<\/p>\n
Google search advocates Daniel Waisberg and Cherry Prommawin recently shared valuable insights in a video about best practices for news websites.<\/p>\n
Google aims to help news organizations increase the visibility of their content and generate more traffic.<\/p>\n
Here’s what the Search Advocate team advises to get a more substantial presence on the search and news surfaces.<\/p>\n
Screenshot from: YouTube.com\/GoogleSearchCentral, May 2023.<\/span><\/p>\n Waisberg and Prommawin begin the video by explaining how news content can be submitted to Google.<\/p>\n They highlighted two key places where Google News content can appear: the Top Stories<\/strong> and the news<\/strong> tab<\/p>\n The Top Stories carousel, a search feature that displays relevant, high-quality news content, varies in appearance based on the user’s query, device, and location.<\/p>\n The News tab focuses on news-related results, other than Google News itself.<\/p>\n They then delved into four common elements of search results that content creators can influence.<\/p>\n This includes:<\/p>\n Text results Rich results Image results Video results<\/p>\n The pair emphasized the importance of understanding one’s audience in order to decide where to invest efforts, with data analysis being crucial to this process.<\/p>\n In offering SEO tips for news websites, the Search Advocate team emphasized the importance of generating useful and reliable content built for people, not search engines.<\/p>\n Waisberg and Prommawin discussed the importance of EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) factors in prioritizing content.<\/p>\n Prommawin states (emphasis mine):<\/p>\n “experience<\/strong> it shows how much the content creator has the first-hand or life experience needed for the topic\u2026<\/p>\n expertise<\/strong> shows how well the content creator has the necessary knowledge or skills for the topic\u2026<\/p>\n authority<\/strong> shows how well the content creator or website is known as a reference source for the topic…<\/p>\n trust<\/strong> is the most important member of the EEAT. Even if the content creator is very experienced, knowledgeable and authoritative, a financial scam will always be unreliable.”<\/p>\n In terms of technical optimizations, Waisberg and Prommawin advise providing publication dates using structured data to help Google better understand when the article was published or substantially updated.<\/p>\n Finally, they recommend building a website around ongoing news and ensuring the use of relevant images and videos.<\/p>\n Publishers must meet Google News eligibility criteria to appear in Featured News or the News tab.<\/p>\n These criteria include high levels of EEAT, a consistent history of producing news-related content, and compliance with Google News policies.<\/p>\n Transparency is crucial to these policies, meaning that clear information about the authors, the publication, and the publisher must be provided.<\/p>\n Waisberg and Prommawin emphasize the need to prevent advertising and other promotional materials from overriding news content and distinguishing paid placement.<\/p>\n Leaving spam, paid, or user-generated content links on an unlabeled site may violate Google’s spam policies.<\/p>\n For content to be searchable, it is crucial that Google can crawl and index content behind paywalls.<\/p>\n Implementing a counter, paywall, or login wall with the right structured data can help Google differentiate paywalled content from obfuscation.<\/p>\n Waisberg and Prommawin concluded by encouraging editors to visit the Google News initiative<\/a> website to learn more about how to be successful in your search.<\/p>\n source<\/strong>: YouTube<\/a><\/p>\nWhere news appears on Google<\/h2>\n
SEO Tips for News Websites<\/h2>\n
Eligibility for Google News<\/h2>\n
Outbound links, paywalls and more<\/h2>\n