The local news industry is changing. But just because it’s not as profitable to start a newspaper anymore doesn’t mean you can’t build a business around the concept of sharing information with local residents.
Joe Thompson is an entrepreneur who knows what it’s like to run a local website. As the owner of The Valley Ledger, a local publication in the Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, he’s learned the ins and outs of running a local website. If you’re interested in starting your own, take a look at the tips below.
How To Start a Local News Website Business
Create Consistent Branding
Before actually launching The Valley Ledger, Thompson says he was careful to make sure he could secure the same name for the site’s domain and every popular social media platform. This allowed him to keep the brand consistent and make it easier for people to actually find The Valley Ledger on each of the sites they actually use.
Stick With a Specific Mission
As you create your content and share information with your network, you’ll want to make sure that you keep it consistent so that readers know what to expect.
For Thompson and The Valley Ledger, that means sharing positive information about the Lehigh Valley. And Thompson says that staying true to that has made all the difference. He told Small Business Trends in an email, “Overall, we were very fortunate to be able to quickly be recognized as a source of positive information for the Lehigh Valley. Our willingness to freely promote others led to quick success. We have also stayed true to our mission to only share positive information about the Lehigh Valley area.”
Read more on… How to Start a Local News Website
Author: Annie Pilon
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