
If you want to start an online newspaper and Google the same you will find scores
of companies vouching for the best newspaper software. However, you need to consider
a few factors which will eventually help you run a successful online newspaper.
We will try to focus on some important points before you make your decision:
1. Professional Templates: The biggest challenge a publisher/editor
faces is selecting the right theme to go with, it is very important that you choose
a professional layout which is easy to customize as news industry requires flexible
platforms to accommodate the ever changing and evolving requirements of online newspaper
industry. Your newspaper website has to be built keeping in mind the latest guidelines
for a responsive design which works seamless with all the latest devices like tabs,
smartphones, notebooks, etc. You need a variety of templates to choose from with
highest level of customization so you can make necessary changes to say fonts, colors,
design whenever required.
2. Reliable Hosting: It is of paramount importance that your site
is hosted on a dedicated server which offers 99% uptime guarantee as unlike print
editions the online newspaper has to be updated regularly as you never know when
you get a fresh story or update and your readers expect the news to be uploaded
ASAP and they need your site online 24/7 so they can access it anytime from anywhere.
3. Fully Featured: When looking at an online newspaper software
make sure you go through the feature page at length as it's very important to go
with a newspaper host which provides an all in one package with all the latest features
included within the package at no extra cost. As an online newspaper you need to
have the features like classifieds, directory, events, real estate, newsletters,
etc.
4. Easy to Use: Newspaper CMS also known as Content Management
System should be intuitive and easy to use, even novice users with no technical
experience should be able to make use of the easy to use tools and start publishing
online newspaper within minutes.
5. 24/7 Support with Live Chat: When looking at an online newspaper
creator also keep in mind that you opt for the one which offers live chat help and
free technical support. Always remember that a good support team will help you resolve
any issues that you come across within minutes and the live help will help you to
understand the platform better and troubleshooting can be achieved instantly with
no hassles involved.
6. Free Trial: It's always debated whether a company should offer
free trial of their premium services but as a customer you have nothing to lose
and everything to gain by this policy as it also shows how confident a company is
by giving a free run to a potential customer. It is recommended that you engage
with customer support via live chat after you get the free trial, you won't believe
how much easier and informative it can be. Also, it's important that you should
be able to keep all changes/customizations that you made during the trial and bring
them over to the real site when you are ready to go live without losing any data
or settings.
7. Pricing: Starting a newspaper should be easy and in today's
competitive and transparent market you will be able to do that without burning a
hole in your pocket. You need to grab onto an all in one newspaper hosting package
which gives you the flexibility for payment options in addition to free domain registrations
and email accounts.
8. Latest in Web Technology: Over the last decade we have seen
a lot of companies which have been there from the start and some interesting new
entrants on the block. However, it's very interesting to note that most of the old
companies still rely on old software/platform and as a result it's very difficult
to integrate them with the new features and technology. You need to look for the
newspaper CMS which has been built with the latest technology for a robust and efficient
platform capable enough to cater to all your present and future needs.
9. SEO Friendly: With changing times and ever changing algorithms
of various search engines especially Google even the experts are baffled with the
search engine results. Keeping this in mind it's very important to go with a newspaper
builder which provides SEO features which help in easy reporting in search engines
as they are crawler friendly and come with a no nonsense approach in generating
SEO friendly url's, meta tags, meta descriptions, etc.
10. Upgrades: Nothing is permanent in this world and your newspaper
host should have the flexibility to offer upgrades to the present features and include
the new evolving newspaper features behind the scene. All this should be done without
any downtime and outages so your newspaper is always online 24/7/365
Conclusion: After going through the above points it would be right
to say that these are indeed some important points in selecting the right online
newspaper software. If you plan to start one don't hesitate and
click here to get online free and engage with the support staff via live
chat to take advantage of all the features and resources.