News links to other sites are informative, but they actually lead clients away from your site, and offer no guarantees that the clients will return. But by providing a news ticker that scrolls headlines vertically or horizontally on your own Web site instead, you can actually encourage visitors to come to your site and to return regularly.

A news ticker can:

• Provide useful information for specialized clients

News tickers allow business people to get breaking news related to their specific fields of interest through a minimal investment of time.

The Third Alarm Ticker on the Chief Supply Corp. Web site "offers our visitors some niche stories that they might find interesting" says Webmaster John Procopio. The ticker focuses on news stories of interest to firefighters, police officers, and emergency medical personnel, the primary customers of Chief Supply Corp.

• Give clients both specialized and general a reason to visit your site and return

They’ll find it quicker and more efficient to obtain national and international headlines there. "7am offers content in the form of news and information, which will attract visitors to a site, make them stay longer and encourage them to return regularly," notes Lynette Molyneaux, marketing manager at 7am, a distributor of news tickers to Web sites. "Our offerings help Webmasters add that essential ingredient ‘stickiness’ to a Web site."

A satisfied 7am user agrees. "Because our sites contain so many pages and cover several communities, we have used the tickers on each site to direct readers to new features like an historical booklet that we recently scanned and published online," says Allan Dean. Dean publishes "Atlantic Highlands Herald," a weekly electronic newsletter that contains links to ten community Web sites. Each Web site has a 7am news ticker. He notes, "although I have no specific numbers, there was a spike in visitors the month the booklet was introduced."

• Enhance the appearance of your site

Although the content of your site may remain unchanged from day to day, the ticker’s updated news gives your page a fresh look and a professional appearance.

Background and text colors often can be changed to coordinate with your page. Sometimes you can also change the ticker speed, text size, and text font.

"In general, they (tickers) are easy to integrate," claims Adam Menzel, chief operating officer of Java Ticker. "They are aesthetically pleasing and draw people’s eyes to the site. They are functional."

• Validate the credibility of your site.

Dean says that the news ticker "lends credibility to our local news reports because [these reports] are on the same ticker as the instantly recognizable CNN, Boston Globe, Washington Post, and Sporting News."

A variety of news tickers provide general and specialized information about everything from international news to stock quotes to fish. Although the tickers give only news headlines, a click on a headline will transfer the reader to the full story. With tickers such as Web Ticker, the news story will open in a new window so that clients stay at your site.

You can customize the content of many tickers to tailor the news more specifically to your clients’ needs, thereby saving them even more time. You also can add local news headlines.

"We use the four allotted local slots on each of the eleven 7am.com news tickers we maintain for local news headlines and links to the Herald Newsletter Archives for each of our Community sites," explains Dean. "It personalizes the experience for our visitors who are, for the most part, local residents."

Some news tickers, such as 7am, update their headlines throughout the day, while more specialized tickers, such as Aviation News, update weekly, or as news warrants.

The good news is that many news tickers don’t cost a thing. Free news tickers, however, usually include some advertising. Check to see if a given ticker offers you the ability to screen out the ads of competitors.

If you want an ad-free news ticker, you’ll probably have to pay for it. Java Ticker, for example, offers three different tickers with monthly or annual fees. The first, called Java Ticker, provides quotes for stocks that you select. News Ticker offers news on companies that you select, and Investor Ticker gives both news and stock quotes for your selected companies.

Ticker                    Monthly Fee           Annual Fee

Java Ticker                $250                      $2,500

News Ticker              $225                      $2,250

Investor Ticker           $300                      $3,000

Menzel says that Java Ticker’s clients prefer to pay for specialized information rather than use free tickers that contain advertising and offer less flexibility when customizing content.

A news ticker is easy to install. Some companies have HTML code printed on their sites; all you have to do is copy it and paste it on your Web page. Other companies offer an installation wizard to help you set up the ticker, or they may send you the code via email.

Many companies offering news tickers require you to register with them so they may update you on any changes. Also, some companies do not want their tickers placed on adults-only sites or on sites unrelated to the focus of the ticker. The Star Trek News Ticker, for example, makes itself available only to Web sites dealing with Star Trek or speculative fiction.

You will have to spend some time online to learn what tickers are available. Using your favorite search engine, search for "News Tickers." If you want a ticker on a certain topic, try a Boolean search, for example: "News tickers AND magic."

For a quick introduction to some available news tickers, check: http://kresch.com/resources/Content/News_Tickers/newstickers.html This site provides links to news tickers that offer national and international news, plus news about motorcycles, Star Trek, and other specialized subjects.

Some news ticker services offer different channels. Artigen’s channels include infotech, world, scitech, health, Far East, Mideast, biz, music, and coolsite. 7am news ticker channels include sports news, New Zealand news, magic, Christian news, and good news stories from around the world. Both tickers allow you to add local news headlines.

Although news tickers operate in similar ways, each has its own special features. News Index allows you to personalize your ticker to retrieve headlines on specific subjects such as chemical weapons and nuclear power.

News tickers like the one operated by American Motorcycle Network incorporate the names of sites that use their ticker, into the ticker itself. Each site is promoted on other sites using the ticker.

7am News Ticker 

Artigen 

NewsClicker.com 

News Harvester 

Radio Ticker 

SelfPage 

Web Ticker News 

ZIPTICK News Ticker 

Some of the above tickers offer several channels with more specialized news.

ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corp.) Science News 

AlphaConnect Java Stick Ticker 

American Motorcycle Headline News Service 

Affiliate Wire News Ticker 

Aviation News Ticker 

Buffet News Ticker 

Christian News Ticker 

E-Commerce Times News 

Fish Ticker 

India Ticker 

JavaTicker.com 

News Index Customized News Tickers 

Pipeline 

Sportz Nutz Ticker 

Star Trek News Ticker 

Third Alarm News Ticker 

UniSci Daily Java News Ticker 

World Soccer News 

If your search doesn’t turn up a specialized ticker, contact a general news ticker service. Some, like 7am, will try to accommodate a customer by creating tickers on specific subjects.

Procopio has found that the content of some tickers is too general. He believes news tickers will become more niche-oriented as Webmasters target their clients with increasingly specialized information.

Keep your clients in mind as you search for a news ticker that will enhance the credibility and appeal of your Web site. If you can supply the general as well as specialized news and information they need, they’ll return to your site again and again.