Running a newssite

Zodia · Mar 11, 2015

I am putting this into blogging since it kindof applies.

Anyhow, some time back I started a news website, having experience in journalism and with a taste for writing it felt natural.

Now I don't want to go into too many specifics but we're international, update several times a day and the quality is on par with most smaller news sites.

However, our traffic isn't really building, we're pretty much stuck on the same digits all the time. I am guessing this is because we haven't gotten enough exposure, the news niche is a tough one after all. Thus, I am wondering if anyone has any good ideas? Relying on the typical blogger tricks doesn't really work.

Getting followers on twitter and likes on Facebook is pretty tough and I am not sure if buying them would be the best method, seeing how I am doing this more or less whitehat.

I am however as a start going to get some high PR links and exposure via gigs on Fiverr/Seoclerk.

Other than that I've sofar relied on organic traffic via Google.

lilmasta · Mar 11, 2015

have your tried apply for google/bing news? if you get it approved then you will get good exposure

Zodia · Mar 11, 2015

lilmasta said:
have your tried apply for google/bing news? if you get it approved then you will get good exposure

I actually checked that out just today. While we definately meet most requirements, the issue is that we're not that public with our identitites, we're waiting until we get more "approved" by the public until that. So I highly doubt we'd get approved since the first they want is your contact pages, which right now consists of email as the only option.

It's a shame though, seeing how we'd definately get more exposure, but going all out with our identities while we're still fairly small feels a tad awkward.

RWCenter · Mar 11, 2015

Have you tried sharing your stuff more pro-actively through social media? Come to people, instead of waiting for them to come to you. Good luck!

Zodia · Mar 11, 2015

RWCenter said:
Have you tried sharing your stuff more pro-actively through social media? Come to people, instead of waiting for them to come to you. Good luck!

Yeah we do share all of our articles on Facebook and Twitter (I manually post on Twitter with hashtags). The problem here lies with the few dedicated followers we have. Thus why I consider getting us some followers and fans, to make us look bigger and to get more exposure. People would rather like and follow a site that already has a fanbase than a site that has none.

Other than that we can't do much more with social media since we're a news network and can't really be too personally active since that'd damage our reputation.

BassTrackerBoats · Mar 11, 2015

You are a man among men to have a news site and want to pursue it on a larger scale, Kudos to you.

When I had a news site, Zodia, I wrote 5 - 6 articles a day from current events. I'd read a few articles about a topic and then write my take on it being sure to use the keywords that were most prominent and use them in a variety of phrases. Some minor keyword stuffing was no issue either with it but this site was sold about 2 years ago so things may have changed some.

I had, I think, 6 different news categories as the site was based on a specific news genre and 6 different author names tied to each news category although I was the actual author for all of the categories.

It started off slowly with traffic but the more I was diligent in the 5 - 6 articles daily the more the traffic picked up as the site gained some semblance of authority and at one point we were ranking for some pretty tough keywords.

The stupid amount of content is what worked and the constant flow of content is what gave me that large volume... I think you just need to do the same for your site.

Constant "up to the minute" news on a regular basis and getting some legit backlinks along the way to build up your traffic.

It is not any kind of exotic method but it worked for my old site.

I sold it off as it was too much work for the return though as a news site is a tough one for me to monetize to my satisfaction.

Zodia · Mar 11, 2015

BassTrackerBoats said:
You are a man among men to have a news site and want to pursue it on a larger scale, Kudos to you.

When I had a news site, Zodia, I wrote 5 - 6 articles a day from current events. I'd read a few articles about a topic and then write my take on it being sure to use the keywords that were most prominent and use them in a variety of phrases. Some minor keyword stuffing was no issue either with it but this site was sold about 2 years ago so things may have changed some.

I had, I think, 6 different news categories as the site was based on a specific news genre and 6 different author names tied to each news category although I was the actual author for all of the categories.

It started off slowly with traffic but the more I was diligent in the 5 - 6 articles daily the more the traffic picked up as the site gained some semblance of authority and at one point we were ranking for some pretty tough keywords.

The stupid amount of content is what worked and the constant flow of content is what gave me that large volume... I think you just need to do the same for your site.

Constant "up to the minute" news on a regular basis and getting some legit backlinks along the way to build up your traffic.

It is not any kind of exotic method but it worked for my old site.

I sold it off as it was too much work for the return though as a news site is a tough one for me to monetize to my satisfaction.

Thanks for the support!

Yeah that is the current path. Some authority backlinks along with regular content has been my idea so far. So far my content looks like this:

3-5 posts a day about bigger news that is all interesting for my audience

1-2 posts a week that are more "exclusive". Interviews, research and such that we do ourselves.

So yeah feels like I might be on the right path here. I'll keep doing what I do and try to find some new tricks along the way. Might still get some twitter and facebook likes to boost ourselves. Other than that it seems like I have the right idea already.

Edit: To point out, we're a news site that cover a specific countries news. So our "news" is literally news, nichewise.

CoolAmp · Mar 11, 2015

you would need something bigger than dedicated hosting and api access to twitter's firehose to be a news site. anything less is old news by the time you get your hands on it.

Welcome2TheU · Mar 11, 2015

CoolAmp said:
you would need something bigger than dedicated hosting and api access to twitter's firehose to be a news site. anything less is old news by the time you get your hands on it.

This right here a major issue with news sites. To break news is virtually impossible. If you're not first, then you gotta compete elsewhere. And when you aren't the journalist/reporter getting the actual news through interviews and research, then you also gotta compete elsewhere. So then, the question becomes how can you differentiate yourself and add value elsewhere?

Zodia · Mar 11, 2015

On the topic of Google and Bing News. Anyone has a idea how hard they are on the contact info part? How much info would a contact page need to be valid for them? Or any good ideas on how to fake it? Using a fake name, adress and phone number sounds risky as hell to me.

To continue as a reply for previous posts. We are unique in several ways, we provide a fairly unique view and only have one primary opponent. The issue is getting our name out there, so far we've used backlinks and ads. While we do get views, the need is to get even more exposure.

edit: And our exclusive reports, interviews and such. They also offer a more unique need for us, however without exposure they wont garner us much.

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