Customise and embed your newsroom on your website
The Hosted Newsroom allows you to place your Mynewsdesk newsroom on your own website without needing high-level programming skills. This means you can publish material through Mynewsdesk, while having that content instantly visible on your own website too. Please be aware that one Newsroom can only be shown on one domain. If you want to be able to show your newsroom on multiple domains, check out our API service instead.
The Hosted Newsroom can be set up in three different ways:
1. Subdomain only
2. Embedding only
3. Subdomain + Embedding together
Essentially, this method allows you to create a subdomain on your own website, on which your Mynewsdesk newsroom can be mirrored. You maintain the content for both newsrooms from your Mynewsdesk dashboard; all material will instantly be published in both places.
Setting up your subdomain (through a CNAME point) is done through “Advanced Settings” under the Hosted Newsroom section.
Firstly, a subdomain for your Mynewsdesk newsroom is set up automatically on mynewsdesk.com before your Hosted Newsroom is implemented. By default, this subdomain will be yourcompany.mynewsdesk.com, but you can personalise it if needed. The material is indexed under the top domain mynewsdesk.com.
To implement your Hosted Newsroom, you'll first need to access the administrative settings of your website’s domain name. If you are not the administrator for your domain name or website, you might have to ask a technician with administrative access to help set this up. Decide on a subdomain of your site (e.g. newsroom.yourcompany.com). Then create a CNAME record for that subdomain and have that point to www.mynewsdesk.com.
Enter the subdomain you’ve decided upon in the corresponding field in the Hosted Newsroom settings and click Save.
Once your CNAME record/ subdomain is set, the material you publish through Mynewsdesk will be indexed under your company’s domain. Click on Show Hosted Newsroom to check if it works!
The customisation options for a subdomain Hosted Newsroom are slightly limited. While you cannot add the header and footer of your own website to the subdomain Hosted Newsroom, you can change fonts, colours of the text and background to match your company’s graphic profile. This can be found under the "design" tab.
Also you can add your own CSS to the Hosted Newsroom. The subdomain Hosted Newsroom will always be responsive, meaning that it can be viewed seamlessly on desktops, laptops, tablets, or smartphones.
Going with this option is a good idea if you have limited web developer resources or have a website where regulations forbid you from using a javascript. This option will also ensure that any SEO efforts directed at your newsroom’s content will benefit your website too.
Setting up a new subdomain is usually a very simple task, but can only be done by someone who has access to the website’s domain settings. It can take up to an hour for the changes to go live, so there may be some waiting involved here. However, simply creating a subdomain and pointing it to www.mynewsdesk.com should only take a few minutes. Please note that depending on settings and domain provider it can take some time (usually about an hour) before the changes take effect.
The embedding option allows you to embed your newsroom on your own website site and customise its design fully to match your company’s graphic profile; i.e. you can add your own header, footer, menu, colours, or even a custom CSS. The hosted newsroom will look like it’s fully integrated with your own website, even though it technically is not.
The embedding option is done with a javascript and is essentially a window to another site (your newsroom on mynewsdesk.com) directly visible on your own website. Your website itself will not control the content of the newsroom. The material published in your newsroom will only be indexed on mynewsdesk.com, meaning that the newsroom you see on your own website will not be indexed by search engines.
To implement, you have to go through the four steps in the Hosted Newsroom settings.These steps require administrative access to your website, as well as access to its server settings. If you do not have access to either of these, your webmaster or web administrator should be able to help.
First, download the helper.html file and upload that to the server that contains your website. The helper file must be on the same domain as where you will implement the javascript. This can be done by an ftp program or using git, depending on how your website’s maintenance is set up. The helper file and its address are essential for letting the Mynewsdesk site communicate with your website.
Second, enter the url to the helper.html file (the location of where you’ve placed the file on your own site, e.g. http://www.yourcompany.com/helper.html). This step is crucial for making the Hosted Newsroom work properly. You can test if the url is correct by copy-pasting it to a new browser window. If the file is correct you should not be redirected and you’ll see a completely white page.
Once this is done, copy the script in step three and paste it on your website, on the exact page and location where you want the Hosted Newsroom to be placed.
Finally, copy the URL of that page into the field in step four. This will ensure that external links (for example shared links through social media) will redirect to the page where your Hosted Newsroom is embedded
When you can see the newsroom on your website, make sure you don’t see any white space at the bottom of the newsroom (that will mean that something has gone wrong!). Also, click on a release in the newsroom and make sure that the url changes from www.yourcompany.com/newsroom to www.yourcompany.com/material_type/name-of-the release. If it does, all is good, and you can start customising the design!
Going through the four steps detailed above will take a web administrator anything from fifteen minutes to an hour, depending on their level of expertise.
By using both of these methods simultaneously, customers can get the best of both worlds. Implement the subdomain method first, then the embedding option. The material will be indexed under your subdomain. Google search results for your newsroom’s content will link to the CNAME/subdomain which will automatically redirect to the javascript, allowing visitors to your website see the fully integrated newsroom.
Choosing the subdomain option alone will always give you a responsive newsroom. Choosing the embedding option will give you a responsive newsroom if your website is currently responsive. If it is not, or if you do not want it to be responsive, you can place the newsroom in a div with a set pixel width, and the newsroom will not be responsive.