How many does your news site do?

Here are some ways to improve your news site.

Take a look and then add your own great ideas to the list…

Post a form at the end of a breaking news story asking witnesses to send in details of what they saw — and then add the information you can verify to the story.
Invite anyone in your community to write Weblogs for your news site
Take the best content from Weblogs on your news site (now that you’ve got so many) and publish them in your newspaper.
Integrate headlines from your competition into your Web site
Give everyone in your company one day off a month to work on whatever project they want or simply just brainstorm new ideas
Build a real estate database and section so detailed and useful it becomes the MLS for your community. (realestate.nytimes.com)
Create a staff development plan so that everyone in your company gets pertinent online news training within the next 12 months.
Design your registration system so that you have an easy way to get updated information when people move, so your data stays more valuable to advertisers
Give people who register for your site incentive to keep giving you updated information.
Ask readers their interests when they register and only serve them ads related to them when they visit your site.
Offer a subscription where people can view the entire site ad-free for an extra charge.
Double the size of all photos on your site for a week. See how readers react. Wanna bet you decide to keep at least some of them larger permanently?
Don’t just add “Discuss story” links to stories — include the comments at the bottom or on the right rail of the page and make them part of the visible story
Put only local news and content on your home page
Create RSS feeds focused on niche topics your site covers.
Let your readers post certain classifieds for free.
Build a feature into your site enabling readers to add notes to any stories on your site, like Amazon’s new A9.com site does.
Offer free access to all your archives to newspaper subscribers — but only to subscribers.
Have readers send in photos and make slide shows from them
Pick the best posts on your message boards and highlight them in separate features — or on your home page — so readers don’t have to dig through
Use the Weblog format to cover a breaking news event
Figure out which writers or TV reporters always write too long for air or the paper and offer them an online column
Have popular columnists supplement their regular column with an e-mail extra… Only let newspaper subscribers get it
Let readers vote on their favorite local school sports player and give winners a symbolic award
Have newspaper or station top editor send e-mails to all e-mail subscribers occasionally to let them know how the newspaper or TV station is improving
Hold short story contests and print winners online
Tell an entire story that would normally be written in plain text entirely through a slide show
Sell prints of your front pages online, plus current and back issues
Offer special fan e-mail newsletters for local sports teams
Send readers news alerts through instant messenger tools
Allow advertisers to put photos online with classified ads and signal to newspaper readers to go online to see them
Create special news alerts for whatever topics are hot among local readers
Create topic-specific photo galleries on random, fun topics (dog slide show; smiling people slide show; etc.)
Use the Web to ask readers for fresh ideas. Actually read them. Choose at least one and actually do it.
Rotate content on your home page based on dayparting usage.
Make sure all ads are clearly labeled. For real.
Create a reader-appreciation week and have no pop-ups or animated ads all week.
Offer readers an ad-free version of your site for an extra cost
Give local politicians or newsmakers or experts Weblogs on your site.
Link datelines on all stories to pages with maps and information about the location (perhaps on a partner encyclopedia site)
Create a site-wide disaster coverage plan
Cut the number of links on your home page in half. See if your traffic and page views change at all.
Offer readers a way to save articles they like on your site for later reading and create a personal page for them with all of those stories
Let readers vote on their favorite stories and photos and post those lists online

Like this:

Be the first to like this post.

About sarfarazhanfi

Over 10 years of hands-on experience in graphics and web designing, multimedia presentations. With two years of it management experience.Excellent knowledge of creative tools and techniques. Quick to grasp new ideas and concepts, and to develop innovative and creative solutions to problems. Able to work well on his own initiative and can demonstrate the high levels of motivation required to meet the tightest of deadlines. Even under significant pressure, possesses a strong ability to perform effectively

View all posts by sarfarazhanfi »

« Previous post