A long time ago (in a galaxy not so far away) people started their mornings with coffee and a newspaper. Often, the coffee was easier to digest than the plethora of irrelevant content in the paper. Fortunately for us, we no longer live in times of generic day old content on dead tree pulp. Publishers, rejoice!
Google News is not only a great way to stay up-to-date on current events, but also a useful tool for publishers. A tool that can help you get more organic traffic to your website and increase your ad revenues. So how do you get your content listed alongside major news outlets? Surprisingly enough, it’s really not that hard.
I like my morning coffee strong, with a serving of relevant content and two sugars. And I don’t even need to look far. Google Now on my Android tablet shows me content relevant to my interests and automatically curated from all the content feeds on Google News. Is your RSS reaching me through Google as I sip my java? If your content is as good as you think it is - it should be.
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Exposure on Google Now and Google News isn’t the only advantage in presence on this exclusive RSS feed. Relevant news results appear above websites in search results. Basically making Google News the most effective SEO tool ever. Also, people who use Google Alerts to get notifications on phrases as they appear online are almost certain to click through to your website. Why, you ask? Because they care that much about the subjects and phrases they follow on Google Alerts. You can’t afford to miss out on those users.
You should already know that snuggling up to Google by using as many of their services as possible is beneficial. There’s no exact algorithm, and if there is? Google will never reveal how it works. And yet, you must notice that connected accounts across Google services make Google trust their owners more. Even when they don’t explicitly say so. You want Google to trust and love you and your newsworthy content. More Google love leads to more revenue.
How to get ready for the Google News feed
1. What Isn’t News for Google
Yes, everything is news to someone. However, not ALL the content on your page can be considered news. Because it simply isn’t. The “about” page, the contact form and your writers’ biographies are just not news. And as such, it’s important to separate them from original quality content when submitting to Google News.
Other types of content Google News doesn’t consider feed-worthy are how-to articles, weather forecasts, stock market data and advice columns. If you want your content on Google News, make sure to submit only what Google considers news. If you don’t, you may get disqualified.
2. Google News Map
The last touch on preparing your news feed for submission is creating a special sitemap for Google news. You should already have a Google-compatible sitemap in place to ensure optimal crawling for SEO. You should see it in your Webmaster Tools. That map includes ALL your pages, including ones that are not news.
A Google News sitemap is different. It includes only news items and news-specific tags. The purpose of these tags is to help the bot index the content and categorize it. Keyword, genre and title will help your SEO efforts. And also help tag pages for advertisers, which leads to better ad targeting.
3. Be Newsworthy
At this point you might be asking yourself: Is my content news? There are two possible answers: it might be or it should be. Just about anything can be news. Don’t believe me? Here’s a screenshot of a search I performed a few days ago (for very good reasons, I assure you):
Everything is news to someone
So yes. A corporate blog, a local gossip site or a gaming review page by a bored teen - all these can be news. If Google decides they are, of course.
As you already know, Google has some very strict policies when it comes to publishers on AdSense. Google News is no different, but the submission guidelines are even more demanding. In short, this is what Google demands from you if you want your content in their RSS feed:
Basically, Google wants original, well written content, published by reliable writers at the perfect time. And served to Google’s bots gift-wrapped and ready to go.
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