News as Content
January 15th, 2008News Stories
Your site can become a news source for the latest developments and happenings in certain niche area by providing timely news on topics of interest to your readers. I’m not saying you can be the next CNN or MS-NBC, because that takes building a huge operation. But what you can be is, for example, the CNN of the karate world, or the ABS-News of the bonsai tree hobbyists.
What you’ll want to do is create a separate section of your site to deal with industry news. Or, devote an entire site to news updates. There are many ways of presenting news:
As a feature article
As short news clips, with a link to the full story
As news stories, where each item is explained at length
However you decide present the news, make sure you give it your own personal style. Check out salon.com. Has its own style, doesn’t it? Now look at drudgereport.com. That’s another style. Make yours interesting, personal, chatty, fun, unique, or all of these just make it yours.
Make sure your news is relevant, useful to your reader, and timely. Old news ain’t no news at all, it’s history! So how do you get news? By:
Subscribe to eZines on your subject or topic
Sign up for e-mail news delivery services
Register to get regular press releases on your topic
Surf the web for new news items
Get news from newspapers, magazines and books
Go to conferences, workshops or seminars and write about what you see and who you talk to.
