while using free alternatives like content and social media marketing etc.

How to make your Entertainment Website popular

The following are steps that will help you get popularity for your entertainment website…

Create Great Content

Now here’s the best part. And the part that will make the vision you wrote down come true.

As an entertainment brand, you’ll have to produce great stuff. This is what will differentiate your website from the sea of entertainment websites out there.

If you’re providing music content, make it stand out. Get your entertainment website known for one or two things that no one else is doing in the industry.

To stand out in the entertainment niche, you don’t just produce content, you’ll want to create content that your users will love. You’ll also have to produce content optimized for the search engines.

This is what will keep your users coming back to your website while making the website visible to the search engine.

If you can’t provide fresh and outstanding content then you’re just like any other website. And if this is the case, you really may not have a chance to compete with existing brands.

So, find a way to stand out. Give your audience a customized experience they can never get elsewhere.

Get known on social media.

Find out the social media your audience hang out, create profiles there and link them to your blog.

Get active on the social media. Be sure to share your posts on your social media with the links.

Engage your social media audience. Create contest, rewards and even promote your page once in a while, if your budget can take care of it. This will drive traffic from the social media back to your website.

Reach out to celebrities. 

If you run a general entertainment website with categories for celebrity gist or if your website is focused on celebrities, you’ll want to reach out to these celebrities and follow them on the social media…

When done well, you’ll find interesting content to write about right from their timeline.

There will be times you want to reach out to these celebrities, tag them or if necessary, find a way to notify the celebrity or their handlers whenever you’re writing about them.

You can do this mostly when you’re sharing some nice stuff about the celebrities. Or when you want them to confirm or debunk a rumor. Encourage them to share such posts with their audience.

Connect with other entertainment website owners.

Exchange ideas. Build friendships and guest post for one another when necessary.

There are different groups of like minds on Facebook and other forums etc. Find and join them.

Get creative. 

An entertainment website has to be creative, innovative and inspiring. This are part of the reasons people come to read or use your content.

No matter the content you are creating for your website, you will want to give your users a reason to feel satisfied on visiting your website. This is why you will have to create entertainng and creative content.

At some point, you’ll have to test different content format, watch out for your analytics to understand the overall acceptance of posts so you can know what approach to drop and the ones to focus on.

Set out time to think up creative content ideas for your website and document them.

Don’t give up.

Building a successful online brand starts from somewhere. Initially, there will likely be days things seem like it’s not going to work out. These are times you’ll have to remember that everything takes time.

And you’re most likely going to build a very successful entertainment website if you keep learning and improving your effort without giving up.

There’s so much more to write about on how to set up a successful entertainment website but you can’t learn everything until you get to work.

Now before I conclude, I want you to know that setting up a successful entertainment website is something that’s really possible for you. And you don’t need to have any exceptional experience before getting started…

All you need is passion, willingness to work and readiness to learn and improve.

Need established web developers to build your entertainment website? Fill a form here.