Great! You are thinking about starting your news website in WordPress. According to W3Techs, around 43.1% of all websites on the internet are powered by WordPress. Therefore, you have chosen the right CMS platform to build your website.
With WordPress, you can create a website regardless of your technical expertise and minimal budget. Let us guide you through the process of creating a news website. The process is straightforward, and your News website will be ready within a few steps.
How to create a news website?
- Choose an appropriate name
- Choose the best web hosting provider
- Buy domain name
- Install WordPress
- Install News Theme
- Install plugins
Before developing a news website, there are some relevant things to consider to guarantee that your site is efficient and compulsive.
Things to Consider While Creating a News Website
1. Choose a niche and target audience
You need to identify your niche, something that you are passionate about. You need to consider your niche and the targeted audience because you can align your interest and expertise to provide value to your audience.
2. User-friendly
The user-friendliness of the website determines the popularity of your news website. You need to consider the optimization of website speed, the responsiveness of the theme, readability, and optimization for SEO. All these things help you in creating a user-friendly news website.
3. Quality of the content
The quality of your content is crucial because that engages your audience. So, to ensure the quality of your content, you need to write engaging headlines, check errors, and write in a clear structure.
4. Social media integration
Social media integration is also an important part of the news website. It increases traffic to your website, builds awareness, and expands your audience.
5. Monetization
You should consider monetizing your new website by displaying ads, publishing sponsored content, providing exclusive content or features in paid subscriptions, and more. Therefore, you can generate revenue from your news website in WordPress.
6. Tracking the performance of your site
Track the performance of your site is the best approach to improving and optimizing the performance of a website. You can use tools such as Google Analytics and Search Console to analyze the performance.
7. Engaging Content
You can create engaging content through the use of videos, and images. Nowadays, there are even News Generator AI, that can turn your news articles into publish-worthy news videos, further enhancing engagement and reach.
Hence, these are some things you should consider while composing your website.
How to create a news website in WordPress?
Step 1: Choose an appropriate name.
The first step in creating a news website is to choose an appropriate name that reflects your purpose and niche. The name you choose will be the address of your website that the visitor sees and uses to access your website.
Therefore, it may be a local or a niche name, but it should be simple and easy to remember. If you can’t choose the name, there are tools to help you generate a list of the domain names available when you enter one or more keywords associated with your website. Some of the domain name generators are DomainWheel and Business Name Generator.
Step 2: Choose the best web hosting provider.
After you decide on a name for your website, it’s time to choose the best web hosting provider. The web hosting provider is the company responsible for keeping the files of the website to make it accessible to visitors.
There are several web hosting providers offering good features and deals. So, you must choose the best web hosting provider offering features like high uptime, fast servers, caching, and content delivery networks to function your website.
Some of the best web host providers are
- Bluehost – Its basic plan for shared hosting start at $2.95 per month for the first year (annual purchase).
- Hostinger – The single WordPress plan starts at $2.99 per month for the first year (annual purchase).
- Siteground– The StartUp plan for a single website starts at $3.99 per month for the first year (annual purchase).
- WPengine– The Startup WordPress hosting plan costs $20 per month for the first year (annual purchase).
Use this resource for more information on web hosting providers:
Step 3: Buy domain name
The next step in building a News website on WordPress is to buy the domain name. The registration fee of your domain name depends on the domain zone (the last part of a domain name in a website’s URL, such as “.com,” “.org,” “.edu,” etc.)
For your convenience, you can buy a domain name directly from Web hosting providers that have been mentioned above.
Step 4: Install WordPress
Once you have completed the above steps, it is time to install WordPress. Web hosting providers mentioned above provide a quick and easy way to install WordPress.
Most web hosting providers use cPanel dashboards that let you install WordPress and give you a wide range of features to manage web hosting accounts. Similarly, many web hosting providers allow one-click installers like Softaculous, Fantastico, and more to install WordPress.
Alternatively, you can install WordPress manually by downloading WordPress installation files from the official website, uploading them to your web hosting account through FTP, and creating a database for WordPress.
Check out with the web hosting provider you select on how they allow WordPress installation in a quick and easy way.
Step 5: Install News Theme
We have left only a few steps reaming until creation of a news website is complete. News theme allows you to change the look of your website by providing additional functionality and enhancing user experience.
To install the WordPress News theme, log in to your WordPress account, navigate to Appearance> Themes, and select add new on the top of the page to choose the Themes that fit your aesthetic. You can filter the feature to show only news themes by selecting the News option under the Feature Filter button.
Choosing a News theme or any theme can be overwhelming. Therefore, to cut out that trouble and make it less time-consuming, we have listed some best News themes they are,
- Newsmatic Theme – You can get this powerful theme with over 10,000 active installations and a 5-star rated Theme for free. This theme has everything a news website requires.
- Digital Newspaper Theme – Digital Newspaper Theme has 3 column Main Banner design that is most suited to professional news websites.
- Trendy News – This free theme is designed to meet every need of news websites. It has splendid features that create a professional website.
There are many themes available in free and premium versions. Therefore, make sure that the theme consists of the features you need. Likewise, check the installation, updated date, ratings, and reviews.
Use this resource for more information on Best WordPress News Themes:
Quicker way to setup the design of news site
Best News WordPress Themes have pre-built starter sites that can be imported to your news site in a few clicks with the help of One Click Demo Importer plugin. You can use this pre-built sites to jumpstart your news site. All of the design and layouts will be imported in a few minutes, then you can start publishing news and articles.
Step 6: Install plugins
The last step in the creation of a News website in WordPress is to install the plugins. Plugins are the software to give your website additional functionality and features that might not be available through the theme, web hosting provider, and WordPress itself.
To install plugins, go to the admin dashboard of your website, navigate to the ‘Plugins’ section, and click on ‘Add New.’ Some of the essential plugins for your news websites are listed below:
- WPForms: Use the WPForms plugin to create custom contact forms and surveys for your website. It is a great way to gather feedback from your audience.
- Yoast SEO: Yoast SEO plugin helps in content analysis, keyword optimization, and meta description management. So, it improves your site’s visibility in search results.
- MailPoet: MailPoet plugin lets you create and send newsletters directly from the WordPress dashboard. Similarly, you can automate your email campaigns and even track your results.
- Jetpack: Jetpack plugin helps to maintain the security of your website, optimizing performance, social sharing buttons, and more.
There are over thousands of plugins to meet your needs. Lastly, before installing them, pay attention to their size, active installations, last updated date, and reviews.
You can also check this article that has listed must-have plugins for a news website:
Summary
With WordPress, you can easily create a user-friendly dynamic news website. Having a news website in WordPress is an excellent way to inform the facts, news, and local events and give voice to the public. So, get started today in creating an engaging and dynamic news website in WordPress with an appropriate theme, essential plugins, and strategies.
Finally, I hope that this guide on ‘How to create a New website in WordPress’ has been helpful. I wish you the best of luck in your journey of creating a news website.
