The Google Search Advocate team shares SEO top practices for news sites that focus on quality content and effectively utilizing structured data.
News websites should optimize their content to be suitable for Google Search and News by complying with the best SEO practices. High amounts of E-E-A (Experience and Expertise), Authoritativeness, Expertise Trustworthiness) and openness are essential in determining whether a website is eligible for Google News.
Properly utilizing structured data, the careful management of outbound links and appropriate implementation of paywalls all improve the performance of websites.
Google Search Advocates for Google Daniel Waisberg and Cherry Prommawin have recently provided valuable information in a short video about top practices for news sites.
Google aims to assist journalists in increasing the visibility of their content and generating more significant visitors.
This is What the Search Advocate team advises to increase your visibility in Search and News surfaces.
Where News Appears On Google
Waisberg and Prommawin start the film by explaining ways the news can appear on Google.
They identified two critical locations where Google News content can appear in top stories and the news tab. Top Stories and the News tab.
The Top Stories carousel is a search function that displays pertinent and top-quality news material that changes in its appearance based on the query of the user as well as the device used and where it is located.
The News tab is focused on news-related search results. It is different from Google News itself.
They also explored four search result elements that content creators can influence.
They include:
- Results of text
- Rich results
- Results of Image searches
- Results of a video
The two discussed the importance of knowing the audience when deciding on the best place to put your efforts, and data analysis is crucial in this regard.
SEO Tips For News Websites
For SEO advice to news sites, The Search Advocate team highlighted the necessity of producing informative, credible content by people and not for search engines.
Waisberg and Prommawin have discussed the importance of E-E.A.T. (Experience, Expertise, Expertise, Authoritativeness and trustworthiness) elements in determining the significance of the information.
Prommawin declares (emphasis mine):
- “Experience is the measure of the creator being able to provide the required live experience or firsthand knowledge of the content…
- Expertise indicates the extent to of the creator is knowledgeable or can handle the subject…
- The degree of extent to which the creator or site is recognized as the most reliable source on this topic…
- Trust is the main component of EEAT. Even if the person who created the content is highly knowledgeable, experienced and trustworthy, A financial fraud will remain untrustworthy.”
- Regarding optimizations for technical reasons, Waisberg and Prommawin advise publishing dates that are structured information to assist Google in determining when a publication was published or significantly changed.
Finally, they suggest creating a site around recent stories in the news and encouraging the utilization of appropriate photos and videos.
Eligibility For Google News
Publishers must satisfy Google News‘ eligibility criteria for inclusion in Top Stories or the News tab.
They are characterized by great E-E A-T content, a long-standing history of creating news-related content, and compliance with Google News policy.
Transparency is essential to the policies. This means explicit information regarding the author of the book, publication, as well as publisher is required.
Outbound Links, Paywalls, & More
Waisberg and Prommawin stress the importance of preventing advertisements and other promotional materials from outshining news articles and separating paid placement.
If users who create untrusted, paid, or content remains on websites without tagging could breach Google’s spam policy.
To make content searchable to search, it’s essential to ensure that Google can crawl and index information hidden behind paywalls.
The implementation of a meter, paywall or login wall that is based on information can aid Google in discerning the content that is paid for from those copied by cloaking.
Waisberg and Prommawin finished by inviting editors to check out their Google News Initiative website to discover more information about how they can be successful in the world of search.
