Are you struggling to increase your daily readership on your WordPress blog? Have you tried social media strategies, bookmarking, and blog directories without much success? If so, there is another way to boost your blog’s visibility and readership: Google News. However, getting featured in Google News is not an overnight process. In this article, we will discuss the steps you need to follow to get your blog listed in Google News and generate the popularity you’re after.
What is Google News?
Google News is a syndication platform that collects and categorizes news stories that are likely to be interesting to a wide audience of readers. It is Google’s platform to promote stories that it deems newsworthy and relevant to current events. Google News is an excellent way for up-and-coming websites to drive plenty of new readers to their blogs. However, submitting your site and getting your stories featured in Google News is not an easy task.
How to Submit Your Site
To submit your site to Google News, you need to use Google’s Publisher Center. Fill out the required information, such as a description of your site, your site’s URL, and your site’s topical category. Once you’ve filled out the required info, click the “verify in Search Console” button in the Publisher Center. Wait for two to four weeks for Google to complete its review process. While you don’t technically need to submit your site to Google News in order to be indexed and categorized as a news publication, it’s highly recommended that you do so.
Start with Your Content’s Quality
To get your blog ranking well in Google’s search results, you need to start with your blog’s written content. Your content must be well-written and free of errors. Besides that, you’ll also need to publish content that’s written with a “newsy” voice rather than with the voice of a typical blogger. A more newsworthy written voice lends to the legitimacy of your blog and can go a long way toward making it seem more professional to your readers and, of course, to Google. Consider the content that you as the author enjoy reading in your free time and the approaches to storytelling that that content offers.
Generate Content with Multiple Authors
You need a team of contributing writers to generate the volume of content necessary to secure a spot in Google News’ list of top stories. Google won’t accept just any blog when it comes to getting published on Google News. Ideally, your blog should give the impression that it’s being handled by an organization of multiple talented individuals and not by a single, overworked author. Create author bios for all of them on your website.
Create a Google Crawler-Friendly Blog
Finally, you need to make sure that your blog is Google crawler-friendly before you can even hope to start getting featured in Google News. For Google to understand your site, it needs to crawl and index your content. You need to ensure that your blog’s URL address has no odd characters in it. It also needs to contain the title of the blog you’re trying to publish so that Google can clearly understand what content your readers will be viewing. Include a Google News sitemap somewhere on your website.
In conclusion, getting your blog featured in Google News is no small feat, but with a little bit of effort, you can position your blog where it needs to be to catch the attention of more readers and eventually get noticed by Google. Publish high-quality content, generate content with multiple authors, and make your blog friendly to Google’s crawler.
