Define the publication and coverage
List the audiences, reporting areas and recurring sections the publication actually supports. A local newsroom, a specialist magazine and an individual journalist may need different archive and navigation structures. Avoid adding empty sections simply to make a new publication look larger.
Identify the formats that will be published: articles, interviews, galleries, video or event information. The publishing tools should support these formats without requiring an editor to rebuild layouts for each story.
Treat the article as the core product
Plan headlines, summaries, authorship, publication dates, images, captions and related coverage. An article should be readable on a phone, with a clear route back to its section or author. Test long headlines, several images and updated stories as well as a short sample.
Decide how corrections and material updates are shown. Article dates should reflect real publication and substantive changes. Readers need context for what they are reading, not a date that changes automatically whenever the website is built.
Build an archive that supports returning readers
Sections, topic pages, author pages and search can help readers find reporting beyond the homepage. Agree how stories are categorised and how topics are maintained. A large tag list without editorial ownership can become difficult for both readers and staff to use.
Link related reporting where the connection is useful. The archive should make a publication’s body of work accessible rather than burying everything after the newest story arrives.
Plan editorial roles and media handling
Define who can draft, edit, approve and publish. Agree how images are prepared, credited and stored, and what happens when a journalist leaves the team. Permissions and handover need to match the actual newsroom workflow.
Test previewing, scheduled publishing if required, corrections and recovery from a mistaken update. These operations are part of the platform scope; they should not be assumed because a demonstration includes an article editor.
Choose reader services deliberately
Advertising, newsletters, donations, memberships and subscriptions need different tools. Decide which revenue and reader journeys are required at launch, then map provider fees, access and support responsibilities. Keep the reading experience in view when planning placements.
A newsletter link is not a complete subscription workflow, and a paywall design is not a working membership system. Scope the full journey from signup or payment through access, cancellation and staff administration.
Set realistic launch and search expectations
Review crawlable article content, canonical URLs, useful internal links and metadata that describes the visible story. These foundations support discovery, but a website provider cannot promise inclusion in a news product or a particular search ranking.
Start with a launch plan the newsroom can maintain. W3WIZZ scopes publishing platforms separately from small business websites, with the editorial workflow, archive and reader-service requirements agreed before development.