How to Create a WordPress News Site that Makes Money?

Thinking about how to start your own WordPress news site that generates a good stream of revenue? You are in the right place!

Nowadays, over 43% of all websites are created with WordPress. So it’s obvious that creating your first news website using WordPress is a great idea.

Ever heard the names of giant news websites like The New York Times, Vogue, TechCrunch and The Onion? Well, surprisingly these all popular news websites were also created using WordPress.

The best part? You can also create news websites using WordPress with ease.

In this blog, we’ll walk you through the simplest ways to create your own WordPress new site. So, let’s dive in! 

What is a WordPress News Website?

A WordPress news website is an online news or magazine website built with WordPress.

In other words, it is an online platform where current affairs, articles and reports get published. You can create a WordPress new site for any niche if you don’t wish to cover global events.

You don’t have to be the next New York Times to start your own news site, there’s still so much room to focus on your favorite topics, local news, or any niche you love.

Here are some important things to remember to create a news website with WordPress:

• Define your niche and target audience
• Website design and user experience
• Essential plugins for functionality
• High quality content and good promotion strategy
• Plan your revenue streams

Why WordPress is Perfect for News Websites

Now before jumping straight to steps for creating a news website, let’s understand why choose WordPress for creating a news site.

Is WordPress good for news websites?

If you are also one of them who thought the same. Then let me give you a straightforward and simple answer: Yes! WordPress is the perfect choice for a news website.

The reason is simple: As we already discussed, more than 43% of global websites are using WordPress. In fact, WordPress powers major publications like TechCrunch and The New York Times too.

So to clear your all doubts, here are some reasons why WordPress is good for news websites:

• One-click installation and easy setup
• Large collection of news/magazine themes
• Exclusive range of plugins for SEO, forms, analytics, and monetization
• Powerful membership and paywall features by plugins like ARMember
• Reliable for delivering news to a broad audience
• Budget friendly themes and plugins
• Strong community and support 

So that’s how WordPress is a perfect choice for news websites.

Now, let’s see how to create a WordPress news site that generates good revenue for your business.  Thus, let’s get rolling in just 5 simple steps.

How To Create A WordPress News Website (Step By Step)

Step 1: Plan Your News Website

First of all, to create a news website using WordPress that makes money, you need a roadmap. You’ll need to plan everything to monetize your first article before even starting writing it.

Here’s what you need to decide before creating a WordPress news site that generates a good revenue: 

• Identify your niche: You must have decided what you excel at? It can be anything. You can start a news site for niche-specific topics like tech, lifestyle or fashion too. 
• Understand your target audience: After deciding your niche, look for your target audience group, AKA, Readers. Understand as much as you can about your target audience including their age, gender, country, occupation and time spent on the internet. This will help you decide how much your target audience is willing to pay and read.
• Decide monetization strategy: Now here comes the main point of this blog: How you’ll make money from your WordPress news website? The answer: Monetize your news site using a membership plugin. You can use strategies such as: free content with ads, subscriptions for ad free experience, paywalls with limited no. of free reads, sponsored content or pay-per-post.
• Plan sections: Do not try to cover everything. Cover what you are passionate about so you can stay motivated in the long run. Here are some sections to add in your news and magazine websites Home, News, Sports, Business, Opinion, etc.

After choosing your niche, target audience and monetization strategies for making money, you still need to create a calendar to schedule content consistently.

Consistency is the key towards success.

You must have to set up a post schedule calendar to remember when to post your article and good read. Make sure you choose the day and time of posting after good data-driven research.

After having a final roadmap, you are all set to take the next step towards creating your WordPress news site that makes money like crazy.

Step 2: Set Up WordPress and Essential Plugins

The second step to create a news website using WordPress is to set up your WordPress, duh. Like how can you even create a WordPress news site without WordPress.

Now here’s one time. You can skip this step if you already have hosting and WordPress dashboard all set to go. If not, no worries. Just follow us:

The first step when creating a WordPress website is to choose a fast and reliable host. There are multiple web hosting providers with good features and deals such as Hostinger, Bluehost, Siteground and more. When choosing a domain name, make sure it’s unique enough to stand out and simple enough to understand.

Once domain and hosting is set, Install WordPress in just one click and log in to your WordPress dashboard. From here you can easily write and publish your news articles as it is one of the best content management systems.

Now it’s time to give your WordPress news site a makeover with the best WordPress news themes. Always go with a news theme offering featured posts, multiple categories, ad spaces and fully responsive. Best WordPress news themes such as:

• Newsmatic is best for users wanting a fast, modern and feature-rich free theme.
• Cream Magazine is perfect for beginner who wants a simple and modern theme
• Newspaper is a premium theme with 120+ pre built templates
• ColorMag is a classic one with magazine style them

Lastly, install the essential plugins you need to set up your WordPress website such as:

• Yoast SEO for boosting SEO
• ARForms for form creation,
• MailPoet for newsletters
• ARMember for monetization
• Jetpack for security and social integration and many more.

Why Choose ARMember for Monetizing your WordPress News Site?  

From here onwards, we’ll be using ARMember for your monetization strategies. Wondering why? The answer is as clear as day.

ARMember is an all-in-one WordPress membership plugin, perfect for creative industry sites such as yours.

It allows you to monetize your premium exclusive news articles, newsletters and good reads with multiple pricing models and different access rights based on memberships.

You can set up multiple revenue cycles like weekly, monthly, or yearly, offering full user payment flexibility.

With ARMember, you can monetize your WordPress news site to make money. It allows you to create multiple smart monetization strategies for generating revenue such as:

• One time packages 
• Set up lifetime or finite membership
• Parallel memberships subscription
• Pay Per Post (Sell individual posts)
• Recurring payments with multiple billing cycles

Thus, ARMember is an excellent choice for creating your WordPress news site to generate a good recurring revenue.

Step 3: Install and Configure ARMember

Now we hope you have already installed and activated ARMember in your WordPress dashboard, alongside those other essential plugins and themes.

If not, no worries! Here’s a beginner friendly guide to install and activate your ARMember WordPress membership plugin.

Once you successfully install and activate ARMember, you’ll see the ARMember on the left side panel of your WordPress dashboard. Now you’ll see a notification on the top of your ARMember dashboard.

Click on “page settings” and you’ll be redirected to General Settings → Page Setup of ARMember. In here, you can clearly see that the “Paid Post Page” option has not been selected.

Now generate default pages of your WordPress news site such as login, registration, profile and more.

All you have to do is assign your newly created pages to the correct options the way they should be including your paid post page(About to be locked behind paywall for monetization).

Now simply click “Save” at the bottom of the page.

Optionally, you can also connect email services like MailerLite, Brevo, or Constant Contact for paid newsletters. 

After that, you have to configure membership settings, email notifications and payment gateways as you wish. From the same “General Settings”, you can configure everything. Just enter the details and click on “Save”. 

Step 4: Create Membership Plans & Restrict Premium Content

Now that your news website finally got paid post pages(premium content), it’s time to make money out of it.

Go to Manage Plans → Add New Plan to create your membership plans.

Once clicked in, you can create unlimited membership plans with different access rights and prices to access your news reads. Here you just have to set your:

• Plan name 
• Plan description 
• Inherit Access Rules Of Membership Plan
• Plan Type 

After creating your membership plans, just click on save. Now you can manage your plans from your “Manage Plans” with ease.

Next, it’s time to set content restriction rules to protect your exclusive news content.

Worth mentioning, ARMember offers powerful content restriction with special rules for  individual pages, categories, URLs, or any content area of choice.

First, go to the “Content Access Rules” tab. From here you can check default access rules and update your rules as you like. 

Last but not the least,  you can restrict premium posts using ARMember’s content restriction feature and make them accessible only to paid members.

Moreover,  it’s easy to protect your exclusive content with ARMember. You can easily grant and hide access to any premium content from your members, non-members and plans as you wish.

Furthermore, you can also: 

• Restrict Individual Pages
• Partially Restrict Content
• User-wise Private Content
• Restrict Specific URLs

Now you can monetize your premium content and make money from your news site.

Step 5: Publish, Engage, Promote, and Grow

With your site structure ready to go, it’s time to start publishing your new quality news articles. That’s why we recommend always post high quality content, images, videos and eye-catching headlines to attract new readers.

Try to post high quality and engaging articles regularly. Plus, you can also promote your WordPress news site via social media and newsletters.

Don’t forget to monitor your WordPress news website to improve. You can track performance with Google Analytics once the site is live.

Best of all, you can track your membership events effortlessly with ARMember’s Conversion Tracking Addon to leverage the power of Google Analytics.

Let’s Monetize Your WordPress News Site With ARMember

Ultimately, you can create a WordPress news site effortlessly. Having a news website with WordPress is a great way to make money. All you have to do is monetize your premium news content with ARMember.

Here’s how to create a news website in wordpress to generate recurring revenue and grow your business:

• Identify your niche and target audience
• Decide your monetization strategy
• Choose your domain and web hosting service 
• Set Up WordPress and essential plugins 
• Install and configure ARMember for monetization 
• Create Membership Plans and Restrict Premium Content
• Publish high quality articles for more engagement

So get started today with ARMember in creating a dynamic WordPress news website to skyrocket your revenue!

Related articles:

• How to Build a Subscription Website on WordPress?
• How to Sell Educational Content on WordPress
• How to Create a Paid Newsletter on WordPress? (Three Methods)

FAQs

How to make a news site on WordPress?

Here’s how you can make a news site on WordPress:

• Choose your domain and web hosting service 
• Set Up WordPress and essential plugins 
• Install and configure ARMember for monetization 
• Create Membership Plans and Restrict Premium Content
• Publish high quality articles for more engagement 

Is WordPress good for a news site?

Yes, of course! WordPress is perfect for news sites as it powers over 43% of websites worldwide. Plus,  WordPress powers major publications like TechCrunch and The New York Times too.

Does CNN use WordPress?

Yes, Indeed! CNN uses WordPress for running its CNN Press Room. Thus, we can say confidently even major 24-hour American news channels like CNN are also using WordPress to power up their news website.

Which WordPress theme is best for a news website?

Here are the best WordPress theme for a news website:

• Newspaper is a premium theme with 120+ pre built templates
• Newsmatic is best for users wanting a fast, modern and feature-rich free theme.
• Cream Magazine is perfect for beginner who wants a simple and modern theme
• ColorMag is a classic one with magazine style them