With the introduction of the blog, creation of a community
driven, local, online, news website is made so much easier than it was
using a conventional website.
Blog Platform
Install
WordPress in your new domain or a subdomain of your existing domain. A
new domain for your community driven, local, online, news website is
preferable for indexing, ranking and ease of search purposes.
Choose
and install a WordPress theme, suitable for your community driven,
local, online, news website, from the thousands freely available on the
internet.
Design your header and customize the appearance of your community driven, local, online, news website.
At the most basic level, your new community driven, local, online, news website is now ready to roll.
Getting Indexed
Of
course, there's much search engine optimization (SEO) work that can be
done to improve your indexing and ranking. At the very least, you'll
need to get a link from a page somewhere on the net that gets regularly
spidered, so that the search engines can find your new community driven,
local, online, news website.
A link from your own home page will do the trick.
Alternatively
you can join one or several of the blogging, social networks and submit
your online, news website. Submitting your community driven, local,
online, news website URL to several directories would also be helpful.
These submissions of your community driven, news website will not only
get you indexed but the backlinks will increase your SEO score and thus
help with your ranking in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
So,
with this much development work done, your local, online, news website
is ready to be spidered, indexed and ranked in the the SEs when you you
begin publishing community driven, news items from your local area.
Getting Started
WordPress comes with one post titled Hello World and one comment on this post. Delete both of these and start afresh.
News Sources
Apart from writing your own news stories, there are two main sources of community news:
* Press releases.
* Community group submissions.
* Community group submissions.
Press Releases
In
Australia there are three levels of government: local, state and
federal. Each will issue frequent press releases. State and federal
government press releases will come, not only from the respective
government websites, but also from the different party's websites and
the particular politician's websites.
Pay attention to the press
releases of your local member, both state and federal, whether in the
government, opposition, a minor party or an independent. Also regularly
check out the press releases of government ministers with responsibility
for portfolios of interest to your readers or fitting in with your
editorial slant.
There will probably be various business and
industrial concerns in your local area as well as special interest
groups such as environmental lobby groups, that issue press releases.
Community Group Submissions
Obtaining
community group submissions for your local, online, news website is
much more work. But these will have the most interest for your readers
and the contact established with local people will build your
readership. And, of course, community group news submissions are at the
heart of your stated objective of providing a community driven, on line
news service.
Locate a directory of local sport and community
groups. E-mail the groups if e-mail addresses are provided. They
probably won't be.
Write to them by snail mail if need be. Your
e-mail address for news submissions will be in front of them, cutting
down the chances of errors.
Speak personally to community group secretaries, giving them a business card or flyer with your e-mail address.
Phoning
community groups is the least valuable option because of the
difficulties for them in finding your community driven, local, online,
news website on the net or getting your e-mail address right.
Edition Frequency
Decide
whether you'll publish at set time intervals, say once or twice a week,
or if you'll publish news stories as they come to hand. One advantage
of an online news service over a print newspaper is the ability to
update the current news as it comes to hand. The older news stories will
slip off the bottom of the home page, and the news at the top of your
community driven, local, online, news website will always be the latest
available.
Publishing your Opening Edition
At first
it may be necessary to publish only press releases, in order to build up
some level of credibility as an online news source. When your community
driven, local, online, news website has sufficient content to be seen
by the community as viable, it's time to start your community group
submission campaign.
It will be disappointing at first to be
publishing an online news service that nobody reads. So get some posters
up around town and don't procrastinate too long before you get going
with your community group submission campaign.
Laurie McArthur publishes Sapphire Coast News - Community Driven
News Sport Weather, on the Sapphire Coast of New South Wales, Australia.
Laurie's community driven, local, online, news website may be viewed at
www.sapphirecoastnews.com
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