How to post news updates on a small business website and keep it current
A news page with its last post from two years ago tells visitors the business might have closed. The fix is less about software than habit: a short post on a fixed day each month, written by one person, kept in a list the site reads from. Here's how to post news updates on a small business website with Anticode, and what it won't do.
What counts as news
Most small businesses have more news than they think, and less than a blog needs. Good material: a new service or product, a new team member, changed hours, an award you can name without overstating, a project finished for a client who agreed to be mentioned, a price change with notice, a community event you're part of, a supplier change customers will notice. Two hundred words with a photo is a complete post.
Set up the news collection once
- Create a CMS collection called
newsin the dashboard, with fields: headline (text, the entry's title), date (date), summary (text, one or two sentences), body (rich text), and photo (image). - Write two or three posts before the page goes up, so it doesn't open empty.
- Add the news to the site. Ask in a sentence: "add a Latest news section to the home page showing the three newest posts from the news collection". The collection also gets its own pages:
/news/lists every post and each one has/news/<slug>. - Publish and read a post on a phone.
The monthly routine
- First Monday of the month
- The writer collects one or two items from the team: a short message in the team chat asking "anything worth telling customers?"
- Tuesday
- Writes the post in the dashboard: headline, summary, body, photo. Twenty to forty minutes.
- Tuesday, before saving
- A second person reads it for names, dates, prices and anything a client hasn't cleared.
- Tuesday, after saving
- The post is on
/news/at once. Publish the site again so the home page's latest-news section includes it. - Same week
- Share it from your own social accounts and, if it matters to customers, in your newsletter.
Monthly is a pace most small teams keep. If you only manage quarterly, say nothing about frequency on the page and keep the posts specific; four good posts a year beat twelve thin ones.
Writing a post people read
- Put the news in the headline: "Saturday opening from March" rather than "Exciting changes ahead".
- Answer who, what, when and what it means for the reader in the first two sentences.
- Use a real photo: the new van, the new colleague at work, the finished kitchen.
- End with one action, if there is one: book, call, visit.
Plain limits, stated up front
Anticode has no blog engine as such. CMS collections hold posts well, but there are no comments, no RSS feed, no scheduled posts, no categories or tags pages beyond the fields you add, and no automatic email of new posts to subscribers. That's often fine for a business news page. If readers want updates by email, add a newsletter sign-up and send a short note from Kit or Mailchimp when you post; Anticode doesn't email your list. If you need publishing on a timer, someone has to save and publish on the day.
What goes wrong
| Problem | Fix |
|---|---|
| The page goes quiet | One named writer, one calendar slot, and a fallback topic list |
| Old posts mention prices or staff that changed | Don't delete them; add a line at the top saying what's changed since |
| The home page shows last month's post | Publish again after saving a new entry |
| A client objects to being named | Edit or remove the entry at once; ask before naming anyone next time |
How you know it's working
The newest post is never more than about five weeks old. Customers mention things they read there. And over a few months, the site's views from search and AI assistants, counted per site in the dashboard, hold steady or grow as the archive of posts builds up.
Questions people ask
Do I need a blog for a news section on a website?
No. A CMS collection of posts, shown on a news page and in a home page section, does the job for most small businesses.
Can visitors comment on news posts?
No. There are no comments. Invite replies by email or on your social accounts.
Can I schedule a post for next week?
No. There's no scheduling. Write it as a draft in your own documents and add it on the day.
Is there an RSS feed for news posts?
No. People who want updates can join your newsletter instead.