Google News Optimization: How to Get into Google News

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Any website that regularly publishes fresh news can appear in the Google News service. If you manage to get in with a well-optimized article, you can get significant extra traffic for your site. In this post, I will show you how your web design Sharjah can appear in the Google News system and I will share some optimization tips with which you can increase your chances of appearing.

What is Google News?

Google News (Google News in UAE) is a news aggregator service, turbocharged with artificial intelligence, listing the latest news.

The interface that collects the latest news was introduced in 2002 . The Google News service differs from traditional news listing sites in that the algorithms here always list the most relevant and latest news and videos customized for the searcher in the most optimal order.

How can we appear in Google News?

1. Publisher Center registration

At the start of the service, major news portals had to register in the so-called Publisher Center in order to appear on the Google News page. This is no longer necessary, anyone can get into the News if they produce the right content . Google’s algorithms index the latest news anyway, and if they think it’s of good quality, they put it in Google News.

Although registration is no longer mandatory, it is still highly recommended because it brings useful benefits!

1. we can customize our appearance
2. we can display advertisements in our news appearing in the Google News application
3. they can choose us for extra appearances

The registration process

1. Log in to the Publisher Center interface with your Google account
2. Add your website, fill in all the fields you can
3. Choosing the right category and language is important
4. After verifying ownership, you can add your news feed

Generating the appropriate news feed is the most important step during the entire registration process. Publisher Center will check this feed every hour and select the news that can be displayed from it.

2. Creating a Google News sitemap

Few people are aware of this option, but we can help and speed up the indexing of news by creating a sitemap file specially made for Google News . This sitemap has strict requirements:

• it can only contain the URL of news from the last 2 days (don’t worry, this does not preclude the news from being available on the interface for up to 30 days)
• the news sitemap should be updated as soon as new news comes out
• a sitemap can contain a maximum of 1000 URLs. If there are more, we need to create an index file.

You can search for a template to create a Google News sitemap here .

If we have produced the sitemap file in the correct format, we need to submit its location to Search Console . From here on, we can be sure that Google sees and indexes our news.

However, it is important to note that this is absolutely no guarantee that our news will appear on the Google News interface!

How can we optimize for Google News?

The ranking of results in Google News is done by serious algorithms and artificial intelligence.

They are ranked based on the following criteria:

• the language and location of the query
• how fresh is the news?
• how authentic and original is the content?
• is it long enough?
• how varied, descriptive, does it answer the question?
• how relevant is the given media to the searcher?

It is one thing to follow the rules of search engine optimization when writing new news, but only the best optimized pages can really get into Google News and appear in a good position. Now I will list some useful tips and advice, with which we can not only get in, but also achieve good positions:

Keyword research for Google News terms

If we know the topic we want to publish news about, then, similarly to traditional keyword research, let’s look at what search terms are used on the Google news interface. I can say two methods for this:

1, Google Trends / News Search

Few people know, but in Google Trends we can see trends not only for web searches, but also for searches in the News.

2, Search suggestions on the Google News interface

Similar to web searches, start typing your topic in the News search engine and see the search suggestions that others have already searched for.

Compliance with on-page optimization rules

The most important on-site rules must be observed:

• the main keyword should be in the URL, title, description and heading
• images should be optimized , use the keyword in the ALT tag
• optimized meta title and description
• the content must be original
• use external and internal relevant links

Things to pay special attention to in the content:

Clear, Concise Title

The title of the submitted article should always be the same as what the reader sees on the page. Due to the proper appearance, the title can consist of a maximum of 22 words! We avoid puns in the title because they can confuse the algorithms. Tip: do not use date and time in the title.

Use of headings, readability

The news should be formatted neatly and legibly. Use the keywords in the subheadings and the use of lists and paragraphs also helps in easier readability.

Size doesn’t matter

You can get into Google News with less than 200 words, but at the same time, the larger competition requires better-developed texts. A professional news article written by an expert SEO specialist should obviously be more meaningful than a daily weather report.

Use of images, videos, infographics

Use media materials relevant to the news, typically in standard file formats: jpg, png, mp4, avi, etc. If we use an inappropriate image in the news, it may just happen that the algorithm displays an image from a completely different source for our article . If we have a YouTube channel and it is connected to your website, you can also gain extra exposure in the news from there.

Article structure, Schema use

Technically, the following elements of the news page should be clearly identifiable:

• Title
• Picture
• Date (the date must be between the title and the text)
• Author (the author’s profile can be found on the website: name, picture, address, phone, email, social)
• Article body

Provide the article with Article or NewsArticle Schema and enter all the data available to us.

Load time and AMP

Since these news will mainly appear in the Google News App on a mobile device, a fast page load time is extremely important . The loading time is already a ranking factor, but it is particularly emphasized in the case of news.

Google’s recommendation is to use AMP mobile pages if possible, but my experience is that it is possible to get into the News without AMP as long as the page is fast enough.

More tips and advice

The more and more often you publish, the faster Google indexes your news. If you are not a particularly large news portal, you rarely publish news, and Google bots only visit your site once a day, it is not certain that Google News will be your interface.

If you subscribe for SEO packages Dubai, you can regularly submit news related to your niche. This will enable you to be consistent without making too much efforts as your work will be taken care by SEO company!