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The Rider News is the campus news outlet at Rider University in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. It publishes student-reported coverage across news, sports, features, opinion, and multimedia, aimed at the Rider University community and readers following campus and local topics. If you are looking for student journalism about Rider events, athletics, campus life, or the surrounding area, this is the publication to check.

Who runs it and what it covers

The site presents itself as a student news organization, with a staff page and editorial policies listed in its navigation. Its coverage is organized around a few recurring beats:

• News — campus events, local politics, and university developments
• Sports — Rider athletics, including conference play and game results
• Features — human-interest stories and campus life
• Opinion — columns and commentary
• Multimedia — video and other non-text formats
• Digital Editions — archived or special-format issues

Recent headlines illustrate the mix: a congressional debate held in Rahway, the opening of a new Sensory Garden on campus, a performing arts department restructuring, and field hockey results in Northeast Conference play.

How the site is organized

The main navigation also includes About/Contact, Meet the Staff, Letters to the Editor, Policies, Place an Ad, Print Archives, and a Sitemap — useful if you want to contact the newsroom, submit a letter, or look up older print issues.

When it's useful to you

• You want student-perspective coverage of Rider University events and decisions.
• You're tracking local New Jersey topics, such as the Rahway congressional debate, from a campus angle.
• You need to reach the newsroom about a story, an ad, or a letter to the editor.
• You're researching how a student-run outlet structures its sections and archives.

If you need official university announcements or administrative information, go to Rider University's own channels — The Rider News is a student publication, not the university's official communications office.

If you're new to Ahrefs and want to run your first SEO audit, the fastest path is: open Site Explorer, enter your target URL, review the Overview for a health snapshot, then dig into Organic Keywords, Top Pages, and Site Audit to find specific problems. From there, build a short prioritized to-do list instead of trying to fix everything at once.

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Before You Start: Pick a Narrow Scope

A common beginner mistake is auditing an entire large website on day one. The reports become overwhelming, and you can't tell which issues matter.

Instead, choose one of these starting points:

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• A small site (under ~50 pages, e.g., a personal blog or small business site)
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For this tutorial, assume you're auditing a small business site with about 30 pages. The same steps scale up later.

You'll need an Ahrefs account to follow along. Ahrefs offers paid plans, and pricing and feature limits change over time, so check the current Pricing page for what's included in each tier before committing.

Step 1: Enter Your Target in Site Explorer

Site Explorer is Ahrefs' core tool for analyzing any website or URL.

1. Open Site Explorer from the top navigation.
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You'll land on the Overview report. Don't try to absorb everything — focus on four numbers first.

Reading the Overview Snapshot

Important caveat: Ahrefs' traffic and keyword numbers are estimates based on its own data. They won't match Google Search Console or your analytics exactly. Treat them as directional, not absolute.

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If a page gets zero traffic and targets a topic you care about, it's a candidate for a rewrite or consolidation.

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1. Click Site Audit → New project.
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Which Issues to Fix First

Not all issues are equal. Prioritize in this order:

Ignore low-impact warnings (like minor meta description length) until the big items are handled.

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Keep the list to 5–10 items max for your first audit. Finishing a short list beats starting a long one.

Common Beginner Mistakes

• Chasing every red flag. Site Audit flags many minor issues. Fix what affects rankings and users first.
• Trusting estimates as exact numbers. Ahrefs data is modeled, not measured from your analytics.
• Auditing a huge site too early. Start small to learn the interface.
• Ignoring search intent. A page can be technically perfect but still fail if it doesn't match what searchers want.
• Forgetting to re-crawl. After fixes, run Site Audit again to confirm improvements.

Where to Go Next

Once your first audit is done:

• Compare with competitors using Site Explorer's Competing Domains and Content Gap reports.
• Track keyword rankings over time with Rank Tracker.
• Explore backlink opportunities in the Backlinks and Link Intersect reports.
• Set up recurring Site Audit crawls so new issues surface automatically.

Your first audit isn't about perfection — it's about building a repeatable habit: enter a target, read the key reports, pick the highest-impact fixes, and act. Do that once a month and your site's health compounds.

The Rider News (theridernews.com) is the student news outlet for Rider University, and its homepage organizes content into a small set of clearly labeled sections. If you want to browse by topic, use the main menu: News, Sports, Features, Opinion, Multimedia, and Rider News Roundup. If you want to find a specific story or an older issue, use Search, Digital Editions, Print Archives, or the Sitemap instead. The site also links out to Facebook, X, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.

Main navigation sections

The primary menu is the fastest way to reach the type of coverage you want:

Finding older or specific content

Beyond the section menus, the site provides several tools for locating material:

• Search — a search field appears in the header, useful when you know a keyword but not the section.
• Digital Editions — page-by-page versions of the paper, typically for readers who want the issue as published.
• Print Archives — back issues in their original print form.
• Sitemap — a full index of pages, helpful when browsing menus misses something.

Site utilities and preferences

A few non-editorial items sit alongside the content:

• Switch skin — changes the site's display theme.
• About/Contact and Meet the Staff — background on the publication and its team.
• Letter to the Editor and Policies — how to submit a response and the rules that govern it.
• Place an Ad — advertising inquiries.
• Swag — merchandise.

What the homepage surfaces

The landing page leads with a slideshow of recent stories and a running list of dated items, so the newest coverage is visible without navigating. Headlines are grouped by recency (for example, "1 day ago" or "1 week ago"), and each item links to its full article. A weather line and the current date appear at the top, and social media icons sit in the header for following the outlet elsewhere.

If your goal is simply to read the latest campus news, start on the homepage. If you need a particular topic, use the section menu; if you need a specific story or back issue, go straight to Search, Digital Editions, or Print Archives.

The Rider News provides several distinct channels for readers who want to reach the publication or contribute to it: an About/Contact page for general and staff inquiries, a Letter to the Editor option for reader submissions, Policies and Place an Ad pages for advertising and editorial rules, and Print Archives, Digital Editions, and a Sitemap for locating past issues and site content. The site's navigation menu lists these entries directly, so the fastest route is to use that menu rather than searching for individual articles.

Contacting the Publication

The main entry point is the About/Contact page, which the site pairs with a Meet the Staff page. Together these cover two different needs:

• About/Contact — general inquiries about the publication.
• Meet the Staff — identifying the editors and writers behind specific sections (News, Sports, Features, Opinion, Multimedia).

If your question concerns a specific article, the byline is the more direct path. Recent stories carry named authors, for example:

Submitting a Letter to the Editor

The Letter to the Editor page is the site's designated channel for reader-written submissions. This is the appropriate route if you want to respond publicly to coverage rather than send a private message.

Before submitting, check the Policies page. It is listed alongside the Letter to the Editor in the site menu and is the place to confirm the publication's rules for submissions and editorial standards. The site does not state a word limit, submission deadline, or required format in the material available, so treat those as things to confirm through the contact page rather than assume.

Advertising and Business Inquiries

Two separate pages serve non-editorial requests:

• Place an Ad — for advertising inquiries.
• About/Contact — for general business or organizational questions.

The site does not publish rate information, submission deadlines, or payment details in the available material, so pricing and scheduling need to be confirmed directly.

Accessing Past Issues and Site Content

For readers who want to find earlier coverage rather than contact anyone, three resources exist:

• Print Archives — back issues in print form.
• Digital Editions — the publication in digital format.
• Sitemap — a full listing of site pages, useful when the search function or section menus don't surface what you need.

The site also organizes content by section — News, Sports, Features, Opinion, Multimedia, and Rider News Roundup — plus a Swag page. If you are trying to reach the right person about a specific topic, matching your inquiry to the relevant section editor via Meet the Staff is more efficient than a general message.

Practical Notes

• The homepage displays a Search function, which is the quickest way to check whether your question has already been covered before contacting the newsroom.
• Social channels are linked from the site header: Facebook, X, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. These are listed as follow links, not as stated submission channels — for formal contributions, use the Letter to the Editor or Contact page instead.
• The site's dateline shows a Lawrenceville location, consistent with its Rider University readership.

The Rider News covers Rider University campus life, local and regional politics, Rider athletics, and arts and opinion content. Based on its homepage, its coverage splits into five main areas: campus news, politics, sports, features and opinion, and multimedia. If you are looking for student-reported news about Rider University and the surrounding Lawrenceville and New Jersey area, this is the type of coverage you will find.

Campus News at Rider University

The site's news section reports on facilities, academic departments, and student life at Rider. Recent examples from the homepage include:

• New campus spaces — "Rider opens new Sensory Garden for rest and relaxation," covering a garden opened on Sept. 29 for students, faculty, and staff.
• Department changes — "Performing Arts departments restructure amid faculty departures," about the department entering the 2026-27 academic year in a period of reconstruction.
• Student events — "Reinventing the Rider experience with Cranchella," on the return of a campus open-house event, and "Dîner en Cran," about a student life event organized through Instagram invitations and RSVPs.

This section is the closest thing to a campus news desk: it tracks what is opening, changing, or happening on and around campus.

Local and Regional Politics

The Rider News also covers politics in the surrounding New Jersey area, often through the lens of Rider community involvement. One homepage example is "Rahway debate hosts two congressional candidates," which reports on Rider community members traveling to Rahway, New Jersey, on Sept. 27 to attend a debate between two congressional candidates.

Coverage here tends to be event-based — debates, appearances, and local political activity — rather than national political analysis.

Sports Coverage

Sports reporting focuses on Rider's teams and athletes, including conference play and individual profiles. Examples from the homepage:

• Team results — "Broncs undefeated in NEC play, drop one against the Hoyas," covering Rider field hockey's opening Northeast Conference games.
• Athlete features — "On the 1,000-Mile Rohde from one family to another," a feature on a future collegiate volleyball star who moved nearly 1,000 miles from her new home in Lawrenceville.

Expect game recaps, conference standings context, and human-interest stories about Rider athletes.

Features, Opinion, and Entertainment

Beyond hard news, the site runs feature stories, opinion columns, and reviews:

• Entertainment reviews — "Primetime: How to catch a poor review," a review of a biopic about the television program "To Catch a Predator."
• Opinion and commentary — "The cost of artificial intelligence: environmental catastrophe," an opinion piece on data centers and their environmental impact, and "Ed Sheeran creates a 'divide' with his fans," commentary on a concert and a politically charged opening speech.

These pieces are clearly labeled by section, so you can tell reporting from commentary before you read.

Multimedia and Other Sections

The homepage navigation lists Multimedia, Rider News Roundup, Swag, and Digital Editions alongside the main news, sports, features, and opinion sections. The site also maintains standing pages for About/Contact, Meet the Staff, Letter to the Editor, Policies, Place an Ad, Print Archives, and a Sitemap.

Is It Worth Following?

The site publishes frequently — several homepage stories are dated within a day or a week — so it works as a running record of Rider University and its surrounding community rather than a general news source.