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Want to get more search traffic to your website?
You need to get your content on Google News.
The truth is that getting featured on Google News isn’t as hard as it sounds. And you don’t need to be a journalist from a big media company to do it. The key is:
Sounds simple, right?
In this blog, I will show you step-by-step how to get on Google News.
Let’s jump in!
What Will I Learn?
Google News is a news content aggregator set up by Google back in 2018.
In other words:
Google News presents a continuous flow of articles automatically organised from thousands of news publishers and magazines around the world.
But what makes Google News so powerful is the fact that it’s powered by the Google algorithm. That means you get the benefit of Google’s algorithm organising all of the world’s news into a single place.
Just choose the topics and publications you are interested in, and Google will provide you with the latest articles.
It pulls this content from thousands of indexed publishers all over the world.
And it doesn’t just show the big media sites either. Google consistently features smaller blogs and content sites with interesting articles.
That’s how you come in and take advantage!
Google News has an estimated 280 million users worldwide.
That’s a lot of users. With the right content, you can consistently put your site in front of thousands of people every day. Some sites solely rely on Google News for their traffic.
That’s how powerful it is!
And the best part?
The traffic is highly-targeted.
Because Google News users look at content based on their interests, you can be confident that the traffic you attract is relevant to your business.
That means you are putting your content…
It doesn’t get much better than that!
But this isn’t the only reason to get on Google news…
Over 60% of people trust Google News over other news outlets.
What does that mean for you?
Some websites take this to the next level by ONLY writing newsworthy content to be featured in Google News as their primary top-of-funnel strategy.
As a smart website owner, Google News represents an opportunity for you to grow your business on a completely new channel.
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When Google News first launched, you were required to submit your site to be featured.
That’s no longer the case.
Google has become smart enough that it can find your content on its own.
But submitting your site to Google’s Publisher Centre is recommended because it provides a bunch of extra benefits.
All new applications to be included in Google News are manually reviewed by a team of Googlers. So make sure you take the time to follow each step correctly.
Here’s how to do it:
Login to your Google Account in Publisher Centre and click “Add Publication”.
Fill in the form and click “Add Publication”.
Now you need to verify your site with Google Search Console.
Click on “Publication Settings”, scroll down to “Primary website property URL” and click “Verify in Search Console”.
Lastly, you need to customise and design your brand for Google News to look good to visitors and readers.
You also need to set up the right sections that will act as tabs in the Google News app.
Click on the “Google News brand and customisation” tab and fill out each section.
This ensures that Google:
Now you’ve got that out of the way, you are ready to learn how to get on Google News consistently.
All you need to do is implement each of these 7 tips.
Every website should have an XML sitemap.
Think of an XML sitemap as a complete road map of your entire website. It helps Google find and index every page properly, ensuring it doesn’t miss anything.
But to get into Google News, you should create a news-specific sitemap.
Here’s what that is:
Just as you have an XML sitemap that highlights every page on your site, you can create a sitemap that only has your latest articles in it.
This highlights your latest and most relevant content, so Google knows what to feature.
News is all about the “latest story”. When you appear in Google News, you will see that your content is only shown for about 2-4 days.
Google only wants to show the freshest news to its users.
How do you create a Google News sitemap?
My go-to tool is the Rank Math plugin because they have a specific tool for Google News. If you haven’t already – Install Rank Math on your site.
Click on “Rank Math”, then click on “Dashboard”. Scroll down until you see the News Sitemap. Toggle this on.
This is a paid feature, so you will need a premium license, but it’s well worth it for the number of features you get.
Now click on “Sitemap Settings”, then “News Sitemaps”.
Add your publication name exactly as it appears in Google News and configure your News Sitemap. Click “Save”.
Rank Math automatically adds the NewsArticle structured data to each post in the sitemap. This helps you get more featured snippets in the SERPs.
Now copy the News Sitemap URL and upload it into Google Search Console.
RankMath has an additional feature to ensure that you get maximum distribution of your news content.
Lastly, click on any post, then click the “Advanced” tab on the Rank Math widget.
Scroll down to the News index section.
Mark each new news post with the “Index” label. This tells Google News Bot (not to be confused with Google Search Bot) that your article is a news post.
That way, even if Google misses the URL in the sitemap, it can find and index it organically. It also helps other search engines like Bing and Yahoo!
Don’t forget to check out my complete Rank Math review to see everything this powerful plugin can help you do.
Google News has its own set of guidelines.
You’ll need to know and follow them if you want to appear on Google News. It’s as simple as that.
What are the guidelines?
There are three different types of guidelines you need to follow:
Don’t worry – this sounds more complicated than it is. Below is a breakdown of each type of guideline and how to ensure that you comply properly.
Google News’ general guidelines are all about ensuring quality content.
There are three things you need to pay attention to:
As a Google News Publisher, you are switching to a more journalistic style. That means your content should reflect the quality of a journalist in that field.
Google uses an algorithm to discover and process your content.
That means several technical elements need to be in place for Google to process your content accordingly.
The good thing is that most of the technical elements are already in place because you set up your Google News Publisher account and used Rank Math for the rest.
You just need to ensure:
To double-check that everything is set up correctly, check out this complete list of requirements.
Google only wants to display quality news to its users.
The bottom line is that you need to have accurate and high-quality content that benefits your audience. Without it – you won’t get anywhere.
Google is pretty good at working out what’s real and what’s not.
Makes sure that your content:
Simply think – Would a trusted news site publish this content?
Answering this question will keep you on track with the quality guidelines.
Formatting is one of the most overlooked parts of writing content.
The truth is that formatting your content correctly can be the difference between getting tons of views on Google News and none at all.
The simple formatting rule is – Make it easy to scan and read.
Here’s what I mean:
Start by creating a good page structure by using headings and subheadings appropriately.
This makes your articles scannable and helps users understand the general flow of it.
Part of formatting also means adding numbers and bullet points to make your content more digestible.
If you quote someone – put it in quotation marks.
Avoid large chunks of text and have plenty of white space. You should never have more than 3 sentences per paragraph.
This makes your content less intimidating and generally easier to read or skim through.
Don’t forget to use multimedia (images, videos, gifs etc) throughout your content to help readers visualise what you are saying.
I generally try to include an image at least once every 300 words. Images and videos also act as a good “sticking point” because readers stop scrolling to look at the image and even read the text surrounding it.
Remember:
Google understands text well. But when it comes to visual elements like videos and images, they could use some help.
So, ensure that you add descriptive ALT text and file names.
Check out these SEO writing tips and this SEO copywriting tutorial to learn how to write better content your audience loves reading.
The shorter and clearer your article’s URL is, the more favourable it will be to Google News. Why?
Google uses URLs to better understand your content:
Google’s algorithm reads your page top to bottom. That means one of the first places it will look is your URL.
You’re missing out on making a good first impression if you have a bunch of random characters.
Get it right the first time…
Take your time choosing a descriptive, short, and SEO-friendly URL.
Changing it later can impact the quality of your article and potentially whether you get into Google News altogether.
Good on-page SEO applies to Google News SEO as well.
Why?
Because a big part of getting into Google News is helping the algorithm understand your article.
While most people think of SEO as a way to manipulate search engines so you can rank higher, this isn’t actually true.
On-page SEO is a way of helping Google better understand your site and pages.
The result is that you rank higher.
The most important SEO factors for Google News content are:
Check out my on-page SEO checklist to learn how to optimise your page completely.
Remember:
A news story doesn’t have to be super long. Generally, 1,000 words are more than enough to create a great article that gets featured in Google News.
But if you are writing an article or blog that you also want to rank in the Google SERPs, you’ll need to write longer-form content.
But for Google News – Short and concise works.
E.E.A.T is a series of quality content guidelines that Google first released in 2014.
It has since become a standard when creating any content you want Google to rank.
E.E.A.T stands for:
Put simply – These three words describe exactly what your content should display to a visitor reading it on your site.
Increasing your E.E.A.T signals is a powerful way to get more of your articles included in Google News.
How do you increase your E.E.A.T signals?
There are 5 simple things that you can do right now:
Take a look at the start of this video to learn more about adding EEAT signals to your site:
E.E.A.T plays an essential role in news articles. Google needs to be confident that you are a trustworthy expert and create authoritative content that benefits its users.
Increase your E.E.A.T signals to get more inclusion in Google News.
This might seem obvious…
But you would be surprised how many people don’t understand newsworthy content.
Newsworthy content is:
The best newsworthy content stands out from the rest, offering accurate information about a topic (or story) your customers would be interested in.
Newsworthy content is NOT “how to” or “10 tips on” style content. I have found that Google won’t index this kind of content for Google News.
It makes sense, right?
They want real news that is noteworthy and about recent events in your industry.
A good Google News producer creates a solid process that allows them to consistently publish quality newsworthy content.
That’s the real secret to driving tons of traffic from Google News!
Getting your content in front of more readers is a daily challenge.
But Google News offers a massive opportunity for all website owners to generate more high-quality traffic.
There are tons of small and medium-sized sites out there taking full advantage of Google News and driving thousands of visitors to their site every month.
Implement each of the 7 tips above and track your results over time.
You will be amazed at how quickly Google News can pick up your content and start putting it in front of its audience.
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