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Feature Update: Standard vs Contextual Search Results

Our Hometown, Inc. — Thu, 27 Jul 2023 01:16:27 +0000

Our engineers have recently released an update that gives publishers more control over how your website’s Search Results are displayed, allowing you to toggle between “Standard” or “Contextual” search results.

So what are Standard and Contextual search results?

By default, our websites utilize Contextual Search Results. This means that when a visitor enters a term in the search box, the search results are displayed in a way that highlights the search term in the context that it is used in the article.

For example, if you search for the term “large brown dog”, your search results will display a list articles with the highest relevancy to the search term. However, the excerpt preview of each article will highlight where your search term appears within that article. In this case, an article excerpt might read something like: “… attacked by a large brown dog while jogging…”

Notice that the excerpt does not simply include the first paragraph or several sentences to the article. In fact, the excerpt may not even include a full sentence at all when using Contextual Search Results. This is because the intent is to show how the search term is relevant to each search result.

Florida Weekly uses Contextual Search Results, so each search result’s excerpt is truncated and only shows the section of the article where the search term appears.

However, Contextual Search Results are not everyone’s cup of tea, and we’ve had some requests over the years to alter the way the search results are displayed to a more traditional appearance. Our engineers were happy to accommodate this request by adding the option to revert to Standard Search Results.

Standard Search Results will still return the most relevant results to your search term, but search results will contain the actual article excerpt rather than a truncated version that highlights the search term.

The Daily Catch uses Standard Search Results, so each search result displays the full article excerpt rather than a truncated version.

Using Standard Search Results, it is possible that your search term may not appear in an article’s excerpt at all, because the excerpt generally only includes the first several sentences to an article.

You can toggle your search results between Standard and Contextual as needed — just send a support request to ops@our-hometown.com to make the change!

The post Feature Update: Standard vs Contextual Search Results first appeared on Our-Hometown.

Submit your news to Apple News

Our-Hometown Staff — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 22:56:10 +0000

A powerful way to expand your newspaper’s reach beyond your community and local readers is to submit your content to news aggregate platforms like Apple News and Google News, who will redistribute it across their networks of users. This can help improve your publication’s search engine rankings and web traffic, which in turn can help increase your advertising revenue. We wrote a post about How to Appear in Google News last summer, and we’ll go over how to set up your site for inclusion in Apple News below.

The ‘Publish to Apple News’ plugin enables WordPress sites with approved Apple News channels to publish content directly on Apple News.

Features include:

Convert your WordPress content into Apple News format automatically.
Create a custom design for your Apple News content with no programming knowledge required.
Automatically or manually publish posts from WordPress to Apple News.
Control individual posts with options to publish, update, or delete.
Publish individual posts or in bulk.
Handles image galleries and popular embeds like YouTube and Vimeo that are supported by Apple News.
Automatically adjust advertisement settings.

To enable content from your WordPress site to be published to your Apple News channel, you must obtain and enter Apple News API credentials from Apple.

1. Register as an Apple News Publisher

The first thing you’ll need to do (if you haven’t already) is Register as a Publisher with Apple News.

On this page, you’ll be asked to login with your existing Apple ID or create a new one if you don’t already have one.

(Note from Apple: The Apple ID you sign in with may or may not be your personal Apple ID. If you’re the sole publisher, you may want to use your personal Apple ID rather than create a new one just for publishing. However, if you’re part of a team—publishing content from a magazine or news site, for example—you should use an Apple ID created specifically for publishing to avoid mixing personal and business data.)

Once logged in, you’ll need to enter a channel name, upload a logo, and enter your contact information & details.

Apple has documentation available for completing this part of the process.

2. Enabling the Apple News API

Once you’ve registered as an Apple News Publisher, you’ll be given a Channel ID and some API Keys that we can use to link your website with your Apple News Publisher account to easily submit new articles.

Please contact Our-Hometown’s Support Team to enable the Apple News Plugin, and provide us with your Channel ID, the API Key and the Secret Key so that we can fill out the appropriate settings in the plugin.

Once the Apple News plugin is enabled, it can be set up to automatically submit all new Articles to Apple News, or you can manually submit only articles that you choose by marking a checkbox in the Article Editor. You’ll also find a handy new Apple News menu in the editor that includes options for publishing the article as Paid, Hidden, or Sponsored, along with settings for Maturity Rating, Cover Art, and Pull Quotes.

3. Submitting for Approval

Once you’re registered as a Publisher with Apple News and the Apple News plugin is configured on your website, you’ll need to submit your account for approval by Apple before your content will begin appearing on Apple News. You’ll need to submit at least three articles to Apple before they will approve your account.

Select at least three articles from your website and submit them to Apple News.

Once you’ve submitted three articles from your website, log back into your Apple News Publisher account page and click the “Submit for Approval” button to begin the process.

It may take several days for Apple to approve your account, but once they’ve done so, your content will begin appearing in the Apple News feeds.

If you have any questions or need any help getting started, e-mail ops@our-hometown.com at any time.

The post Submit your news to Apple News first appeared on Our-Hometown.

Asking for Help: Publisher Interview with Cecile Wehrman

Our-Hometown Staff — Wed, 13 May 2020 20:23:42 +0000

While the challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic has presented to newspapers across the country are well-documented, there has been a promising trend: communities and readers have shown that they are willing to support their local news. Cecile Wehrman, publisher of The Journal and The Tioga Tribune, recently joined Our-Hometown’s CEO Matt Larson to discuss how she’s tackled the issues her publications have faced throughout the pandemic, and how asking the community for help has paid huge dividends in the form of donations from her readers.

The full-length interview is available on our YouTube channel, but we’ll cover some of the highlights below!

1. Asking for Help & Response from Readers

Cecile has created a Donations page on JournalTrib.com that includes a message to her readers and a form that they can fill out to submit a donation. Once advertisers began dropping off, there was no sense in being “too proud” to ask for help. After all, newspapers play a critical role in keeping communities informed and, in many ways, keeping them connected — so asking the community to return the favor is nothing to be ashamed of.

Once the donations began coming in, even Cecile was surprised at how willing readers are to donate. Donations have come in both from the online form as well as from checks that readers have mailed in. She notes that many of the donations they’ve received were from customers who had renewed their subscription relatively recently, which demonstrates that readers are willing to help out despite having just recently paid their annual or monthly subscription fee. She even mentions a very generous donation offer she received from a freelance writer that contributes to the papers a few times a year.

Cecile wasn’t too aggressive in asking for help, either. Articles and editorial content have made mention of the dire situation and included a plea for help, and there is a button at the top of the website as well as at the end of articles published on the website — but it isn’t like they are bombarding readers with popups, e-mails, or phone calls. They’ve found a happy medium and the results have been encouraging.

2. Forgiveable Loans Program

Aside from asking for donations, Cecile has had to consider other changes as well in order to stay financially stable. She advocated for a forgiveable loans program in her community where businesses would be able to apply for a loan which would include ad credits they could use to promote their business in the newspapers. The program aims to help the community as a whole — from the small business, to the newspaper, to the consumer.

In the clip below, Cecile jokes how calling businesses to let them know they have ad credits to spend and discuss the best way to use that credit has made for a fun week!

Later in the interview, Cecile stresses the importance of updating revenue models now rather than waiting until it is too late. She mentions the need to market to the younger generation as a way to replace older, lifelong subscribers who are now in their 80’s and 90’s, and how the pandemic has expedited the need to consider alternative methods of generating revenue.

3. Our-Hometown’s Role

Fortunately for Cecile, we’re here to help her achieve her goals every step of the way! In the following clip, Cecile discusses how Our-Hometown’s features have helped her bring her publications to the digital age by providing HTML articles, a modern PDF viewer, web advertisements, and subscriptions that include auto-renewal options. For a fair and affordable price, Our-Hometown’s service saves Cecile time and earns her money in ways that were not possible before.

Be sure to check out the full-length interview on our YouTube channel, and e-mail ops@our-hometown.com if you have any questions or comments!

The post Asking for Help: Publisher Interview with Cecile Wehrman first appeared on Our-Hometown.

Staying Afloat During a Global Pandemic

Our-Hometown Staff — Wed, 25 Mar 2020 01:12:50 +0000

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has the potential to push many small business and local newspapers into dire financial straits. We aim to help our customers below by sharing ideas and proven methods that other publications are using to weather the storm and stay financially viable.

If you have any ideas of your own, feel free to e-mail us at ops@our-hometown.com and we’ll do whatever we can to help implement your idea.

SignalsAZ: Directory for Take-Out, Deliveries, and Specials

Our friends at SignalsAZ have created a special Directory for Take-Out, Deliveries, and Specials that readers can access to stay up to date on which local businesses are still open and what services are being offered.

They were able to sell some sponsorship ads on this page, making it a “win” for both SignalsAZ and the businesses they are informing on.

Click Here To View SignalsAZ’s Directory

FloridaWeekly: “We Are Here” COVID-19 Update Directory

FloridaWeekly.com has built a resource for their readers to gather important info about the virus itself as well as changes to area businesses and restaurants, reminding the community that they are there for them during these difficult times. Florida Weekly will seek out sponsors for this directory as well, and are also using Google AdSense to generate a few extra dollars from all of the traffic the page is expected to generate.

Click Here to View FloridaWeekly’s COVID-19 Business Updates Directory

Other Digital Revenue Opportunities

Additionally, you may be interested in some of the revenue-generating ideas discussed in our February Webinar. Many of these techniques could be used to help offset the losses suffered by fleeing advertisers or a lack of a print edition.

Click Here to View Our-Hometown’s February Webinar Recap

The post Staying Afloat During a Global Pandemic first appeared on Our-Hometown.

Five Ways Newspapers Can Deepen Their Relationships with Readers

Our Hometown, Inc. — Fri, 05 Feb 2016 15:31:42 +0000

The newspaper industry has lagged behind in terms of digital progress compared to other industries trying out the latest digital trend as it emerges. And while that has been changing as of late, there are other strengths that newspapers continue to hold such as high quality audiences, strong use of coupons, and a long-term relationship with their audience.

Editor & Publisher lists 5 ways to take these strengths and further deepen the relationship between newspaper and reader. Some of these include holding seminars on high-interest local issues, rate local businesses or even hot spots, such as hiking trails, and take knowledge of your audience and use that to better align advertising or content to their interests or needs. Newspaper reader engagement will continue to be important as local community papers focus on sustaining revenue and looking ahead to continuing to grow revenues.

The post Five Ways Newspapers Can Deepen Their Relationships with Readers first appeared on Our-Hometown.

Could Facebook Instant Articles help hyperlocal news?

Our Hometown, Inc. — Thu, 04 Feb 2016 15:32:55 +0000

While Google News and Facebook news articles have become a topic of debate amongst hyperlocal newspapers, Facebook has mostly drawn its news from the largest publications out there as they test instant articles.

The real question will become, can Facebook Instant Articles help instead of hurt hyperlocal news outlets. Local papers will have to decide if they will embrace news pulled into social media or shun it because of lost advertising revenue. Some papers are taking exposure over pageviews via social media while others are standing off waiting to see just what everyone else is doing.

The post Could Facebook Instant Articles help hyperlocal news? first appeared on Our-Hometown.

Digital priorities for publishers – a global snapshot

Our Hometown, Inc. — Thu, 28 Jan 2016 14:28:06 +0000

Different industry experts in different countries are focused on different priorities for 2016. From video content to digital marketing, increasing subscriptions to mobile speed and app usage, and the always important increasing revenue, each country has it’s own platforms and pitfalls to worry about.

The post Digital priorities for publishers – a global snapshot first appeared on Our-Hometown.

All the news that’s fit to podcast: Newspapers try out audio

Our Hometown, Inc. — Wed, 27 Jan 2016 20:36:44 +0000

Podcasts have been around forever and with the likes of Serial shining a light on the journalistic possibilities, newspapers are testing out the podcast waters. It’s an engaging media format that can be shared easily, go viral with the right content, and make money with the premium subscription services available. With the elections coming up and unexplored unsolved cases, there’s a wealth of content available in this relatively cheap medium.

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The publisher homepage is making a comeback

Our Hometown, Inc. — Tue, 26 Jan 2016 14:16:30 +0000

When was the last time a digital publisher got to have fun with their homepage? With the rise of search and social, news in consumed more by the article as it is shared online, than through a homepage gateway, the way print news is. Articles make the money and reach the audience. And because of this, publishers now have more flexibility and freedom to use their site homepages as a testing ground or as Dan Maccarone, co-found of design firm Charming Robot, put’s it, it’s a “playground for publishers to do some new fun stuff.”

Learn more about how publishers are focusing their homepage efforts on brand-building and testing at digiday.com

The post The publisher homepage is making a comeback first appeared on Our-Hometown.

Newspaper bosses ‘paralyzed’ by change, clueless about paid content, says Steve Brill

Our Hometown, Inc. — Mon, 25 Jan 2016 19:18:45 +0000

Steve Brill in 2009 (wikipedia.org)

James Warren‘s interview with Steve Brill discusses his learnings from the early days of paywalls for newspapers, and how newspapers can utilize his experience that high-quality, long-form content can increase paid subscriptions. As a veteran of the industry, Steve Brill has seen the evolution of paid online content in the news industry and believes it can lead to added revenue.

Read full article at poynter.org

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