Yes, getting your articles displayed in Google News requires more than just following general SEO practices. Here are specific tips and strategies to increase the likelihood of your content appearing quickly in Google’s News tab:
1. Meet Google’s News Content Policies
- High-quality journalism: Content should be original, fact-checked, and well-written.
- Transparency: Mention authors, publication dates, and company info clearly on your site (About and Contact pages).
- Trustworthiness: Avoid clickbait or misleading titles. Make sure your site aligns with Google’s News policies regarding content and authority.
2. Submit Your Site to Google Publisher Center
- Register on Google Publisher Center.
- Submit your publication for inclusion in Google News.
- Even if your site isn’t formally approved, Google may still pick up your content if you follow their guidelines properly.
3. Implement Structured Data (NewsArticle Schema)
Add NewsArticle schema markup to your articles to help Google understand that your content is newsworthy. Key properties:
@type: "NewsArticle"
headline
datePublished
author
mainEntityOfPage
Example JSON-LD snippet:
4. Publish Newsworthy Content Regularly
- Focus on timely, trending topics and breaking news to increase your chances of ranking in the News tab.
- Use tools like Google Trends to find relevant news topics.
- Publish multiple articles daily to improve visibility and consistency.
5. Optimize for Core Web Vitals and Mobile-First Indexing
- Google prioritizes fast, mobile-friendly sites.
- Ensure your site loads quickly and has good Core Web Vitals scores (LCP, FID, CLS).
- Use AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) if possible. AMP articles tend to rank higher in news feeds.
6. Use Google News Sitemap
Create and submit a Google News-specific sitemap to help Google discover your content faster. A news sitemap includes:
- URLs of news articles from the last 48 hours.
<news:publication_date>
to indicate when an article was published. Example:
<url>
<loc>https://example.com/article-url</loc>
<news:news>
<news:publication>
<news:name>Example News</news:name>
<news:language>en</news:language>
</news:publication>
<news:publication_date>2024-10-24T08:00:00+00:00</news:publication_date>
<news:title>Your Article Title</news:title>
</news:news>
</url>
7. Promote Your Articles for Quick Indexing
- Share new articles on social media platforms (especially Twitter/X).
- Use Google Search Console’s URL Inspection Tool to request indexing of newly published articles.
- Leverage backlinks from high-authority news sources to signal relevance.
8. Build E-A-T (Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness)
Google heavily emphasizes E-A-T for news content.
- Author bios and credentials: Demonstrate expertise by listing professional qualifications.
- Citations and sources: Link to reputable sources to establish credibility.
9. Monitor Performance Using Google Search Console
- Track indexing status and performance of news articles in Search Console.
- Look for crawling issues, and fix any errors in your Google News sitemap.
By following these steps and focusing on timeliness, quality, and proper technical SEO, your site stands a much better chance of appearing in the Google News tab quickly.