The battle for the top spots on the SERPs (Search Engine Result Page) is tough and getting tougher. The beauty of Google Discover is that it confirms everything we've been telling you for years about findability: It's all about the quality of your content. We share our expertise with you.
What is Google Discover?
Google Discover is an extended and renamed Google feed. A feature of the application software that suggests content to users based on your previous Google searches. The more often someone uses the software, the better Google understands the query, which can improve the user experience. Google Discover also recommends a mix of content types, including evergreen content, news and more.
Google Discover prefers to recommend visual content materials such as videos. This is not surprising, as video content has long been considered the "content of the future", as YouTube impressively proves.
With Google Discover, the search engine is also breaking new ground visually, as it is moving away from a text-based layout towards a fresh look. To this end, catchy headlines and additional functions such as "Discover" and "Follow" are to be used.
Google Discover is not Google News, but displays content that is relevant without the need to perform a search.
Now it's clear why your content should definitely be designed to appear in this feed. It's not necessarily about constantly creating new content, quite the opposite. In Google Discover, posts classified as valuable are displayed regardless of the publication date.
How to optimize your content for the Google Discover feed
Optimize your website for Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMPs)
Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMPs) are very good for your SEO. Why? Because they are designed for speed, which is a crucial factor for Google ranking. AMPs load almost instantly, giving users a seamless, enjoyable website user experience on all devices, including desktop.
The faster your pages load, the more it contributes to user satisfaction. In other words, if your web pages load slowly, it decreases your chances of ranking in the SERPs. Your chances of being picked up by Google Discover will also be low.
Produce outstanding blog content
Google Discover doesn't randomly select content to display to users. Instead, it looks for high-quality, meaningful content. If you're struggling to create engaging content, you can outsource this task and hire an agency or freelance writer to do it for you.
Always ensure a clear structure so that people can easily find their way around your website.
Use high-quality image material
When creating high-quality content, it's not just about the text, but also about the visual aspect. Remember that Google Discover places more emphasis on visual elements such as videos. Basically, it's about enriching premium content with visual details. One of the two is not enough to convince Google!
Do not use images of any size in your content. Instead, your images should be at least 1,200 px wide. Why? The search engine giant mentioned that larger images generate better results on Discover.
Build trustworthiness
How can you create credible content? Use social media to build trust. Social media places great importance on the trustworthiness of your content. To develop this trust factor, get people to share your posts across all channels. The social signals you collect, such as likes, comments and shares, add up to improve your SEO.
The more others share, comment and like your posts, the more social signals you generate, which improve your popularity and rank your content higher.
In the end, it increases the trustworthiness of your content and also draws Google's attention to it. It recognizes that your content is great, which effectively increases your eligibility to appear in the Discover feed.
Seriousness and trustworthiness are crucial in social networks. (Image: tuvit.de)
However, please note that users will only share your posts if you publish outstanding content. For example, since its algorithm update, Facebook only ranks high-quality content. Also, develop a robust link building strategy to get relevant backlinks from authority sites in your niche. The links you get back to your website will also help to increase your trustworthiness.
Follow the best practices for SEO
Following basic SEO rules is one of the best ways to get noticed by Google Discover. Why? Because it helps improve the user experience and your SEO strategy.
What SEO rules can you follow? Simple, optimize your posts and your website with SEO best practices.
- Improve your website speed.
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Make sure your blog or website is responsive to mobile devices.
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Secure your website with a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate.
The Google Discover app allows users to choose which brands and content topics they want to follow. However, your audience may not follow you if you don't tell them. Therefore, the best way to get people to follow you is to ask them to add your blog to Google Discover. As a result, Google will notify them when the app selects a new blog content from your website.
Make sure your web pages can be crawled
A crucial aspect of SEO is letting Google know what your pages represent, the relevance of the content and more. But without Google crawling and indexing your pages, your chances of appearing in search queries decrease. Therefore, make sure your pages are easy to crawl and let Google index your web pages. This is an essential step to appear on Google Discover.
There are several steps you can take to help Google index your pages faster. One tactic is to create an XML sitemap for your website pages.
Follow the content publishing guidelines
Google explained that following the terms and guidelines for publishing blog content is crucial if you want to appear in the Discover feed. This means that your blog posts and other content types must comply with the Google News Guidelines and the Google Webmaster Guidelines. Why is this the case? Google is consistently striving to improve the user experience by helping searchers find valuable content from blogs and websites.
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