How to Create a

Stunning Web

Magazine

WordPress Publishing Technology Review

www.presspadnews.com

Digital Publishing has been changing since original iPad

announcement. What is digital publishing today, what’s the role of

WordPress publishing and web magazines, and how to grasp it for

your own convenience? In this publication you will get the recipe

from the publishing technology point of view.

By Wojtek Szywalski, VP of Biz Dev

www.presspadnews.com

Table of content

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Introduction

How publishers perceive digital publishing concept

Web magazine website for modern publishers

WordPress for web magazine publishers

What does managed WordPress hosting mean?

Plugins and themes for publishers

Plugins every publisher should know about

Comet Cache

WordPress SEO by Yoast

AMP Plugin

Design resources every publisher should know about

Design Mockups

Royalty Free Photos

News Apps for WordPress

Mobile app vs Responsive Web Design

How to apply this to your publishing enterprise?

Today’s magazine publishers are much more aware of digital

marketing and marketing concepts of AARRR sales funnel,

engagement and conversions. These concepts pave the way under

usage of digital publishing tools in the modern publishing

enterprise.

A multiplatform digital network including web magazine, social

networks and mobile apps is not a surprise anymore.

Let’s see why.

1. How publishers perceive digital publishing concept While just few years ago people perceived mobile apps as the gate to instant wealth,

today magazine apps play the main role on specifically defined levels of the sales

funnel. And this is not always about pure monetization through the in-app sales.

Sometimes mobile apps monetize the indirect way in the longer time horizon.

For example publishers with magazines in print circulation can offer a digital version

as an addition to their print subscription. The magazine app provides 1 to 1 digital

replica and it is a great way to create a stunning magazine subscription offer.

In this example print magazine subscribers get digital access as an option. Reading

anywhere, anytime on digital devices creates subliminal perception of bulk bargain in

subscriber’s mind. And we all like bulk bargains don’t we?

— Who can walk away without paying attention to “buy 1 get one free” label?

In fact online customers are more demanding than the real world shoppers, and it is

challenging to keep them engaged. Sales window becomes very short. That’s why

adding more value to the subscription offer is so important these days.

2. Web magazine website for modern publishers Apps and subscription offers don’t hang in vacuum. Modern publishers including

magazines such as New Yorker use full ecosystem of the content carriers to distribute

its content. This multiplatform approach to publishing utilizes various distribution

channels such us:

● Websites

● Social media

● Streaming video

● Mobile apps

● Blogs

● Newsstands

● Emails

According to Mequoda It pays out because that’s how brands build awareness among

their target users using recycled (or repurposed) content that vibes exactly at the

chosen distribution channel.

“When you recycle a magazine into apps, blog posts, videos, emails and events it makes sounds too: the sounds of web traffic rushing at you. The sound of social chatter and ultimately, ad or product revenue.” — Don Nicholas, Mequoda.

However the magazine’s website plays the very important role of this ecosystem. It lies

in the epicenter of the whole enterprise. Publisher possess the full control of the

brand over their website, unlike the brand page on Facebook.

Well designed website builds credibility, it allows to catch leads and direct people to

the deeper parts of the sales funnel. Finally it drives traffic to the subscription offer

and other products. In the nutshell, online success of the publishing enterprise starts

right there on the website.

3. WordPress for web magazine publishers WordPress is among the most popular content management systems (CMS) on the

world. They claim to power 27% of the entire Internet. User friendliness and ease of

use makes WordPress very popular web publishing platform among not only bloggers

but modern publishers too. Good examples of magazine publishers who chose to use

WordPress as their web publishing engine are Inc.com, WIRED, The New Yorker or

niche Mens Fashion Magazine.

What’s great about WordPress CMS it’s open source software and that means it’s free.

You can download the latest version on the WordPress.org page.

What will you need to install WordPress? A web server (a virtual private server is

enough) from reliable web hosting provider, and basic knowledge of the PHP scripting

language.

When it comes to choose a web hosting, there is one more tempting option and it’s

called a managed WordPress hosting.

3.1. What does managed WordPress hosting mean?

Dealing with traditional hosting providers can be tricky. Even technical savvy people

sometimes get a hard time during configuration of their server. Managed WordPress

hosting is different. They optimize servers for WordPress, and preinstall the software

themselves. In the nutshell, it means that all technical things related to server

management are on the hosting provider. These includes:

● Server configuration

● Performance management including server side caching

● WordPress updates

● Hacking protection

● Dedicated support

● Staging

● Help with migration

● Easy to use control panel

In this case publisher has to set up basic configuration and that’s it. That’s why

managed WordPress hosting is very popular among designers. No distraction from the

technical side of “The Force” means they can focus on content.

4. Plugins and themes for publishers

WordPress is the whole universe of plugins, design themes and addons that enable full

customisation of the web magazine. How the final website will look and feel is up to

the publisher. Most of the WordPress plugins are one-click to install and very easy to

manage. The same goes for design themes.

There are thousands of great looking themes and useful plugins. Publisher is capable

to have their WordPress installation customized thanks to proper composition of the

premium theme or hundreds of free themes with relevant plugins that add more

functions (i.e. social sharing buttons, speed optimization, image compression etc.) to

the standard WordPress installation.

4.1. Plugins every publisher should know about

Are you ready to use WordPress for your publication, or perhaps you’re going to

redesign your existing WordPress theme? Despite your motivation for sure you’ll find

below resources useful.

Everyone has their own preferred WordPress plugins. I chose these plugins because

they improve speed and optimize site content towards the search engine.

4.1.1 Comet Cache

Enable caching to speed up your WordPress website

If you’re not familiar with website catching or HTTP caching do not worry. This plugin

implements the temporary storage (caching) of web content, such as HTML pages and

images, to reduce server load, and perceived lag. This is a step towards returning

visitors who will instantly get your page loaded.

Install this Comet Cache plugin to speed up your site with an intelligent cache system.

4.1.2. WordPress SEO by Yoast

Improve Search Engine Optimization of your WordPress site

Managing technical SEO has never been easier. With this plugin you’ll be able to take

care of many SEO aspects.

These are: keywords matching, titles management, breadcrumbs and sitemaps. If

these concepts sound a bit weird, you shall no worries. Yoast plugin has been created

by the world class SEO experts and one of the best SEO educators.

They made sure to secure high quality knowledge base. Everything is well explained

and documented. What’s more this SEO plugin really works; it improves not only your

search result page ranking but also quality of your content.

Install this WordPress SEO plugin to improve your position on Google.

4.1.3. AMP Plugin

Enable Accelerated Mobile Pages on your WordPress site

Have you ever heard about AMP? If not it’s about time to build knowledge on this field.

AMP technology doesn’t duplicate content but makes its loading on mobile devices

insanely fast. On Reddit AMP pages load between 7 and 30 times faster.

With this AMP plugin active, all posts on your site will have dynamically generated

AMP-compatible versions, accessible by appending /amp/ to the end your post URLs.

Here is a live example of AMP page on PressPad blog.

Install this AMP WordPress plugin to enable Accelerated Mobile Pages at your site.

4.2. Design resources every publisher should know about

Free doesn’t necessarily mean poor quality. In fact there are free resources for

designers and which can be used for commercial projects.

4.2.1. Design Mockups

10 free PSD mockups and scene creators for designers

These PSD bundles from Flywheel provides a large group of movable, single objects for

designers. It makes arranging pre set scenes and mockups fast and easy to do. That’s

definitely a timesaver for your fellow designer.

Explore PSD mockups for your web design inspiration.

4.2.2. Royalty Free Photos

1000+ Beautiful and Free Photos from Unsplash

All photos published on Unsplash are licensed under Creative Commons Zero which

means you can copy, modify, distribute and use the photos for free, including

commercial purposes, without asking permission from or providing attribution to the

photographer or Unsplash. Sounds great?

Explore collections of the beautiful free photos ready for commercial use.

Photographers provide amazing curated photos through Unsplash. There are

thousands of photos covering many various walks of life including photos for parent

bloggers and photos for lifestyle bloggers .

4.2.3. News Apps for WordPress for better users retention

When was the last time you thought how to make people come back to your website? Well, there is a good moment to think about that.

Statistics say that over 50% of website visitors never come back. It’s challenging to win

their attention in the era of Facebook and Snapchat.

Fortunately there are techniques that help sort out this situation. According to

research by Localytics “Push Notifications lift retention rates”. That’s not a surprise,

because your readers sometimes don’t even realise they are missing you.

Our own study shows that push notifications has a potential to increase in-app

transactions even for 300%.

For sure push notifications increase engagement.

— How?

Sent from the app’s dashboard they pop up a message at the reader’s mobile device.

This action is usually accompanied with a sound or vibration. How not to check what’s

this message is all about, and tap on it?

Since you may be asking yourself:

— is it for me?

— is it worth my time?

Let me provide few hints about PressPad News, the mobile news app designed for

WordPress publishers. Here is what you can achieve with PressPad News:

● You can connect your website to own News app — get your demo app for trial. ● You’ll be able to push Notifications to your readers’ mobile devices — even if

the app is not running at the moment.

● You can use an ad banner in your News app — fascinating new monetization

opportunity.

● You’ll get detailed analytics of readership — what works where and when for

you and your advertisers.

5. Mobile app vs Responsive Web Design

If you’re thinking whether “News” app is better than responsive design please don’t get

confused. I’ll put it straightforward: these are two different, complementary

technologies.

According to eMarketer “ Most smartphones users in the US shell out money for an app

because it has content they want “. While responsive design let new visitors experience

your brand in a proper manner on the go, the branded “News” app attracts the

returning one.

WordPress is a great platform for publishers because it comes with so many

extensions. Plugins, easy to install responsive themes and mobile apps significantly

increasing its value.

The branded mobile app for WordPress has ability to stimulate loyalty building and

pulling its users deeper in the sales funnel. Many popular brands don’t make choice

between responsive web design and branded mobile apps. They just use both

technologies to improve mobile users retention and brand awareness.

For example, brands like Amazon, Youtube and Buzzfeed have both: a Mobile App and

a Responsive web because they plays different role in their marketing strategy.

6. How to apply this to your publishing enterprise? Executing ideas is one of the most important thing both in life and in business. If you

are new to WordPress I would say that it’s essential to find a reliable web hosting

provider.

The other step would be customizing your WordPress installation. This is definitely a

step by step process. From adding a new design Theme to installing all the must have

plugins.

Connecting WordPress to your own news app would be probably the last but not least

step on your list. It has potential to greatly improve engagement rate of your content

and retention to your website.

I hope that this e-book put more light on the multiplatform publishing and WordPress

role in this concept.

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