News This Noon

With the advent of the blog, creating a local news website run by the community has become much easier than creating a regular website.

Blogging platform

Install WordPress in a new domain or sub-domain of an existing domain. The new domain for your community-run online local news site is best suited for indexing, ranking, and searching convenience.

Choose and install the right WordPress theme for your community-driven local news site, out of thousands of free-to-use online news sites.

Create a headline and customize the look of your news website online, locally, or in the community.

At the most basic level, your new local community-run news website is already up and running.

Be indexed

Of course, there is a lot of work on search engine optimization (SEO) that can improve your indexing and ranking. At the very least, you should get a link from a page somewhere on the net that is regularly noticed so that search engines can find your new community-run local news site.

Enough links from your homepage.

You can also join one or more blogs, social networks and post your news site online. It would also be helpful to send the URL of your local community news website to various directories. These content from your community-run news website will not only index you, but the feedback links will increase your SEO rating and thus help you take a place on the SEDP pages.

So, after such a lot of development work, your local online news website is ready to be noticed, indexed, and rated in search engines when you start publishing community news from your region.

At work

WordPress comes with a Hello World article and a comment to it. Remove both and start again.

News sources

Aside from writing your own stories, there are two main sources of community news:

Press releases.
Materials from community groups.

Press releases

Australia has three levels of government: local, state and federal. Everyone will issue regular press releases. Press releases from the state and federal governments will come not only from relevant government websites, but also from the websites of various parties and websites of the respective politicians.

Pay attention to the press releases of local members, whether it is the state or federation, the government, the opposition, a small party or an independent party. Also, regularly read the press releases of ministers responsible for portfolios that interest your readers or that correspond to your editorial orientation.

It is likely that a wide variety of business and industry circles will be represented in your area, as well as groups with special interests, such as environmental lobby groups, which issue press releases.

Community group views

Getting applications from community groups for your local news website is a lot more difficult. But they will be most interesting to your readers, and communication with locals will increase your readership. And, of course, reporting from community groups is central to your stated goal of creating a community-run online news service.

Find a catalogue of local sports and community groups. Send an email to groups if your email addresses are listed. They probably won’t.

If necessary, write them in the mail. Your email address to send news is in front of them, which reduces the likelihood of errors.

Talk to community group secretaries in person and give them a business card or flyer with your email address.

Calling a community group is a less attractive option because they find it difficult to find your online site, local, community-driven news site, or get your correct email address.

Change the frequency

Decide whether you want to post messages regularly, such as once or twice a week, or want to publish news as they become available. The advantage of an online news service over a print newspaper is the ability to update news as it becomes available.