Over the years, Google has grown significantly into a multiservice entity that is best known for its unique ability to provide relevant, high-quality search results. In fact, Google is constantly looking out for new ways to improve their suite of products with one specific goal in mind – to offer better user experience. Their most recent rebranding of an innovative tool – Google Discover – is making waves in the digital marketing arena for both users and digital marketers alike. A personalized version of Google Feed, “Google Discover” is a unique way for users to exactly discover personalized content without having to search for it. With a different aspect of search engine optimization (SEO), Google Discover is a unique way to attract an influx of traffic to your website and thereby generate revenue. Professional providers of digital marketing services in New York would utilize Google Discover feature to discover unique and relevant content that can grab audience attention.
What Exactly Is Google Discover?
A new feature that replaced Google Feed in 2018, Google Discover aims toshow users hand-selected content that is related to their interests and their past activity.It is a feed curated by Google to deliverarticles and videos on mobile devices. The content delivered to users is personalized through searches and related stories. Google Discover recommends content based on what Google’s automated systems believe to be a good match with the user’s interests. In addition, users also have the opportunity to further customize what they see on their feed by following topics that interest them. Results in the Discover app change on a regular basis based on newly published content and user interests.
When it comes to content creators, Google Discover can be a highly powerful tool that helps drive traffic to websites. Typically, Google Discover feeds comprise a mix of news articles and evergreen content. In fact, a major emphasis is placed on visuals (like images and videos). Prior to the Google Discover rebrand, the app had a more text-based layout that involved mainly headlines, Meta descriptions and the occasional photo.
Why Is Google Discover Important to SEO?
Even though content creation is a criticalcomponent of SEO, many businesses are not placing as much focus on Google Discover as they should. Google Discover provides users with the ability to keep up-to-date on topics that interest them. This in turn, creates additional opportunities for businesses to appear in front of target audiences consistently, thereby making Google Discover a key focal point for SEO.
By using Google Discover feature, users have the unique prospect to explore new data available in a variety of content types, such as blogs and videos.This feature does not limit its capabilities to only displaying new content but also allows posting of any article regardless of the date of publishing. In short, Google Discover should become a key factor within any content marketing strategy as a heavy emphasis is placed on showing relevant and informational content.
How to Optimize For Google Discover – Key Tips
According to Google, all indexed content is automatically eligible to appear in Discover, as long as it meets Discover’s content policies. Google also takes into account content that demonstrates expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (E-A-T). However, it is crucial to know how to optimize content for Google Discover using SEO and other practices that help businesses boost brand authority and achieve greater visibility. Here listed are some top ways to optimize Google Discover –
- Create Content That Is Optimized for Google E-A-T – As mentioned above, the E-A-T algorithm has a huge influence on Google’s decision to include your content in Discover. Google has a detailed document on how they evaluate content quality, including the details on how a piece of content is considered to have a high level of Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness (E-A-T). This means it is important to create content that is top-quality, thoroughly researched, and relevant. It is also important to cite credible sources for the content and/or include the latest statistics/research data and link it back to the original source. In addition, also make sure that the page titles and headlines accurately describe what the content is all about. In fact, Google does not favour and may even penalize content with clickbait titles or those that use any tactics that manipulate readers into opening the page. Always, understand what the target customer groups search for and how your website can satisfy their needs. Because Google Discover values recent trends and long-lasting content, it is essential to have both of these content types. With a higher chance of ending up on feeds, it is possible to reel in high volumes of traffic.
- Include Compelling Visuals in the Content – Including high-quality, eye-catching visuals in the content is a great way to increase engagement and gain more screen space. In fact, Google Discover explicitly encourages using large images, as it is expected to boost CTR by as much as 79 percent. Inserting sharp, high-resolution photos helps build a stronger presence. Video clips can be used to draw in traffic via Google Discover. A few things to consider when including visual content –
- Use the max-image-preview – large Meta tag to signal Google’s algorithm to feature images in the feed preview in a large format.
- Ensure that the image is professional-quality and at least 1200 px wide.
- Avoid using brand or site logo as featured image.
- Ensure Mobile Usability and Compatibility – As Google Discover is primarily a mobile-centric feature, it is important to prioritize mobile compatibility. However, it is equally important to understand that being mobile-friendly or mobile-compatible doesn’t mean shrinking a website to fit any mobile device. The key factor that needs to be considered is usability – it must be responsive, aesthetically pleasing, legible to read, and properly designed so that links are easily clickable.
- Reduce the content into shorter paragraphs (2 to 3 sentences per paragraph)
- Include images or white space for visual breaks
- Use bullet points or numbered lists
Specifically, in case of content, it is important to pay attention to formatting such as the following –
- Utilize the Follow Feature – Google Discover provides users with the ability to “follow” websites and receive updates (such as news posts or blogs) from these websites within their discover feed. Google automatically generates RSS or Atom feeds on your website. These feeds are based upon how Google views your website. For those who have a specific content feed or various content feeds that need to be differentiated, there are snippets of code that can be inserted into the [head] section of each page. Finally, the follow feature can help boost engagement and attract new readers to the content. The more the number of users that add your website to their Discover interests, the more Google understands that the content is relevant to similar audiences.
- Optimize for AMPs – Optimizing the website for Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMPs) is a great way to achieve more speed. With AMPs, users can expect instant loading which results in a more enjoyable user experience. The faster a page loads, the more satisfaction users experience on the website. Web pages that are slow to load can cause users to click away and go to a competitor’s website. In addition, slow-loading websites have a lesser chance of ranking in the SERPs and being published on Google Discover. In short, optimizing for AMPs can provide users with a better customer experience and increase the chances of appearing within Discover feeds and ranking higher in SERPs.
- Ensure Pages’ Crawlability – Make sure that all web pages that you want searchable to users are crawlable. This helps Google to locate and index the said pages. If Google is not able to locate a web page, they cannot publish it to a Discover feed or consider the page as a potential result for a search query. There are several steps that can be performed to encourage Google to index the web pages faster. Start by creating an XML sitemap for all website pages. A sitemap provides valuable data, new page updates and other information that enable Google to crawl and index the website faster.
- Review Google’s Publishing Policy – Google has revealed that complying with their content publishing policy is essential for websites that wish to appear within Google Discover feeds and SERPs. This means that all major types of content such as blog posts, news posts and so on must follow Google News Guidelines, as well as Google Webmaster Guidelines. Webmasters must carefully review these guidelines and ensure that each piece of content posted meets compliance for a chance to appear on a feed. These stringent guidelines help improve user experience. Content that meets Google’s publishing policy is more likely to be visible to searchers. Content posted must be original, purposeful and answer the user’s query. If any old content is republished, it is important to update it with new ideas.
- Pose Questions in Headlines – Incorporating questions into the headlines can help websites increase their odds of gaining a spot on Google Discover. Adding questions to headlines help drive high click-through-rates (CTRs) in Discover. Typically, marketers have been publishing content with questions posed in the headlines. These types of headlines encourage people to click or scroll to find answers to important questions. In addition, posing questions in headlines can also benefit SEO as many search engine queries are actually questions.
- Try Google Web Stories – Web Stories are an excellent option for Google Discover. Google web story is mobile visual storytelling at its best. In fact, it is Google’s take on the social media story format from Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram. These mobile-oriented stories are easy to discover and quick to swipe through. Building the right kind of stories for your content may make it an easy way to appear in the Discover feed.
Appearing in Google Discover is a unique way to increase a business’ visibility and generate more organic traffic. With millions of monthly users, businesses will have a unique chance to boost their brand and share relevant information that pertains to their unique industry. A professional digital marketing agency outsourcing SEO services can help businesses appear within Google Discover feeds and rank high in SERPs.
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