Creating an effective online magazine with WordPress: the planning
“I like this site. How can I get updates without having to check manually?”
Repeat visitors are very valuable. WordPress has RSS capabilities for practically all presentation formats of your content:
- categories
- archives and posts
- comments
But, in my particular scenario, the default feed presentation format (reverse chronological, all content) doesn’t exactly lend itself to subscription for repeat visitors. Why? Because I write in English, Spanish, and on a variety of subjects. How on Earth can I coax a Linux geek into subscribing to a site that feeds political articles to him? The answer is: I can’t.
The logical solution is to turn the site into a variety magazine, where the advertised subscription feeds generate related content. In other words, each feed needs to be a section feed. Those who want political content should be able to subscribe to the politics section; those who want to read about Linux should be able to subscribe to the Linux feed.
Another, very important issue: not everyone has an RSS aggregator. Most news readers use Web aggregators. Thus, subscription advertisements need to cater to this audience.
Social networks: they make or break your site
Have you been toiling away, writing great content, and getting no visitors as the painful reward? You should know that once one of your articles hits a social network (like Digg), your problem won’t be lack of visitors but excess of traffic.
A magazine like the one I’m planning should keep them in mind at all times. Social networks are huge opportunities to “make it” in the Web world. Even the lowly “send link via e-mail” is a valuable opportunity you shouldn’t be squandering.
Spanish and English content? That’s going to be hard!
It is. I’m surveying a couple of WordPress runtime translation systems and plugins. In the end, I’ll crack the problem, but for the moment it’s fair to say that I’m confident I’ll tackle it successfuly. Let’s talk about the other, hairier problems.