Using political opinion on your site can be tricky. People are deeply divided these days and have strong opinions. If you do run a political site, you’ll probably want to carve out your own niche. Even then, be prepared for flamers from very different view points.
On the other hand, if you can manage to run a site that actually features a somewhat well-mannered debate, you’ll have a huge hit on your hands. Be prepared to moderate this type of site.
News Stories
Your site can become a news source for the latest developments and happenings in certain niche area by providing timely news on topics of interest to your readers. I’m not saying you can be the next CNN or MSNBC, because that takes building a huge operation. But what you can be is, for example, the CNN of the karate world, or the ABC News of the bonsai tree hobbyists. What you’ll want to do is create a separate section of your site to deal with industry news. Or, devote an entire site to news updates. There are many ways of presenting news:
- As a feature article
- As short news clips, with a link to the full story
- As news stories, where each item is explained at length
However you decide present the news, make sure you give it your own personal style. Check out salon.com. Has its own style, doesn’t it? Now look at drudgereport.com. That’s another style. Make yours interesting, personal, chatty, fun, unique, or all of these – just make it yours.
Make sure your news is relevant, useful to your reader, and timely. Old news ain’t no news at all, it’s history! So how do you get news? By:
- Subscribe to eZines on your subject or topic
- Sign up for e-mail news delivery services
- Register to get regular press releases on your topic
- Surf the web for new news items
- Get news from newspapers, magazines and books
- Go to conferences, workshops or seminars and write about what you see and who you talk to
