Lee Graham | GOAT = Geek Of All Trades

Gone are the days where the traditional, printed newspaper reigns king! The combination of terrible economic times and “free” online news is making it ever so hard for newspaper businesses to make money. It is becoming a weekly occurrence that we hear this newspaper is closing, that magazine is shutting down.

If you are at the point of debating to close your newspaper doors OR if you are looking to start your own local, niche news source this post is your guide to getting started creating you own digital newspaper for a fraction of the cost.

THE PROBLEMS

• Most people don’t want to pay for news since it is freely available online.
• The Gen Y’ers don’t subscribe or read a printed news for the most part.
• Traditional newspapers are not interactive.

THE SOLUTION

So I want to show you a few tools on how to create your own cost effective, interactive, digital newspaper. There are 6 (with an optional 7th) basic items you need: Brand Identity, Domain Name, Website Hosting, Framework, Publishing Tools, Marketing/Promotional Tools & an option Web Geek on the side.

1. Brand Identity – If you don’t have a registered business name, logo and tag line you need to pick one and files the appropriate government entities. As far as the logo and tag line normally you can come up with these on your own or if you want a bunch of creative idea you post a contest on 99Designs.com (This will cost you between $250-400 for a fabulous brand which is cheap in comparison to the next option).  Or if desired and you want to spend a large amount of money you can hire a designer or firm to create a brand. This is usually the most expensive solution.
2. Domain Name – Next, you need a domain name that is concise, easy to remember and matches your Brand Identity. I would recommend GoDaddy for purchasing and managing your domain names. These will normally run you $15 per year for an average domain.
3. Website Hosting -  I would recommend using MediaTemple. They are only $20 per month and usually pretty reliable.
4. Framework - I would strongly using WordPress! I’ve used Joomla, Drupal, Mambo, etc… but at this current time WordPress is easier for the average person to use, it has a larger development community, you get better search engine visibility (SEO) & it is much easier to customize… oh, and lets not forget its FREE! Once you have a framework installed you need a theme to make it look spiffy. There are thousands of WordPress themes available for commercial use… just Google it or click here.
5. Advertising/Monetization - If you have a popular or niche audience you may be able to get away with charging a monthly subscription fee, but in most cases the way you are going to make your money is through advertisements. Just like newspapers have done for years, but you don’t need to hire a sales person. If using WordPress you can automate the process by using a WordPress Plugin. Click here to see the pros/cons of several popular WordPress Ad Management Plugins. If you prefer not to fool with doing this yourself there is always Google AdSense, but you probably won’t make quite as much doing that, but its certainly is convenient.
6. Publishing Tools – If you are looking to just publish text and pictures the WordPress framework can easily meet those needs. If you are looking for a fantastic way to manage your image collection & controlling the licensing your photos I would advise  using Flickr Pro and its only $25. If you are looking for a better approach to telling the story I would recommend using Soundslides Plus. This tool will only cost you $70 one time and you own it. With it you can take your images and organize them as you please, then you integrate an audio file to create a powerful news or storytelling presentation. Finally, I would recommend using Vimeo Plus for any video streaming needs you may have.
7. Marketing/Promotion Tools – You need to install Google Analytics or some other form of tracking visitors on your site so you know how to improve it. I would strongly suggest tying your site into a few social media avenues such as: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc… I would recommend setting up your WordPress RSS Feed through FeedBurner. There are many more, so you will have to evaluate what will work best for you site.
8. Web Geek (Optional) - I will be releasing a series of video tutorial on how to create your own online news system in the near future. If you start a project and hit a dead end OR if you want to hire me to setup your site I’d be more than happy to help.

As a ballpark estimate (basic package) if you were to create an online, interactive newspaper it would roughly cost you $255 per year to maintain. For a full package (basic package + Flickr + Vimeo + Soundslides) it would cost you $420 for the first year and then $350 for every year after that.  Not too shabby compared to the cost of starting a traditional newspaper. Actually those numbers are VERY impressive!

Let me know what you think or if you decide to create an online news site post a link on here so I can see how it turns out.