How To Get Your Site On Google News And How It Can Impact SEO
Imagine this. You can get thousands and thousands of clicks to your website with Google News. And, the best part? You don’t have to be a journalist.
Google News is a massive resource for better search engine visibility and targeted traffic. Web content services providers, digital content marketers, smart bloggers, and news publishers are already using this. One example from this is the Search Engine Watch which has increased its monthly visits by as much as 329% with Google News sitemap. Wow!
Because of its topical and timely articles, Search Engine Watch was quite fortunate enough to be added to Google News. But if you are not a news site, it’s possible that Google News and its web crawlers won’t be showing you love anytime soon.
Google News is a massive resource for better search engine visibility and targeted traffic. Web content services providers, digital content marketers, smart bloggers, and news publishers are already using this. One example from this is the Search Engine Watch which has increased its monthly visits by as much as 329% with Google News sitemap. Wow!
Because of its topical and timely articles, Search Engine Watch was quite fortunate enough to be added to Google News. But if you are not a news site, it’s possible that Google News and its web crawlers won’t be showing you love anytime soon.
What’s News?
Before we delve into Google News, let’s talk about what is news in the first place. A search engine like Google defines news to be a piece of noteworthy information about essential or recent events.
If you are reporting information on a timely manner that you think is of the interest of your audience, then you are considered as a news publisher.
Google created Google News as a platform to help in the organization of the news around the world in several ways and make it a bit more accessible to several users just like a news XML.
Google News is sending 6 billion clicks a month to several publishers. Even if you get around 0.0001% of clicks to your site, it’s a huge number. Just do the math.
With this said it is a challenge in a lot of ways to get your site indexed and ranked in Google News. But if you do want to rank your website into Google News, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve created this in-depth article to help you.
Practice the Principles of Good Journalism
Google cares about the substance and style of articles. This is why you should not forget to be as objective and honest as much as possible. Google loves indexing, crawling and publishing content from The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Techcrunch, BBC, and others because these are genuine news publishers. They adhere to standard journalism practices. They aim to adhere to professional journalism standards, and they are transparent. Just a look at their search history shows that they do take the news seriously.
Be sure that your reporting is honest, original, and well-structured with quality meta tags, anchor texts, and authoritative voice. Before you report something, investigate and authenticate it first. Don’t forget to present your most to the least essential points in your content.
Here are a few guidelines to help you rank your site in Google News
Write original news articles
With hundreds of news sites today, you might be tempted to copy from other websites. But if you want to rank in Google News, you have to make your news original with accurate data taken from credible sources included. Make sure your references are all trustworthy.
All of the featured stories on the homepage of Google News are original content with trusted sources. Plus, you will notice that no site has been ranked more than once with its stories.
Google is such an incredible company. It’s a major search engine that millions of people trust. Having a false story in Google’s News would be a disaster. This is why Google loves credibility especially Author Rank.
If you want to be a reputable author, be ready to write for magazine and news sites like Business Insider or Forbes.
Google knows that reputable columnists and authors do not copy news stories from other sites. Instead, they create their own original story. When an author publishes original stories over time, they get credit and improve their rank and reputation, no matter which online publication they write for.
Write keyword-rich headlines
The headline is what readers see first. It’s what makes a promise to the reader. If you can get this right, you will have a news story that’s picked by Google and several other journalists.
As much as possible, use familiar and concise words for your headline. But if you are going for a listicle, provide specific insights and avoid becoming a link bait or you will miss the opportunity to be added to the XML sitemap file of Google News.
Authority sites rarely use the numbered headlines or listicle format for their stories. They only create clear, accurate and compelling headlines.
Here are a few tips with creating headlines.
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Do not repeat words. This makes your news headline weak.
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Use the active voice to catch the eye of Google. Passive voice tends to bore users.
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Write in the present tense. This is what makes it a “news article.”
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Capitalize the right words like the headline’s first word and proper nouns.
Write news-related articles
Do not write evergreen content. This is not what news sites are about. News are timely stories and topics. These are what reaches the top. Timing is everything when it comes to good journalism.
Google even said that they don’t include advice columns, how-to articles, job postings, and informational content. Google News is more of timely stories so keep that in mind.
Write a minimum of 2 news articles in a day
It's hard to manage your site alone. With news media sites, everything has to be updated every minute during the day. This is why you need to make a change and have prolific writers who are transparent and accurate.
Establish authority
Google can be strict with what it considers as news, but not all articles are news-related. Sometimes, the angle or context of how an author covered a story is included. Be sure to show Google that you can prove that you have adhered to its guidelines by establishing authority in your blog. How many web pages link back to you? How many user-friendly sites are linking back to your website? You can use the webmasters’ tool with this.