The main aim of Google News is to filter news from around the world and make them accessible to readers in a more understandable way.
But what does it mean for your site?
Authority, credibility and lots of traffic.
What’s not to like?
What is Google News?
In short, Google news is a type of news aggregator which curates a customizable feed of the most recent news and stories from the last month.
Google news stories can appear on other Google products such as:
- Google News feed
- Top stories tab in the SERP page
- Google Discover
- The News tab in the SERP page
This is what Google News looks like:
Content is divided into different categories, depending on language and location settings. You have the option to customize your feed into covering stories which you are interested in.
How to get your site on Google News?
Unlike Google Search Engine, Google News works a bit differently.
Google Search sends out bots to crawl the site for any updates and indexing them. Google News has crawlers as well, but their aim is to locate high-quality content, complying with Google policies.
Up until December 2019, you had to submit your site manually to Google News. This, however, is no longer the case.
All publishers are now automatically considered for Top stories or the News tab in Google Search.
Does this mean you don’t have to do anything and just wait for Google News to feature your site? Not exactly.
You still need to meet a number of criteria such as:
- Creating compelling content which is relevant to the audience on daily basis.
- Your stories need to follow the all content policies by Google News, which cover standards for accountability, writing, readability, authority, news quality and technical guidelines.
- Do not neglect the Webmaster guidelines, which include the design of your content, quality and technical aspects of your site.
- Once these criteria are met, you can start submitting your content to Google News.
Do you still need to submit your site to Google News?
Yes. And no.
At the end of 2019, Google announced the following:
Google News is now powered by a new technology, which is a combination of several machine learning techniques, as well as BERT models.
What exactly is BERT?
BERT is a language processing model which is able to consider the entire context of a word by looking at the words before and after.
In short, this is how Google can understand better the content on a certain page.
This is why Google no longer needs you to submit your site to Google News.
This doesn’t mean that your site will automatically appear on Google News which is why you need to increase your chances and submit it manually.
How can you submit your site to Google News?
Go to Publisher Content and click on Add publication.
You now need to fill out the following info:
- Description of your site
- Site category
- Primary language
- Site URL
- Who is your point of contact?
- Tracking – your Analytics code.
If you are using one account for Google Search and Google News, the verification is easy.
Click on verify in Search Console:
Next step is adding an RSS feed to your post, custom logo and setting up Google ads if you wish to monetize the content you post.
After filling out everything and agreeing to the terms and conditions, you can now publish.
Successful practices when submitting your website to Google News
- High-quality, unique content.
- Your posts must be engaging and well written.
- Make sure to publish on regular basis
- Timely content
- Your titles need to be crafted in a way which describes the topic. News articles are different that blog articles.
- Submit only news articles to Google News, exclude how-to guides or job postings.
- Use quality and relevant images.
- Include About Us and Contact pages.
- Make sure your WP theme is professional.
- Use Google Analytics.
- Make a Site map specifically for Google News.
- Use the Publish Center to manage your publications on Google News.
Conclusion
All content creators are faced with the daily challenge of getting their publications in front of more people. And especially with news sites, the competition can be quite fierce. That’s why its important to consider Google News for driving more traffic to your website.
Keep in mind: your story can end up in a lot of different places. For example, Google Discover can drive thousands of new users to your site monthly, even if you are already in the news industry.
You could wait for Google News to locate your site, or you could speed up the process by submitting a quality Google News sitemap.
It’s quick and easy, so why not try it?
Have you ever tried in submitting your site to Google News? How was your experience? Can you add some information about how to submit your site to Google News?
Let us know in the comments bellow!
