WordPress For News Sites & Publishers

Running a news website or online publication entails performing certain important tasks. For example, you may have to set up multiple domains and create user accounts for each of them. Additionally, news and publication sites with high traffic need web hosting that ensures excellent uptime and the ability to scale resources.

Fortunately, WordPress users can meet these needs easily with the help of WP Engine. Offering the latest in hosting technology, and ensuring 24/7 customer support, WP Engine will keep your news site up and running smoothly.

In this post, we’ll discuss the various requirements you’re likely to have if you run a news site or online publication. We’ll also highlight the various ways WP Engine can address those needs, helping you create the best experience possible for your readers. Let’s get started!

Multisite For WordPress News Sites

A multisite is an effective setup for news organizations that have multiple domains to manage. This feature makes it possible to create a network of subsites within one WordPress installation. That way, you can manage subdomains (such as blog.newssite.com and newsfeed.newssite.com) under the same root domain.

Multisite is a traditional setup for news sites and online publications, and offers many benefits. Aside from simplifying website management, running a multisite will help you ensure that each subdomain is properly updated and protected—just the same as your root domain.

WP Engine makes it incredibly simple to set up a multisite on WordPress. Simply go to Install > Utilities > Enable Multisite, and the system will convert your site for you.

User Management

One aspect of a multisite that may intimidate new website administrators is user management. However, this is also where a multisite can really shine.

On a single WordPress installation, users can be added by the administrator. They can then be assigned user roles, such as editor, author, and subscriber. The same can be done on a multisite installation, but with even more versatility.

With a multisite, you can add users who have access to different subdomains (or to all of them). This is ideal for authors, especially if they write across different sites on the root domain. It can also be extended to other roles, including editors and contributors.

WP Engine makes it easy to manage each user, no matter how many subdomains they have privileges to. This ensures that you can keep your multisite installation running smoothly, and provides you with greater control over users. With multisite, you’ll be able to enhance your user management abilities.

News Site Scalability

Traffic to your news site is likely to ebb and flow. As such, you may find it difficult to predict how many visitors your site will get, especially on a month to month basis.

This is where ‘scalability’ comes in useful. Scalability enables you to increase or decrease your site’s resources when the need arises. In short, WP Engine customers can ensure that their news site is always up to the task. If your site experiences a sudden dramatic growth in overall readership (which could happen if one of your posts goes viral, for example), WP Engine makes it easy to handle the added traffic.

Aside from the obvious benefits of superior site performance and reliable speed, many of WP Engine’s scalable hosting options can also save you money. You don’t want to pay for more than you need at any given time, and with WP Engine, you won’t have to. From instantaneous scalability (offered by cloud hosting) to a month-by-month solution (offered by both our Virtual Private Server (VPS) and dedicated hosting plans), you get to decide what’s best for your website.

Reliability For Publishers

For news sites in particular, reliability is key. After all, your readership wants trustworthy, up-to-date content. What’s more, downtime can cause you to lose out on critical ad revenue. This can cripple your business and, ultimately, your reputation.

Being able to provide resources for high-traffic websites is important. However, it’s also crucial to ensure that a reliable connection is maintained. With our proven track record of excellent uptime, and our versatile and robust hosting options, WP Engine ensures that you always receive the best in reliability.

Whether you run a viral WordPress website, or your content simply spikes in popularity from time to time, WP Engine will help you establish trust with your readership.

News Site Plugins

If you want to add specialized features or functionality to your news or publication website, you might consider using one of the many plugins geared specifially towards news websites. Plugins are downloadable bits of code that add functionality to your WordPress site, and they’re a great way to add on to a news or publication website. Here are a few we recommend:

Digital Publications by Supsystic

This digital publishing plugin has a mobile-friendly responsive design, text search option, and a zoom in-out feature. What sets this plugin apart from the likes of Storyform and IssueM is its tune flip sound that adds sound effects to pages and free translation of your content to Spanish, English, or Russian. Digital Publications by Supsystic is great for not only magazines but for catalogs and flipbooks that you can create by converting images, posts, PDFs, or HTML.

IssueM

IssueM is great for news sites that not only want to create content, but publish issues as well. The plugin works with any theme, yet is specifically catered to the zeen101 theme. The highlighted features of this plugin include simple ways to charge readers for a subscription using UniPress, which brings your issues to your smartphone’s very own mobile app. IssueM also carries an issue-to-PDF add on and Issue Migration tool.

Grow Your Audience with WP Engine

Here at WP Engine, we strive to provide top-notch digital experiences for all our customers — including news sites and publishers. With 24/7 customer support and the latest in technology, you can’t go wrong by choosing from one of  our enterprise-level plans.

To discover how we can help you run the optimal news site or online publication, check out our managed hosting plans. We are confident there is an option that is perfect for your needs!