If you run a news website or a current affairs blog, Google News can be a brilliant way to boost your website traffic. While getting listed isn’t overly complex, there are a few criteria all websites must meet for consideration.
Qualifying for Google News
- News-Centric Content: Your website’s core function should be delivering news content. If your blog covers a wider range of topics alongside news, consider creating a dedicated news section. Local news coverage is a great starting point.
- Quality and Trustworthiness: There’s no minimum age requirement for websites, but Google prioritises established sites with a reputation for accuracy and reliability. Build trust with your audience by consistently providing well-researched and informative content.
- Consistency is Key: Regularly publish fresh news articles to demonstrate your commitment to keeping readers informed.
Maximising Visibility in Google News
Being listed in Google News is a positive step, but it doesn’t guarantee your articles will be seen. Here’s how to increase your visibility:
- Patience is Key: Building trust with Google’s algorithms takes time. It can take up to 9-12 months for new publications to see any traffic from Google News.
- Stand Out From the Competition: Smaller publishers can compete by offering unique perspectives and in-depth coverage of niche topics.
- Find Your Voice: While established news sources might break major stories first, you can carve out your own space by providing insightful commentary and analysis.
The Technical Side
The good news is that you no longer need to create a specific Google News sitemap, regardless of the platform you use (WordPress, Ghost, etc.). Standard RSS feeds work perfectly well for submission.
Before applying to be listed on Google News, ensure your website promotes transparency and user-friendliness. Clearly display your contact information to build trust with visitors. Additionally, ensure you have easily accessible terms and conditions and privacy policy pages. Finally, prioritise a user-friendly website structure. Visitors should be able to navigate your website effortlessly, particularly when finding your news section.
The application process:
- Verify your website ownership: Head over to Google Search Console and submit your website. Once submitted, follow the steps to verify your ownership of the website. This confirms to Google that you have the authority to submit the site for Google News.
- Submit your application: Once verified, visit the Google Publisher Centre and submit an application to have your website listed on Google News. The review process typically takes a few days.
- Submitting your RSS feed: If your application is successful, you’ll need to submit your website’s RSS feed to the Publisher Centre. This allows Google News to automatically discover and include your latest articles.
- Finding your RSS feed:
- WordPress: Typically, your RSS feed address can be found by adding “/feed/” to the end of your website’s homepage URL (e.g., website.com/feed/).
- Ghost: For Ghost websites, the RSS feed is usually found by adding “/RSS/” to the end of the homepage URL (e.g., website.com/rss/).
- Selective indexing (optional): If you only want specific sections of your website to be included in Google News, you can submit the RSS feed for those sections only. For instance, if your website covers various topics like business, technology, and how-to articles, you can submit the RSS feed for the “business” and “technology” sections by adding their specific RSS locations after the URL (e.g., website.com/tech/feed/ or [website.com/rss/). This way, you can exclude sections like “how-to” articles from being indexed in Google News.
By following these steps and ensuring your website meets Google’s criteria, you’ll increase your chances of being listed on Google News and reaching a wider audience.
Beyond Google News
Ranking well on Google News is a fantastic achievement, but there’s more you can do to expand your reach. Here are some additional news aggregators to consider:
- Bing News: Getting listed on Bing News can also expose your content to Yahoo News users, effectively doubling your potential audience.
- NewsNow: This platform has the potential to drive significant traffic, potentially even surpassing Google News.
Before applying to these platforms, make sure your website is fully approved and clearly visible within Google News. Applications from websites that haven’t been approved by Google News or are difficult to find in search results are unlikely to be successful on other aggregators as they are manually reviewed.
If you need assistance getting your website listed by Google News, contact us to see how we can help.