News curation has become a popular content strategy for most publishers. It is the act of finding and selecting the most relevant news stories for a specific audience. This work is usually done using a news curator.
In this article, you’ll learn:
- What a news curator is,
- What it does, and
- Why it is so important.
Let’s get started.
What Is a News Curator?
A news curator is a tool that you can use to collect and organize the news for a specific audience. This tool might be a standalone application, a website, or even a web browser.
There are different types of news curators you can use. They range from RSS aggregators to social media features such as Twitter Lists to websites like Flipboard or Feedly.
Each of these news curators has its own unique features. For instance, some might allow you to edit titles and add your own perspective while others will only permit you to fetch the news as they are.
What Do News Curators Do?
News curators do several things depending on their features and functionalities.
They may:
- Collect and organize news stories.
- Find the most relevant news for a specific category.
- Separate read from unread stories.
- Share stories on social media.
- Save stories for reading later.
Why Are News Curators Important?
News curators are important because they help you get the best of content from different sources. They make sure that the audience is only seeing the most relevant and important stories. As a result, people can get the information that they need without having to visit countless sites.
In a nutshell, news curators are important because they:
- Filter the news.
- Save time.
- Build connections.
- Increase readership.
- Establish site authority.
- Boost revenue.
- Increase engagement.
Filtering News
One of the main things that news curators do is filter the news. This means that they can help you share the most relevant and important stories with your audience.
As a result, people can stay informed about what is happening in the world without reading too much unnecessary news.
Saving Time
Writing your own news from scratch can be a challenging and time consuming process. You will need to do research, interviews, follow-ups, editing and so much more. However, when you use a news curator, all you have to do is find relevant sources from where you can curate trusted news.
You can then add a small commentary and you will be good to go.
Building Connections
News curators can help to build connections between different publishers and even readers. For instance, when you curate and share stories that are relevant to a specific audience, people can learn about new things and connect with others who share similar interests.
Additionally, news curators can also help establish connections and partnerships between publishers. For instance, news curation sites may partner with original publishers to help them reach a wider audience and boost readership.
Helping Sites Increase Readership
News curators are also helpful for sites that want to increase their readership. When you use a great news curator like the WP RSS Aggregator, you can provide relevant and interesting stories to your audience. This can help to increase readership and keep people coming back for more.
Increased readership means more traffic which translates to more revenue for publishers.
Establishing Site Authority
By curating relevant, high-quality, and thought-provoking news, news curation tools can help position a website as an authority in the field. This can be an extremely valuable asset, as it can help attract more site visitors and encourage them to stay longer on the site.
In addition, by sharing news that are relevant to a website’s target audience, news curators can help improve the site’s relevancy score with search engines, resulting in higher rankings and increased web traffic.
Boosting Revenue
News curators can also help you boost your website’s revenue by sharing sponsored content and promoting affiliate products and services.
Sponsored content is paid-for content that is placed on a website in order to promote a specific product or service. Affiliate products and services are those that generate commission for the site owner when they are sold.
When you use news curators to create consistent content, you will attract more traffic which you can easily monetize using methods such as:
- Affiliate marketing.
- Display advertising.
- Promoted content.
- Selling your own products and services.
Increasing Engagement
Finally, news curators can help increase engagement on a website.
When you curate and share thought-provoking, relevant and interesting news stories, you encourage your readers to share, comment, or even bookmark your content. Active site engagement is good for your search engine rankings, credibility, and authority.
Readers are more likely to trust and consume content that attracts many comments and social media shares as you build a larger community. On the other hand, search engines like Google take increased engagement as a sign that people love your content and, therefore, improve its visibility by ranking it higher.
Features of Effective News Curators
While news curators generally work the same way, there are specific features you should look out for for the best results. In a nutshell, a good news curator should:
- Be easy to integrate with your website.
- Be easy to use.
- Have good support.
- Be frequently updated.
- Organize news well.
- Have monetization options.
- Come with a variety of templates.
Let’s quickly go through each of these features.
Easy to Integrate
Your news curator should be easy to integrate into your website. It should have a widget or plugin that you can add to your website with just a few clicks.
Avoid news curation tools that have complicated integration processes that will just leave you frustrated.
Easy to Use
Apart from being easy to integrate into your website, the news curator you choose should also be easy to use. It should have an easy-to-use interface that makes browsing and finding the news you want easy.
In most cases, you should only paste a link into the curator and the tool should do the rest. Anything harder than that would be a waste of your time.
Good Support
There should be a help section on the website where you can find answers to your questions, as well as a contact form or email address you can use to get in touch with customer support.
In case you run into any problems with the tool, you should be able to get help as quickly as people. Usually, you can determine if a tool has good support by reading customer reviews and asking people who are already using it.
Frequently Updated
This means that it should have the latest features and be free from any bugs. You want to stay away from any news curation tools that are not updated for long or have outdated features.
News curators like WP RSS Aggregator are effective because they are being constantly improved and invariably being made easier and convenient for publishers to use them.
Nicely Organized
A good news curator should separate the news into categories and subcategories. This way, you and your readers can browse and find the news you’re interested in quickly and easily.
The curator should also be able to separate news you have already read from those you haven’t.
Good Monetization Options
A good news curator should allow you to place ads on the website, so you can make some money from the traffic it generates.
You should also be able to easily integrate affiliate products and create a side business, even sell your own merchandise if you want to. Lucky for you, most good curators like the WP RSS Aggregator come with great monetization options.
Easy to Customize
You should be able to change the layout, colors, and fonts to match your website’s design. You should also be able to change the news headlines to make them catchier and more interesting.
Customization will allow you to add your own voice and branding. This will add a touch of authenticity to the news.
Filled With Several Templates
People love well-presented news. That is why it is important that the curator has a variety of templates to choose from so you can find one that suits your site’s design.
You should be able to present the news in a magazine or newspaper-style and not just as a bunch of headlines.
How to Use a News Curator
Although news curators come with different features, the process of using them is closely similar.
- Choose the News Curator: First, you need to choose the news curator you want to use. There are many different ones available, so take your time and find one that best suits your needs.
- Integrate the News Curator Into Your Website: Once you’ve chosen the news curator, you need to integrate it into your website. This is usually done by adding a widget or plugin to your website.
- Choose the Categories and Topics You’re Interested In: Next, you need to choose the categories and topics you’re interested in. The news curator will then show you the latest news in those categories.
- Publish to Your Site: When you’ve found the news you want to publish, just copy the RSS link and copy it to your news curator. The tool will automatically publish the articles to your site.
- Customize Appearance: You may also want to customize the appearance of the news to match your website’s design. You can usually do this by changing the colors and fonts of the content.
What Are Some of the Best News Curation Tools?
In order to efficiently curate news, you will need to use a number of tools. Some great examples of content curation tools include:
- WP RSS Aggregator: This allows you to fetch news articles from other sites to your WordPress site
- Flipboard: You can use this to create beautiful magazine-style news articles by ‘flipping’ news from different sources.
Conclusion
News curation is a great way to keep your audience informed about the latest news and trends. To do this effectively, you will need to use a reliable news curator. This tool will make the whole process much easier than if you curate manually. Hopefully, this guide will help you find the best news curator for your specific needs.
