- Google news
- Google Top Stories
- Google Discover
Optimizing websites for display in Google News, Top Stories and Google Discover is unique in many ways, as it gets rankings in the 10 blue organic links.
This is because Google uses various organic SERP functions to display current or current content, each of which has its own ranking guidelines and reporting capabilities.
To make this even more complex, Google only offers special reports on some – but not all – of these news-related functions via the Google Search Console and Google Analytics.
This leaves a mystery about exactly Where In the search results, a specific article can drive traffic and impressions.
Google offers guidelines all around how to appear in products like Google News and Discover.
However, these documents are often of a technical nature (like this example of Google's article that explains technical recommendations to prevent content from being indexed in Google News without affecting regular search performance).
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While some guidelines exist, it is difficult to find specific advice in the Google documentation on how to best structure and optimize content for performance in Google News or Discover.
The best way to understand how your sites are performing in News, Discover, and related features is to analyze the performance of your own content to see what is working and what is not.
This column tells you more about the various Google SERP features used to display breaking news or breaking news, as well as tips on optimization and reporting.
I'll also put some aggregated data and insights into my own customers' performance in these features.
Google news
Google News is a news aggregator product that is available both as a mobile app and at news.google.com in your browser.
In the past, publishers had to manually submit their sites for approval in Google News through the Google Publisher Center, and the approval process was notoriously difficult.
However, Google recently updated its guidelines on which websites can be displayed in Google News.
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From December 2019 the documentation changed tacitly:
This is quite a shock hidden in this deluge of Publisher Center updates:
"Publishers no longer need to submit their website to be eligible for the Google News app and website. Publishers are automatically considered for Top Stories or the News tab of search." pic.twitter.com/yrCZwnly6j
– Barry Adams (@badams) December 11, 2019
According to Google's documentation, in order to appear on Google News, all publishers must "produce quality content and adhere to the Google News content guidelines."
Adhering to Google's news content guidelines boils down to not producing violent, hateful, dangerous, or misleading content.
Reading between the lines of these updated guidelines will indicate this It is technically possible for content from any website to be displayed in Google News.
However, this is not often the case with most websites.
Regardless of how often a website produces content, Google sets strict criteria according to which publishers should be displayed in Google News.
As stated in much of the documentation, news sites must have good E-A-T: expertise, authority, and trustworthiness.
In Google's Search Quality Guidelines, the definition of "YMYL – Your Money, Your Life" begins with "News and Current Events" as the first example of the type of website that focuses on the future happiness, health, and health of one Person can affect. financial stability or security.
This likely suggests that the content and website rating criteria for Google News are under closer scrutiny by E-A-T than other areas of Google Search.
This would be in line with other articles and videos that Google has published over the past few years that confirm that Google is increasing its focus on that authority from publishers when it comes to breaking news, misinformation, elections and times of crisis.
Two other characteristics that Google claims to promote in its news content ranking are "uniqueness" and "variety of viewpoints".
In late 2019, Google published an article highlighting the importance of original coverage in ranking news content with the aim of providing a better ranking for "the story that started it all".
According to Google:
“While we typically show the latest and most comprehensive version of a story in news results, we've made changes to our products around the world to highlight articles that we identify as important original reports.
Such articles can remain in a clearly visible position for longer. This notoriety allows users to view the original coverage while reading more recent articles. "
If you want to rank well on Google News, this recommendation cannot be overlooked.
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There are numerous aggregator websites and websites that mainly syndicate content from sources such as Reuters or the Associated Press. Because of this problem, there may be a decline in organic visibility in recent years.
The SEO visibility of such an aggregator website is shown below, with blue letters indicating Google Core updates:
News aggregator website with decreasing organic visibility on Google
While it's not uncommon for syndicated content to drive traffic, for long-term and sustainable performance on Google News you need to differentiate your content by providing original reports or a unique perspective not found on other websites.
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In fact, Google does not recommend indexing syndicated content, although in reality that type of content often results in significant organic traffic for many publishers who choose to index.
When it comes to optimizing content for Google News, Google offers some advice on criteria for ranking content in Google News, including:
- Relevance.
- Meaning.
- Authority.
- Freshness.
- Place.
- Language.
Publishing quickly is key.
In contrast to the conventional search, in which the topicality (depending on the query) is more of a subdued factor, in Google News the topicality is everything.
This is especially true when a breaking news event occurs.
The sites that get published quickly are the first to get links and social shares, which only improves performance on Google News.
Using news article Structured data and news XML sitemaps are also technical requirements for inclusion in Google News.
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Google Publisher Center
Google provides news publishers with a Publisher Center that they can use to manage their organization's information. This includes general information about the organization, what categories are included on the site, official brand logos, feeds, and more.
If ranking on Google News is your goal, it is important to use the Publisher Center to review important information about your brand.
Visibility in Google News
While Google News aims to spearhead a variety of viewpoints rather than leaning towards one end of the political spectrum, highly authoritative publications have dominated in recent years.
In the meantime, many marginal publications seem to have lost their visibility.
A look at the news publishers with the highest visibility on Google over the past 12 months can tell you what it takes to be a news authority in different categories.
I pulled a list of the 100 highest traffic websites in News and Media from Similarweb's list of the highest traffic domains in that category.
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I then compared this list to the Sistrix Visibility Index (VI) values for those domains, which measure the overall visibility of a domain over time and assign one to it Visibility Index (VI) The rating is based on how it ranks on Google in Sistrix 'set of 1 million tracked keywords.
These are the news domains that have the most organic visibility on Google.com as of March 1, 2021 using the US index:
domain | 01.03.21 VI |
---|---|
nytimes.com | 243.4 |
usnews.com | 212.1 |
theguardian.com | 123.2 |
cnn.com | 102.9 |
yahoo.com | 100.7 |
forbes.com | 97.4 |
bbc.com | 77.8 |
Finance.yahoo.com | 70.0 |
usatoday.com | 59.0 |
businessinsider.com | 57.1 |
washingtonpost.com | 55.7 |
chron.com | 50.7 |
nbcnews.com | 46.4 |
bloomberg.com | 46.0 |
cnbc.com | 45.3 |
theverge.com | 44.8 |
bbc.co.uk. | 32.3 |
theatlantic.com | 29.7 |
time.com | 29.0 |
cosmopolitan.com | 27.5 |
latimes.com | 26.4 |
people.com | 26.4 |
reuters.com | 26.3 |
wsj.com | 26.3 |
The websites listed above are great sources of inspiration for structuring your headings, sub-headings, URLs, taxonomy, internal links, and other considerations that are important for ranking in Google News.
For a comprehensive overview of how best to optimize content for Google News, I recommend John Shehata's article on Optimizing Google News.
Reporting on Google News Traffic
Google News traffic can be reported through both Google Analytics and the search console.
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In Google Analytics, Google News traffic is displayed under the referral source news.google.com.
Google recently launched a dedicated performance report for Google News traffic on the Google News tab in the left sidebar. The combination of Google Analytics and Search Console gives you a deeper overview of the data, e.g. B. Click-through rates for your article headings in Google News (by adding the page title as a secondary dimension in Google Analytics).
If you can hide most of it for customer confidentiality, but can make it easy to simply combine GA and GSC data from Google News, it is much easier to analyze which headings are generating the strongest click-through rates on Google News, which is one for many customers Game changer is.
Thanks to @googlesearchc pic.twitter.com/5iAzkZwpVC
– Lily Ray @ (@lilyraynyc) January 13, 2021
Google Top Stories
For news publishers, Google's Top Stories carousel is a gold mine of organic traffic. According to Richard Nazarewicz, the Wall Street Journal technical SEO manager:
"The The Top Stories Carousel for Mobile and Desktop SERPS is the most desirable place for new or breaking news to pop up in the Google Search ecosystem. Each newsroom works hard with their SEO editors or desk to use Google Trends, Competitor Analysis and A / B Testing to optimize SEO title tags to ensure their article is in the top 3 the top stories shows up results.
As with every regular article, they must be linked from a prominent position such as the homepage and included in a special sitemap for current or current news from 48> = 72 hours before they are moved to a regular article archive sitemap, depending on the institution. "
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It is important to note that currently AMP articles only are eligible for the Top Stories carousel on mobile devices.
However, Google announced that it would be dropping this requirement in the context of the Core Web Vitals update due to roll out in May 2021.
After that date, each article may potentially appear in the Top Stories carousel.
However, if the big publishers continue to use AMP, it will be difficult for non-AMP publishers to compete with the lightning-fast load times of AMP articles.
The Top Stories carousel does not currently have its own reporting area in the Google Search Console or Analytics.
One way to approximate Top Stories performance data is to navigate to the Search Presentation tab in the Search Console, filter for a mobile device, and select AMP articles.
This is by no means perfect as AMP articles can still show up in other areas of Google. However, it can serve as a representative set of clicks and impressions from Top Stories (and other places).
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It can be helpful to navigate to this view after starting AMP to see if the articles in Top Stories are gaining traction.
The use of keywords in headlines is one of the most important ranking factors for ranking in Top Stories. Unlike Google's standard organic blue links that the
Headline as the main title of the page.
It is therefore important to focus on optimizing the article headline, e.g. B. by ensuring that the name of the target entity (person, place or thing being written about) is clearly and early in the heading.
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Article headings should generally be kept under 22 words for best performance.
It's also important to avoid profanity, clickbait, or anything inappropriate or ambiguous in the article headings.
Google Discover
Google Discover is a personalized feed of articles available to mobile users on Android devices or the Google app on iOS.
Google Discover can also be accessed by visiting the Google.com home page while signed in to a Google Account on a mobile device using Google Chrome.
What sets Google Discover apart from other search areas is that the list of articles is curated before the user enters anything. The behavior of other users in Google is used to determine what the user may find interesting.
Therefore, for a user who publishes frequently about dogs, or who may share dog items on social media or use dog-related apps on their phone, they may be more likely to see dog content on their Discover feeds.
Content can be automatically displayed in Google Discover without the use of certain structured data or sitemaps.
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Google needs a "convincing, high-quality image" that is at least 1,200 pixels wide and activated via the following meta tag:
or with AMP.
Google's Discover guidelines recommend focusing on content that is "current to current interests, tells a story well, or offers unique insights" while "avoiding clickbait headlines" and "clear data, bylines, information." to authors, the publication, the publisher, the company ”or network behind it and contact information. "
According to Richard Nazarewicz,
“Discover Traffic accounts for an average of around 20 to 40% of total Google traffic (GSC), while in Europe it is closer to 40 to 60%. The reason it's higher in both Europe and the Middle East is because Android has a much higher share of the cellular market than it does in the US, where we mostly use the Apple iPhone, me too!
Google goes on to say that Discover traffic should be reported as search traffic and only split in the Google Search Console, which can be exported into sheets. However, it's not currently available in the API, along with the recently added Google News Tab traffic. "
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Last year Abby Hamilton published this extensive resource on what Google Discover is and how it can be tweaked, including original research on what articles are trending up there.
I did a similar analysis where, over the past year, I analyzed over 5,000 URLs that ranked in Google Discover for a wide variety of Path Interactive customers.
General notes on Google Discover:
- Articles that perform strongly in Google Discover are typically very entertaining and evoke strong emotions without being too clicky or "responding to pathological curiosity, nervousness, or indignation" (this is Google's own language in the Discover guidelines, and failure to do so now may result in manual action)
- Not every page ranking in Google Discover is a news or blog article. Our customers have seen examples of local service pages or other local resources receiving significant traffic from Google Discover.
- Articles that are several years old can reappear in Google Discover without making any changes to those articles
- It appears that sites marked as "adult" content may not be eligible for Google Discover. This isn't just limited to extremely adult content. Google's Discover documentation states that content that contains "nudity, sexual act, sexually stimulating activity, or sexually explicit material" may violate their content guidelines and may prevent publishers from appearing in Discover.
Below are some of the correlations we've seen with our customers' performance in Discover.
As always, it is important to keep this in mind Correlation is not a causality, However, the trends can provide some insight into what content tends to perform well in Discover.
In Google Discover, the articles
is often (but not always) shown as an article heading. Therefore, the length of the headline can potentially affect the click-through rate.
Our analysis found that there was a positive correlation between the number of H1 words and the increased click-through rate, up to around 27 words where the click-through rate dropped dramatically.
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The strongest click-through rate (14.39%) was found on an article with 25 words.
After this data you write a heading of about 15-25 words could be a good destination for Google Discover.
The same general pattern applies to general clicks on Discover content, although the articles with the highest traffic had even shorter headings that were around 10-20 words.
In terms of total article length, the articles that had the most traffic on Google Discover ranged from roughly 500-1,000 words in length, with the strongest performance in the 600-700 word count range.
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It is important to remember that word number is not a ranking factor in any Google search function. However, we thought the trend was particularly interesting for Discover:
These correlations should certainly not dictate how your content should be written. Focusing on the quality of the content and engaging your users is the best approach to appearing on Discover.
Keep track of the performance of your articles in Discover by navigating to the Discover Performance report in the left sidebar of the Google Search Console.
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Your own performance data is the best source for the truth about which articles and topics your website usually ranks well for.
Google's relatively new visual news feature, Web Stories, is also used in Google Discover. This makes them a great source of traffic and a great way to stay ahead of the competition.
More resources:
Photo credit
All screenshots by the author, March 2021