Whether it’s a news website, online newspaper subscription, or simply a portal of informational articles, having a content management tool is of utmost importance.
The biggest driver in news and article websites is and will always be content. You drive traffic and subscriptions around the type of content you generate. Having said that, the presentation of your content and the level of interactivity plans a huge role.
Informational sites, like news websites, operate on a content-focused model, while branching out to find more streams of revenue. So how do you, as a publisher, manage and track your content churn and find out if it's working?
There are four big factors to first consider:
The length of the content
The purpose of content
The type of content
The structure of content
Choose the best CMS for your news website
Selecting the right CMS becomes easy when you know the needs it has to be fulfilled. Since digital news publication has been around for quite some time, we already know what does a news website require to publish engaging news stories.
Down below is a list of some features that every news website requires from its CMS:
Security
Whatever you invest into, ensure it gives you the security you’re looking for. A little research and a couple of demos can help you understand what your best options are. It has become easy to gain access to your content and users’ data. This is precisely why you should consider using CMSs that offer two-factor authentication and protection against DDoS attacks. (Bold obviously does both and more).
Multilingual Functionality
The Internet has helped you go global, but don’t let English limit you. Having to use a translator can get cumbersome very quickly. Use a CMS that helps you translate content. This widens your audience and range.
Content Distribution
Enterprise Newsrooms with a dedicated team can ensure that they maintain a strong engagement with their readers while ensuring the content is omnichannel. What if a CMS did that for you? Consider a headless CMS or its hybrid variant - decoupled CMS to achieve this.
Seamless Integrations
You want to give your readers the best experience on your site/app. Does your CMS automatically convert content to shareable twitter cards or if it pops up different channels to share them on. With easy integrations, you can amplify the effectiveness of your CMS and allow your users to have content that works for them.
Customer Support
As a publisher, you need a solution that doesn’t let off without a parachute. Look at the reviews and seek an open front about the degree of support you'll get post onboarding the platform..
Search Engine Optimization
Do you have a team dedicated to ensure that the page title, meta-data, URL, alt-tags, etc are all in place? This is crucial as it decides if your news visibility to a larger audience. Therefore, it is mandatory to get a CMS that is SEO friendly.
Responsive Mobile
The biggest red flag for a CMS today is if it isn't mobile friendly. It’s about all the user experience after all. You need a CMS that uses the technology CSS3 and preserves the look and feel of the website across all the devices with responsive designs.
Ease of use
If your CMS isn't making work easy, then it's not working out. You want a CMS that makes it easy for you to create and edit content that goes on your website. Having an easy drag and drop interface, so you can add different elements on your pages. It should be smooth, quick and navigable for you to work around with the content on your site after publishing it.
Data portability
The right CMS platform will come loaded with tools that help you export your data elsewhere. Why would it hold you back? For instance, you may eventually decide to choose a different platform or a different hosting company. Data portability would make it easier for you to move around with complete freedom, no matter how great the platform sounds, watch out for portability!
Responsive Mobile
The biggest red flag for a CMS today is if it isn't mobile friendly. It’s about all the user experience after all. You need a CMS that uses the technology CSS3 and preserves the look and feel of the website across all the devices with responsive designs.
Ease of use
If your CMS isn't making work easy, then it's not working out. You want a CMS that makes it easy for you to create and edit content that goes on your website. Having an easy drag and drop interface, so you can add different elements on your pages. It should be smooth, quick and navigable for you to work around with the content on your site after publishing it.
Data portability
The right CMS platform will come loaded with tools that help you export your data elsewhere. Why would it hold you back? For instance, you may eventually decide to choose a different platform or a different hosting company. Data portability would make it easier for you to move around with complete freedom, no matter how great the platform sounds, watch out for portability!
Choosing the best CMS: What not to do
So far we have only discussed what news websites need and the features you should look out for while choosing the best CMS for your news website. However, knowing what not to look for is as important as knowing what to look for so that you can save yourself from spending extra time and money.
Down below is a list of things a publisher should stay away from while selecting a CMS:
Do not build an in-house CMS
Thinking of it as a long-term investment, many news websites start to build a custom CMS. However, most of the time it proves to be a wrong investment as the in-house team of developers does not have the required experience to build a new CMS. Also, using an in-house CMS will require a huge amount of technical support which is not feasible.
Do not buy before getting a live demo
It is one thing to look at a CMS demo video and another to work with it. The content team spends most of its working hours with CMS. So, it is necessary that the team gets a live demo of the CMS before finalizing it.
Do not rely heavily on developers
A news website is a media company, not a technology company. Hence, most of its resources should go into launching campaigns that increase traffic instead of managing the tech. But, some news websites fall for tech jargon and get a CMS that requires technical support and development at every step.
Best CMS for News Websites
Have a News website? As publishers, the hunt for a reliable content management system is seldom easy. It’s important to have a platform that fits the basic criteria that help you power through your digital journey.
If you have a team of dedicated content creators, a website and a subsequent reader-base then you’re probably on the look out for a CMS. This is a system that helps you create and distribute content to your channels. It’s a single platform where all your team members can come together with their work and have them distributed with ease.
Web pages are often written in HTML, JavaScript, and CSS programming languages. If you were to build a website without a CMS platform, then you would either need to learn to code or spend money to hire a team of experts who can code for you. Either way, it’s going to mean a lot of time and money.
Getting a CMS platform would solve this problem by allowing you to make a website without writing code or learning programming. Unless of course, you’re looking for a developer-friendly CMS which means you already know how to code or have a team at bay.
Why do we call Bold the best CMS? It’s a one of a kind CMS platform that was developed for enterprise digital publishers. Bold gives complete freedom to the editorial team to manage content without having to fall on any coder’s mercy.
Here are a few reasons we think you’ll like Bold :
Bold is a headless CMS
Bold CMS comes without a front end system. This helps publishers upgrade to a better platform without having to change their front end system. Why should you have it? A headless cms would help you create and distribute content to multiple platforms. Bold integrates with any other third party solutions you’d be interested in. At it’s core, it is a powerful CMS that caters to a wide range of publishers from across the globe to help them achieve the traffic they have the potential for.
Bold is secure
Worried about your site’s security? Digital media has been known to have notorious safety issues. With Bold, you trust Quintype technologies to take care of your site’s safety. Say goodbye to DDOS attacks. Publish content without holding back!
Bold isn’t afraid of sudden peaks in traffic
Have you had to witness your website crashing because of an unexpected peak in traffic? Well, no more! With Bold, you can maintain your content flow and our team ensures that your website stays quick and healthy even during unpredictable traffic rises.
The Workflow is ideal
Do you have a small team? Are you growing? Or are you a large scale publisher in the lookout for a platform that can handle your content demands? Well, Bold caters to all kinds of publishers. The workflow helps small, growing and large teams to track the progress of their content.
Content will never be grey
Bold helps you choose from a variety of content formats. You can change up your story formats based on the nature of the story. No more boring text heavy content on your website. Bold supports popular video providers as well to help you layer your content for an interactive reading experience.
Omni-channel distribution
As we mentioned, Bold is headless. This means that you can create stories on Bold and distribute on any and all channels you like. You can publish on your website, mobile apps, print press and social media accounts from a single instance. Bold also allows you to publish stories on channels like smart phones, smart watches and voice recognition platforms. The text to speech feature helps you stay upbeat.
Why should you get Bold?
Publishers often tend to develop their own content management systems. This is time consuming, cost ineffective and cumbersome. While we trust you to hire your own developers, we understand that it takes time to gain expertise in the industry. This is why we developed Bold. A headless CMS for all publishers. One where we take care of the updates and maintenance so that you don’t have to. With Bold, you get a solution that is constantly improving itself to help you stay on top of the publishing world. Schedule a demo to find out how Bold can help your brand!