Build a fully automated AI-powered news website using WordPress, Make.com, and ChatGPT. Learn step-by-step to automate writing, design, and publishing.

The digital publishing landscape is being reshaped by automation. The process of running a news website—which traditionally demands relentless effort in research, writing, editing, and graphic design—can now be achieved on complete autopilot. By leveraging powerful AI models and strategic no-code automation platforms, it is entirely possible to create a functional, beautifully designed, and self-publishing news portal.

This comprehensive article details the complete, step-by-step methodology for constructing a fully automated news website, covering domain acquisition, professional hosting setup, site design, and a sophisticated automation workflow that handles research, content generation, image creation, and final publishing. This system is demonstrated using the niche of local news for the island of Malta, but the principles are universally applicable to any topic or location.

Part 1: Establishing the Digital Foothold

A successful automated news website begins with a solid foundation: a memorable brand, a reliable host, and a robust content management system.

Naming and Domain Acquisition

The brand name must be simple, unique, and relevant to the niche. Utilizing an advanced language model (LLM) like ChatGPT is the fastest way to generate a list of creative, SEO-optimized brand names. By prompting the AI to generate a list of "100 simple, short, unique, and easy-to-pronounce brand names for a local news website based in Malta," a wealth of viable options can be quickly reviewed.

Once a name is selected (in this case, Malta Roads), the domain should be purchased. It is generally recommended to use a specialized domain registrar like Namecheap for domain purchases rather than bundling the domain with the hosting provider. This separation ensures independence and makes future migration to different hosting services (like DigitalOcean or others) much easier. The domain is purchased for a low cost, typically around $10 for a .com extension.

Professional Hosting and WordPress Setup

For hosting the website, a reputable service like SiteGround is chosen, prioritizing performance and reliability over minimal cost.

The setup process involves:

1. Adding a New Website: Choosing the purchased domain and selecting the option to Start a New Website.
2. CMS Installation: Selecting WordPress as the Content Management System (CMS). WordPress is the industry standard for content publishing due to its flexibility and vast plugin ecosystem.
3. Pointing the Domain: The crucial step of transferring domain control involves copying the nameservers provided by the hosting service (SiteGround) and pasting them into the Custom DNS settings within the domain registrar's control panel (Namecheap). After a brief propagation period (10–20 minutes), the new website becomes accessible.

Initial WordPress Configuration and Design Tools

Upon accessing the new WordPress site, essential configurations are made to establish the site’s identity and preparation for design:

1. Site Identity: The website title is changed to Malta Roads. A compelling, SEO-optimized tagline is generated using ChatGPT—for example, "Malta's trusted source for local news, weather, and events"—and added to the site settings.
2. Page Builder: A high-performance page builder is installed to handle the design. Bricks Builder is an excellent, premium option known for its speed, but free alternatives like Elementor or Divi can also be used. A good page builder is essential for creating complex, custom designs without writing code.

Part 2: Structuring Content for Design and SEO

Before commencing the design, the structure of the content must be prepared. This provides the necessary framework for the page builder and ensures the design integrates seamlessly with actual content.

Generating SEO-Optimized Categories

Effective news publishing relies on clear, hierarchical content organization. Categories must be relevant, broad enough to house many articles, and optimized for search engines.

1. AI Brainstorming: ChatGPT is used to generate a comprehensive list of single-word blog post categories suitable for a news website.
2. Selection and Refinement: Categories are selected based on relevance to the Maltese niche, resulting in a balanced set, including Politics, Business, Economy, Finance, Technology, Science, Environment, Education, Media, Culture, Sports, Lifestyle, Travel, and Food.
3. Category Creation: These categories are systematically added to the WordPress system.

Populating with Example Posts

To ensure the design is built against real content, a few example posts are generated using ChatGPT and published. These articles, though temporary, serve a vital purpose: they allow the designer to see how headlines, featured images, and text excerpts interact with the layout, preventing costly redesigns later. Images for these examples are sourced from royalty-free libraries like .

Part 3: Designing the Premium News Layout

The design of a news portal must prioritize information density, visual hierarchy, and professional aesthetics.

AI-Aided Design Brainstorming with V0

To generate a modern, functional design idea, the AI tool V0—specializing in generating design prototypes from text prompts—is utilized. A prompt like "Generate a modern design for a local news website based in Malta" produces an excellent foundation:

• A clean header with categories, search, and a newsletter subscribe button.
• A section for weather and date.
• A main content area featuring a full-width top story and a sidebar for local news.
• Sections for recent stories and category overviews.

Recreating the Design with Bricks Builder

The design is recreated within WordPress using the page builder (Bricks Builder) by utilizing its Query Loop functionality. This is the key to dynamic content display.

1. Top Story Section: A container is created to house the most recent article. A Query Loop is set to retrieve posts, ordered by publish date, but limited to one post per page. This ensures only the top story is displayed. Dynamic data fields are then linked to display the Featured Image, Post Title, and a Post Excerpt (text preview). The image is styled with object-fit and size limits (e.g., max height 500 pixels) to match the aesthetic.
2. Grid View Section: A second container is added below for more recent articles. This Query Loop is set to display six posts, ordered by date. Critically, an offset of 1 is applied. This prevents the top story from being duplicated in the grid, ensuring the section starts with the second most recent article.
3. Styling the Grid: The container is set to Grid display with defined gaps (e.g., 25 pixels), and each individual article block is styled with rounded corners (10px border radius), border outlines, and inner padding to achieve a clean, magazine-like appearance.

After several hours of meticulous design work, the final site features a clean header, an archive view for categories, and a custom single-article design complete with a sidebar for the table of contents and latest news.

Part 4: The Automation Engine for Content and Images

The final and most advanced step is building the automation workflow that puts content creation on autopilot. We use a no-code automation platform like Make.com (though alternatives like n8n or Zapier could be used) to orchestrate the entire publishing process.

The Automated Workflow Structure

The complete workflow consists of a sequential chain of modules that transform a simple topic into a fully published article:

1. Topic Database (Google Sheets): The automation starts here. A simple Google Spreadsheet is created with a single column to serve as the topic database. Topics are manually researched and added here to prevent AI duplication issues. A prompt to Perplexity AI (e.g., "Research the latest local news in Malta...") is used to simplify manual topic discovery. The Google Sheets module is set to Watch New Rows, triggering the entire workflow when a new topic is added.
2. Research Report (Perplexity AI): This module takes the topic and runs a comprehensive research report using the Perplexity Sonar model. The prompt instructs the AI to gather all relevant facts and information, ensuring the subsequent article is accurate and well-substantiated.
3. Article Writing (ChatGPT): The research report is fed into a ChatGPT module (using GPT-4) with a specialized news article writing prompt. This prompt guides the AI to adopt a specific writing style (e.g., professional, breaking news) and produce the full article content.
4. Headline Generation (ChatGPT): The completed article text is fed into a separate ChatGPT module to generate an engaging, SEO-optimized headline.
5. Meta Description Generation (ChatGPT): A final text module generates a concise meta description suitable for search engines, also based on the full article content.

Automated Image Generation and Optimization

The workflow then transitions to visual content, generating and optimizing the article's featured image:

1. Image Prompt Creation (ChatGPT): The article content is fed into another ChatGPT module to generate a highly detailed image generation prompt (a description of the image) tailored to the article’s theme and the site’s aesthetic style.
2. Image Generation (OpenAI): The image prompt is sent to the OpenAI Image Generation module (using a model like GPT Image 1) to create the featured image.
3. Image Optimization (Image Module): To maintain site performance, the raw, large image file is optimized in two steps:
   • Format Conversion: The file is converted to the lightweight JPEG format.
   • Resizing: The image is resized to a maximum width (e.g., 1,000 pixels).

Final Publishing and SEO Integration

The last steps involve uploading the assets and assembling the final article post on WordPress:

1. Media Upload (WordPress): The optimized image is uploaded to the WordPress media library using the Create a Media Item module. A complex formula is applied to the filename, using the article headline (URL-encoded and hyphenated) as the filename—a critical step for Image SEO.
2. Post Creation (WordPress): The final Create a Post module brings all elements together:
   • Title: The generated headline.
   • Content: The full article text.
   • Featured Image: The Media Item ID from the previous upload step.
   • Category: The appropriate category (e.g., 'breaking').
3. Meta Description Integration: To add the meta description, a free SEO plugin like RankMath SEO is installed. The meta description text is then inserted into the WordPress post by mapping it to a specific field name (_rank_math_description) provided by the plugin, ensuring the article is fully optimized for search results.
4. Status and Deployment: The post status is set to Publish (or initially to Draft for human review), and the automation is complete.

A test run confirms the end-to-end functionality: a new topic added to the spreadsheet is researched, written, visually designed, and published online as a well-researched news article with a custom image, all without human intervention.

Conclusion: The Automated Future of Digital Publishing

The creation of the Malta Roads news website demonstrates a shift in digital publishing. By mastering strategic AI prompting and no-code automation, individuals can build and run sophisticated news portals that rival traditional outlets in complexity and speed. The comprehensive workflow—from database trigger to research, writing, image generation, and SEO integration—proves that content creation can be a fully autonomous process.

This blueprint for an AI-powered content engine maximizes efficiency, reduces operational costs to near zero, and allows the publisher to focus solely on sourcing relevant, high-value topics. The era of the fully automated news website is not a distant concept; it is an immediate reality, accessible to any entrepreneur ready to leverage the power of Generative AI.