Google News is a vertical search channel which aggregates 9ja News from thousands of different sources and displays links for users to these news items from the Search Engine Results Pages.
The first thing which should be said about Google News is that it can, when the strategy is implemented correctly, result in driving a very significant amount of traffic to your website. Despite the fact the rankings are temporary, there is still the possibility to appear in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) for some of your main target generic terms.
Featuring in Google News is also a great way to attract additional links to pages on your website – your news items will typically be featured prominently and as such, may grab the attention of thousands of webmasters who, in time, could begin to rely on you as a news provider in your particular industry.
Google News Optimisation: What You Need to Do
There are some technical requirements to feature in Google News. Firstly, in order to appear you will need to submit what’s called an “inclusion request” – this request is essentially an application which invites Google to review the news section of your website.
In order to feature in Google News, all of the URLs on which news content is placed must remain constant i.e. they shouldn’t be deleted or moved, and they must also feature a unique 3 digit code (needless to say, each URL should also obviously be unique). If you cannot facilitate this requirement, then the alternative is to include a news sitemap (you can find more information on this by performing a quick search in Google).
Secondly, you must also contribute news content to your news section on a daily basis and prior to submitting your request for inclusion, and in order to improve your chances at being accepted, you should be to show at least 3 months worth of news content posted on your website. Once you have been accepted you still need to continue contributing fresh news content on a daily basis (the objective is to aim for at least 40 news items per month, or 2 per day).
Finally, you will also need to create what’s called a “meet the writers” page on your website. This page should include information on all of the writer’s currently contributing content to your website. In order to feature in Google News, you will need a minimum of three writers contributing news content to your website.
