Over the period of years, people have updated their way of news consumption. Right from the traditional way of morning newspapers till easy updates on their mobile phones, technology has given a new way to the news publishing industry. If you are running a news publisher and wish to expand in the digital world, you have landed at the right place. This article will help you in developing a feature-rich news app and help in boosting your revenue digitally.
As more and more people are shifting from print media to digital news sources, the competition between the online streaming platforms is also increasing. To stand out from the competition, it is essential to develop a news app that provide the listed major factors:
Comfort: Ease while browsing the news updates of their choice.
Convenience: Accessing the news in poor or bad internet connectivity.
Control: Getting updates from various desired categories rather than unwanted updates.
We all know Customer is the king. Hence, the more simplified you make content consumption for your customers, the more is the revenue growth. Here are the top 10 features you should have in your news app to keep your readers loyal and happy.
1. Easy Content Browsing Options
Imagine you want to search for important news for yourself but that isn’t a breaking news or a headline. It gets annoying if you can’t find it easily in the news app. While almost all the news apps focus on showcasing breaking news and headlines, content search and navigation is equally important. Give your users the ease of quick searching with powerful voice search options. This can work as a trump card for the audience who can’t write but can easily get their results with the voice search options. Leveraging the power of Natural Language Processing and Artificial Intelligence, discovering content by keywords, tags and trends can be done easily. Easy content discovery, easy browsing, happy customers!
2. Live TV and Video Channels options
Technology has evolved to such a level that you can now carry the whole world in your pocket and gain information with a single click. People love to consume visual content as it is impressive and interactive. News channels should maximize the content browsing prowess by utilizing
3. Offline news viewing options
Strong internet connectivity happens to be one of the necessities for several apps to function properly. However, a news app can easily lose their customers if the app stops functioning due to low or no internet connection. For providing a smart view experience even with limited internet access can allow users to consume news on-the-go and also save it. Progressive Web Apps offer the ability to access offline content without any hassle. Make sure that your news app is also a PWA. Along with this, your apps will be more powerful and easily re-engageable along with cross-browser and cross-platform compatibility.
4. Push Notifications for Every Update
Several events and incidents occur all around the world daily. The users may not be aware of them instantly if they are not using the news app. This is where push notifications play a key role in keeping the users updated all the time. It gives a chance to the users to either click on the notification and read the entire news or else stay informed with the headlines. Once the users develop the trust that they won’t miss any important updates with your news app, they will definitely stick to the app, click on your notifications, read, maybe share further in their circle and help in increasing your ROI.
5. Comfortable experience with Personalized settings
Living in the digital era has made several things easy for us, but at what cost! Spending so much time in front of the screen for work and entertainment has become a part of our daily routine. It has started affecting our eyes even if we don’t notice it instantly. Hence providing a comfortable experience to the users with the news apps has become essential.
6. Eye-catching UI/UX Design Custom Themes/ Layouts
The first impression of a user visiting your news app won’t be based on the features but on the look and feel of. Enticing interface, complimenting colors and attractive layouts can make your news app a favorite choice for the readers. Every brand needs to have a unique identity that makes it recognizable instantly. Customizing the entire news app can be a cumbersome task but there is always a way out. Integrating custom themes in the news app can be a time saving and convenient way to offer the best visually appealing interface. Sortd. provides hundreds of layouts for a highly intuitive and flexible user interface. Menu bars, home screen, articles, SSO, aggregation and personalization is thoroughly taken care of.
7. User Engagement with Comments Integration
Readers have the power to influence more visitors to your content with the help of their words. Often while reading a piece of content, we are keen to know what the audience thinks about the same and go straight to the comments section. Imagine a blog having no comments section! It is like taking away the voice of the audience. On the other hand, engaging with the readers through comments makes your content a complete package. Third-party comments integration can be easily done for any sites with Facebook, Vukkle and a few other popular options.
8. E-paper Integration
Several news sites deliver content in the traditional way of newspapers with a traditional touch. We call them E-papers. The subscription model works out well in the digital world. For example: Learning packages, visual content streaming subscriptions, software plans and what not! News sites need to have a way to sell their digital content subscriptions with various easy payment methods and manage subscriptions easily. Adding a creative touch to the regular e-papers, publications can make the most of slideshows, hyperlinks, polls, videos and more to keep the readers entertained.
9. Analytics for Monetization
Measuring performance is one of the most important factors for growth. How do you know whether your content is performing well or not? If the content isn’t performing up to expectations, what are your steps to make it better? What are your further plans for improving the content? The answer to all these questions is Analytics. It will help you in studying the user actions inside the apps, making more informed decisions and start implementing instantly. Firebase Analytics, Comscore and Web-engage are some of the analytics tools that publishers can use to monitor and enhance the performance of their content and site.
10. Content Augmentation for Better Engagement
News is essential but a wholesome user experience needs a bit more. Third party widgets can work as a great add on when it comes to keeping the users engaged, informed as well as entertained. Weather widget, sports scores widget, horoscope widget and many more of such widgets are available with easy integration and widely used in news apps. If your news app doesn’t take care of content augmentation with iframes and widgets, it is high time to get started now.
