Five Up-To-Date Ways to Succeed in Google News in 2019

The Google Webmaster blog has recently released a list of tips for how you can succeed in Google News this year, which includes best practices and general advice. In this post, we will break down the main best practice tips for news content success.

What is Google News?

Google News is Google’s own collection of news from a massive range of sources from around the world. In English alone, it collects articles from over 4,000 sites. Google is an unbiased news source as it gathers information from multiple perspectives and is a highly-respected and trusted source.

Since Google News has such a large aggregate, you can imagine just how highly reputable an article has to be in order for it to be ranked highly in the algorithm – which doesn’t help that this is constantly changing and evolving. This means it’s important to stay on your toes and implement smart search marketing by taking in all the information Google provides.

So you want to succeed in Google News this year? Read on!

Make Sure Your Headlines are Clear

Taking shortcuts during the formatting stage of article creation is not an option if you’re trying to rank in Google News. When Google’s algorithms detect that your headline isn’t presented correctly, or that you haven’t formatted your article properly, this is reflected in how your article is ranked.

Best practice to follow here is to be consistent with the hierarchy on your pages as Google will detect the most prominent text as a headline. Titles should also be matched in the HTML title tag. In terms of formatting there should always be a clear date and time underneath the headline – but not a part of it. It’s also good practice to use structured data in the code for your date and time, as this indicates that an accurate date and time is being presented.

Be Original

Google News loves to reward original journalistic content in its ranks, so it will always give credit to the original publisher of an article, and try to get rid of all duplicate content. This means it will block scraped, rewritten and republished content.

Best practise to follow here is just to find your own news stories, folks. There isn’t much else to it. If your journalism is authentic and unique, Google News will reward you in the ranks – but if it just rewrites an article or scrapes content automatically to generate news, Google will know, and they don’t have any tolerance for it.

Be Honest

Google doesn’t allow lies – which seems like common sense. However, in light of recent fake news outbreaks, Google is taking a stand.

This means Google can always tell when your article is being deceptive or is from an untrustworthy source. The key is to be transparent with your website’s information: contact information, author information, and clear by-lines. Post trustworthy and true articles – you should morally be doing this anyway, but this is crucial if you’re trying to rank in Google News.

Google can detect fake news and this is a huge thing that will affect your rankings.

Don’t Buy Links

Link schemes where you buy links to manipulate your rankings are easily picked up by Google News’ algorithms, so it’s pointless to be tempted by them when you’re trying to move up in the rankings. Links should be organic and have a defined purpose for being there. Google will not only pick up on bought links, but it will also recognise unnatural links that you have placed yourself as a violation of their guidelines. These can include over-linking within the copy, or placing keywords where there is no purpose for them to be there.

Protect User Confidentiality

This is a big one in 2019, with 2018 seeing in a new age of internet browsing that respects user’s privacy and confidentiality. Users are understanding more about the data they send out when they browse the web: who is protecting it, who is not.

Google is reflecting this in their rankings because they want their users to feel safe on the web. Best practice to make sure your website is secure is to implement HTTPS onto each page of your site: this will protect the confidentiality and integrity of the users to your site and their data.

So, there you have it, 2019 is going to be an exciting year for Google News among so many things. We can’t wait to be a part of it. If you’re interested in learning more about succeeding in the Google News rankings, or any google rankings where your search engine optimisation needs improving, feel free to get in touch with us today!