Today, you can get news of all the happenings around the world with just a few clicks on your smartphone. Several news websites are dedicated to keep you informed and updated with the good news and provide all the updates on the latest happenings. However, when it comes to the information online, you choose only a few among the others. Have you ever wondered what makes those websites stand out among the several others?

Well, the reasons may be many and varying for different audiences. For example, some readers glue on for reliable, good quality content, while the other may also look for an appealing design or headlines or even a navigation friendly website.

In fact, factors such as sleek and simple design and easy to use navigation bar are essential things to keep in mind while designing a news website.

Here are some of the best news websites to follow in 2020 if you need the inspiration to design a news website.

CNN

CNN International has a well-structured website with a trendy and modern look. It offers news from categories that include politics, business, health, entertainment, style travel, sports etc. You can see the categories clearly on the top header section. You can also open the menu to select the niche of your choice.

The website also allows you to choose the edition of your choice among the four editions that include US, International, Arabic, Española. Scrolling through the website, you can see thumbnails of varying sizes.

The New York Times

The New York Times is a website that provides not only informative news worldwide but also has a fantastic design. The website has a clean and minimalist design with a simple homepage having only the essential elements on it, including the logo, tagline, menu and off-canvas menu with a white background. The header is static, and overall design resembles a traditional newspaper format. The website has properly categorized news into World, US, Politics, NY, Business, Opinion, Tech, Science, Health, Travel, Magazine and many more exciting categories. The ‘Editor’s Picks’ section features on the right side of the webpage. The website designers have implemented a fantastic strategy to make the content appealing.

BBC

BBC is an amazing poplar website that offers news from all over the world. The website provides an engaging layout that contains articles featuring background images on the homepage. The website has tons of attractive photos along with exciting articles. There are also exciting videos to browse through. The advert banners serve the monetization purposes for brands. There is an editor’s pick section with miscellaneous articles. What’s more attractive on the website is the featured video section. The visitors of the website have the privilege to opt for the recommended, most watched and latest video contents.

Huffington Post

The Huffington Post is quite a popular website with a well-structured content and an elegant design. The website offers a clean, straightforward design with a user interface that is easy-to-navigate. You can see a plain static banner with text on a dark background. The traditional colour scheme of dark text on a white background is used for the content. The website is a perfect example of the excellent use of a lot of whitespaces. The content is well structured with a reader-friendly layout with a grid-based content structure. The website certainly makes its content engaging with the use of beautiful imagery as thumbnails. Despite being a heavy content website, you will not see any clutter. The website also accommodates advertisements smartly without annoying the readers.

CBS News

CBS News offers genuine good quality articles about world events. Besides the content, the website provides a very modern look and feel. As soon as you visit the website, you can see a video screen that allows you to unmute and watch the news live. The website has an attractive layout, and the colours used include the black colour for fonts against a white background. The website also uses blue colour background along with red colour for the call to action buttons. The website is made more engaging with a bounteous list of video contents. The featured video covers a considerable space in the page while and the other videos that are smartly arranged using sliders. The website also has banners for advertisement purposes. It comes in different sizes – horizontal rectangle banner and standard banners. Besides, the website also features paid content promotion.

Forbes

Forbes is a clean website with a sleek and attractive design. The website opens with a simple static header with a drop-down menu. You can easily select the news category you want from the menu. The articles are structures carefully based on proper categories and hierarchy, so that you can find the article you are looking for easily. At the top of the page, you can see a web banner for paid brand promotion. The breaking news section has been highlighted using red colour and is featured just below the banner. At the right side you can get a glimpse of both the popular articles as well as the editor’s picks. So you can quickly grab news from there. Apart from attractive high-quality images and video section, the website also has exciting elements like ‘quote of the day”.

Washington Post

The Washington Post is a modern website with a simple design. The website is majorly content focused yet; the look and feel is clutter-free. The website layout is inspired by traditional newspapers and has a minimal configuration. The contents are neatly organized into columns, and you can find the categories under the “sections”. You can find news from a wide range of categories that include like Politics, Opinion, Tech, Worlds, Corona Virus, Magazine, Natural etc. The website offers a clear distinction of the content by highlighting the sub-categories. So, with so many categories, you can choose from anything you like. It also displays various sizes of web banners to offer ad spots for advertisers.

Build an ideal News Website with News-Times WordPress theme

So, now you have taken a tour of a few most popular websites. Apart from useful articles and well categorized content, the most common feature in every website is the easy to navigate sleek and straightforward design. Minimalist designs can help site visitors to find the article they are searching for with ease.

So to build an ideal news website you must create the balance right between engaging content and good designs. There are several trending WordPress News themes that lets you create amazing website. As far as design part and coding part is involved you can make a solid fully functional website using News-Times WordPress theme. The theme offers a simple clean yet modern layout with ample whitespace that is perfect for a news portal. The well-coded structure and SEO optimization ensure enhanced website performance.