Herald – Newspaper & News Portal WordPress Theme

A blog is chronological, a portal is sectioned, and they are nothing alike

It is the real difference between a blog theme and a news portal theme, and it decides whether your publication can grow or stays small.

A blog shows the latest at the top, and works while you publish about one thing. The moment you start covering three or four areas, the chronological homepage becomes a jumble: whoever comes for business news wades through three culture pieces before finding theirs, and ends up leaving.

A portal divides the homepage into sections with lives of their own: each block has its lead headline, its secondary items and its own rhythm. Herald is built for that, for news portals and magazines with several areas.

What it contributes

• Portal structure, with section blocks for assembling the homepage.
• Responsive design that behaves properly on desktop, tablet and phone.
• A magazine approach, as well as a newspaper one.

The advertising slots get decided now, not later

It is what hardly anybody thinks about when choosing a news theme, and it is where a publication's money comes from.

A portal lives on advertising, and where the adverts fit is determined by the layout you choose. If you build the homepage leaving no gaps, adding them later means rearranging everything and the result shows.

The ones that pay are few and well known: the large block under the lead headline, the sticky sidebar that follows the reader down, and the one between paragraphs inside the article. That last one pays most and annoys most, and there sits the balance of the whole business.

Because there is a clear limit: a publication that loads slowly and fills with jumping adverts loses the traffic that feeds it. Google measures the page's visual stability, and an advert that appears late and shifts the text you were reading penalises twice, in ranking and in readers who do not come back. The practical rule is reserving the advert's space from the moment the page loads, even if the advert is slow.

Requirements

It needs WordPress. The search plugin, the ad manager and the cookie consent manager come separately, and all three are needed on a real publication.

How to start

One. Define the sections before touching the homepage. Four well fed are worth more than twelve empty.

Two. Decide the advertising slots in the initial layout, even if you sell nothing yet.

Three. Measure the homepage on a phone using mobile data, not on fibre. That is where most of your readers will be.

Four. Look after the article page more than the homepage. It is where almost everybody enters.

Alternatives in the catalogue

The sector's most complete is JNews, and it is the one most seen on high-volume publications. DelikWP is lighter, Fabula allows for paid content and ColorMag Pro leans towards the classic magazine.

If your publication covers sport, do not use a generic theme: The League brings a scoreboard, tables and fixtures, which is precisely the content most visited in that niche.

And one piece that pays back more than changing design if you publish current affairs: Yoast News SEO adds the news sitemap and the markup Google News needs to treat you as a publication.

Frequently asked questions

How does it differ from a blog theme?
It organises the homepage by section rather than by date, which is what allows covering several areas.

Does it bring an ad manager?
No. It leaves the slots according to the layout; the ad manager is a separate plugin.

How many sections should there be?
Few, and with content. A section updated once a month subtracts.

Do adverts hurt search rankings?
The ones that shift the text as they load, yes. Their space has to be reserved from the start.

Is it suitable for a magazine as well as news?
Yes, it is designed for both formats.

Which page needs most care?
The article page. Most readers land directly there without passing through the homepage.