Guide
How to start a local news website
Starting a local news website in 2026 is cheaper and faster than it has ever been, and the space left behind by closing regional papers is enormous. This is the playbook we'd give a friend: nine steps, in order, from choosing your patch to growing past one person.
Local news is one of the few corners of the internet where demand still exceeds supply. Millions of people live in places no journalist covers anymore. The council meetings go unreported, the planning applications go unnoticed, and the people doing interesting things on your high street never get asked about them.
That's the opportunity. You don't need a printing press, a developer or a newsroom. You need a patch, a masthead, a phone and a publishing rhythm. The steps below put them together.
The nine steps, in order
- 1
Choose a patch you can actually cover
The strongest local publications are narrow: a neighbourhood, a borough, a single high street. Pick somewhere you can physically walk in an afternoon. If you can't get to the story in twenty minutes, it's not your patch. Narrow beats feel small at first, but they're what make you the only person covering the stories that matter to the people who live there.
- 2
Name it like a newspaper, not a blog
Readers trust mastheads. Choose a name that sounds like it has always existed. The Sentinel, the Gazette and the Dispatch work because it signals permanence. Avoid your own name unless you're already known locally; the publication should be able to outgrow you.
- 3
Set up your publication properly, once
On Suru, your publication gets its own address (yourname.suru.cc) with a masthead, an about page and an RSS feed, all set up in minutes during onboarding. Max publishers can connect a custom domain later without moving anything. Fill in the about page honestly: who you are, what you cover, and how readers can reach you. It's the page every sceptical reader checks first.
- 4
Write your first five stories before you tell anyone
A publication with one story looks abandoned; a publication with five looks alive. Before you share the link with a single neighbour, publish a small batch: one interview, one council or planning story, one business opening, one event preview, one piece of context about the area. This is your proof of intent.
- 5
Make the interview your backbone format
National outlets can aggregate; you can't. Your advantage is access: the shopkeeper, the councillor, the founder, the artist who will actually sit down with you. A 45-minute conversation, recorded on your phone and transcribed by Suru, becomes a story no larger outlet can replicate. One good interview a week is a sustainable publishing schedule for one person.
- 6
Publish on a rhythm readers can learn
Weekly beats daily. Pick a day (many local publishers choose a weekday morning) and stick to it. Readers build habits around reliable publications, and an email follower who expects your story on Thursday morning is worth ten drive-by visitors.
- 7
Let search engines do the slow work for you
Local search is uncompetitive: nobody else is writing about your streets. Suru handles the technical side (clean URLs, story metadata, sitemaps, RSS), so your job is to name places, people and events precisely in your headlines. 'Hackney Wick venue closes' will outrank any national coverage for the people searching it, because it's the only page written for them.
- 8
Adopt standards before you need them
Decide now how you'll handle corrections, right of reply and anonymous sources, and write it down. Suru publishers sign a public editorial charter and every draft runs through a journalism check for sourcing, neutrality and verifiability before it can go live. Standards feel like overhead when you're small; in truth they are your moat.
- 9
Grow a team only when the workload demands it
Most local publications stay solo for their first year, and that's fine. When you do bring someone in, whether a contributor covering a beat you can't reach or an editor reading your copy before it goes live, give them their own login and role rather than sharing yours. On Suru Max, contributors draft privately and request review, so nothing publishes without an editor's eyes on it.
Start your publication today
Suru is free to start, with your own publication address, masthead and publishing tools included. Record your first interview this week and publish under your own name.
Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to start a local news website?
It can cost nothing to start. Suru's free plan includes your own publication address, masthead and publishing tools, so the only real investment is your time. Paid plans add a custom domain, team seats and higher usage limits when you need them.
Do I need to be a trained journalist to run a local news site?
No, but you do need to behave like one. Check every fact, name your sources, give people a right of reply, and correct errors visibly. Suru's journalism check flags sourcing, neutrality and verifiability problems in every draft, but the discipline has to be yours.
How do local news websites get readers?
Three ways, in order of importance: search (local queries are uncompetitive, so if you write about your streets precisely, you rank), email followers (Suru readers can follow your publication and get new stories by email), and word of mouth in the community you cover. Social media helps, but it's the least reliable of the three.
Can one person really run a local news publication?
Yes, if the tools do the heavy lifting. The bottleneck used to be transcription, formatting and building the website itself. Suru transcribes your interviews, drafts from your recordings, checks the journalism and publishes under your masthead. That leaves you the reporting, the editing and the relationships.
What should my first story be?
An interview with someone the neighbourhood already talks about. It's the format with the best ratio of effort to reader interest, it introduces your publication's voice, and it gives your subject a reason to share the story with everyone they know.
How often should a local news site publish?
Weekly is enough. Consistency matters far more than volume. One solid, verified story every week will build a loyal readership faster than five thin posts followed by a silent month.
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