Google News can generate thousands of visitors for every newsworthy post that you submit to your site. What's more, with a little extra effort in building your authority, you can start to rise up the story cluster rankings, meaning that you receive more and more traffic every time you publish. It does take effort, and it will take time, but the investment could prove more than worthwhile, if your website and industry allows for the inclusion of regular, topical news stories posted on your site.
Why Google News?
In 2013, Google News was diverting more than 1 billion news users a week to news websites and that is a huge potential market to try and appeal to. It gives your website the potential to become one of the most popular in your industry, regardless of the industry.
There's also the added bonus of the Google News box that appears at the top of a lot of searches conducted on the Google search index, providing a potential means of dominating search results too.
For more specifics on the benefits of having your site included in Google News, read this post on LinkedIn Pulse.
Becoming A Google News Source
The first step to generating large volumes of traffic from Google News is having your news site included in the index so that the News bots come crawling. There are a number of technical, editorial, and quality guidelines that you must follow, and if you are just starting out publishing news, then you should expect to have to have published around 100 posts over a minimum of three months before your submission is accepted.
You can read more on how to get into the Google News index here.
Once you're in, or while you're waiting to get in, you should start to optimise your efforts in order to enjoy a greater chance of acceptance, and to try and ensure that your articles are getting the level of exposure that you need.
Coverage
News stories are grouped, or clustered, together, with the most authoritative sites typically having their version of the article published at the top of the cluster. This means greater exposure, it means more clicks, and it is the position that you want your submissions to be reaching. Realistically, if you cover the biggest news stories, then you will be competing with the biggest media publications online.
- Aim at niche stories while you increase your authority.
- Look to add your own niche slant to the biggest headlines.
The Headline
Google allows up to 65 characters when displaying the title of most news stories, although this has been increased to 75 for editor's picks. It will take time and effort before your stories are likely to be picked up in this way, and there are other benefits to shorter headlines, that mean aiming for an absolute maximum of 65 characters is best, except where you absolutely must write longer titles.
- Ensure your title is highly relevant and includes equally relevant keywords.
- Shorten headlines to 65 characters for News benefits and to make your stories easier to retweet - this will help you when trying to increase your social authority.
Adding Images
You don't have to include an image in your piece for it to be published, but Google aims to offer attractive results including images where possible. Adding one or more photos also makes the piece more appealing to your visitors, and increases the likelihood of it being shared. Do ensure that you have the appropriate permissions, where required, in order to use photos and images.
- Include a primary picture close to the title so that Google publishes it with your story. Use Alt and Title tags.
- Use JPG images, and that do not link to another destination.
YouTube Videos
Although all information on Google News points to the fact that their spiders can only crawl HTML text, they also mention that they "may" include YouTube videos. To have a chance of seeing your YouTube video published in the News results, though, you need to have a YouTube channel, although the idea of using other platforms has been mooted by Google.
- Establish a YouTube Channel, and build a following to try and promote your Video News features
- Ensure that you have relevant text to accompany embedded video on your page.
The Content
Google accepts satire, editorial opinion, and press releases, but these types of content will not be used as the lead piece in a story cluster. This means that it is hard news that has the greatest chance of generating the greatest buzz. There's nothing to say that you can't include separate satire and straight news pieces, and in fact there is strong evidence to suggest that sites including two or more pieces on the same topic will enjoy better overall results.
- Longer pieces perform better, aim for an absolute minimum of 350 words and preferably over 500
- Avoid satire or editorial opinion unless you also publish a hard news version of the same story
Domain Authority
Google does not consider PageRank as an important factor when ranking stories, primarily because the stories submitted are on brand new pages, but also because they are looking for editorial quality and relevance. Domain authority is a good indication of overall authority, and the more authoritative a domain is, the more likely a site will be to rank highly in story clusters.
- Use Moz Domain Authority as a good measure of how authoritative your domain is.
- Increase Domain Authority with high quality links, social shares, and citations.
Social Authority
Social sharing has become almost as important a part of managing the marketing of a new website as linking (to some, even more so), and this is at least partially true when it comes to Google News rankings. If you have a decent social following, and your followers share and discuss your content frequently, then you will have a better chance of hitting the top spots in story clusters.
- Encourage social sharing with sharing buttons, shareable titles, and other social sharing best practices.
- Use short titles to allow for retweeting and the addition of tags like @username.
Media Authority (Citations)
Encouraging citations can be one of the most difficult factors of writing high quality content. The fact is that most journalists and popular news sites will have a list of trusted resources, and publications that they dip into regularly when looking for news, but the more popular your own media publication becomes, the greater the chance of this happening.
- Site like HelpAReporter.com connect journalists with experts and this could lead to citations for your site.
- Be authoritative, produce quality, and ensure that your content is easy to share and quote.
Dominating Google News story clusters can prove a highly effective means of driving targeted traffic to your site, and every type of site from an ecommerce site to a dedicated online journal can benefit from visitors that are interested in the topic that you publish about. The key to success is authority, and the key to authority is quality, which means that it can take time and effort, or investment to truly dominate, but you don't have to pay a fortune for regular, high quality news content and Google News submission help.