013News is a regional online newspaper covering the Mpumalanga region in South Africa, publishing timely, relevant news across categories. Through WeDev.Africa’s strategic partnership with MfisoMedia, this project showcases the impact of purpose-built news platforms — offering insights for Isle of Man publishers and community-based outlets looking to elevate their digital offerings through dependable development and ongoing technical care.
013News is a digital news platform based in the Mpumalanga region of South Africa, delivering regional news and information to a growing online audience. WeDev.Africa — the predecessor of RubyWeb — entered into a long-standing strategic partnership with MfisoMedia (the publisher of 013News) in 2016 to provide complete design, development, and technical support services for the website.
The core objective was to build and maintain a high-performing online newspaper that prioritises speed, reliability, and accessibility — ensuring users can quickly access breaking news and in-depth reporting across categories. This partnership reflects the kind of long-term, quality-focused development work relevant to digital publishers in the Isle of Man and beyond.
The development work on 013News came with unique technical and editorial requirements:
Dynamic Content Rendering: The site needed to display articles dynamically by category and publication date, which required a fully custom landing page built with over 4,000 lines of code.
Human-Readable Timestamps: Instead of showing standard date formats, the client requested the site display time-relative information (e.g., “2 hours ago”, “3 days ago”) — improving reader experience and freshness perception.
High-Traffic Resilience: As a live news site, performance and speed were crucial. The website needed to handle traffic spikes while maintaining optimal load times.
Ongoing Maintenance: Given the nature of news publishing, frequent updates, bug fixes, and optimisations were necessary to keep the site stable and secure.
Search Engine Visibility: A strong SEO foundation was required to ensure articles could be discovered easily by readers via search engines.
Custom Web Development
Designed and built a tailored WordPress news platform optimised for publishing speed and editorial ease-of-use.
Developed a completely custom landing page capable of dynamically sorting and displaying articles by category and “time since published” using bespoke code architecture.
Implemented a clear and accessible category-based navigation structure to help users find relevant news easily.
Performance & SEO Optimisation
Integrated advanced on-site SEO techniques including schema markup for articles, alt-tag optimisation, metadata configuration, and structured URL hierarchies.
Applied best-practice caching, lazy loading, and image optimisation to ensure fast load times even during traffic surges.
Continuously monitored and improved Core Web Vitals to maintain visibility in Google search results and provide the best possible reading experience.
Ongoing Support & Maintenance
Provided long-term technical support, including bug fixes, plugin updates, and performance enhancements to ensure the site’s reliability.
Worked closely with MfisoMedia’s editorial team to implement design tweaks, accommodate new content sections, and maintain editorial consistency across devices.
Robust, Scalable Platform: The site evolved into a reliable, high-performing news destination for readers in Mpumalanga.
Enhanced Reader Experience: The dynamic loading of articles and relative time displays improved usability and audience engagement.
Optimised for Discoverability: On-page SEO improvements helped the site rank for local and regional news topics in search engines.
Long-Term Value: The collaboration between WeDev.Africa and MfisoMedia established a sustainable digital infrastructure capable of supporting growth and editorial expansion.
RubyWeb is a trusted web design agency based in the Isle of Man, proudly serving businesses in Douglas, Ramsey, Peel, Castletown, and surrounding areas. We specialize in custom digital solutions that combine creativity, strategy, and the latest technology to build websites that connect with your audience, inspire action, and support long-term growth.
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