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When you start a blog, whether for personal expression or for business, you share the same goal as other bloggers, you naturally want your blog to be read by thousands of people every day. While there are many ways to achieve this, with social media, bookmarking and blog directories, many people often neglect one of the most effective ways to have your content read and used as reference in other posts – Google News.
Of course, like ranking high in search results or being included in anything Google related, this isn’t extremely easy to do, but with a little bit of effort, you will be able to increase your readership and your backlinks as well since your credibility also increases as a blog included in Google news. The backlink aspect comes in as you will likely be referenced on the subject since your blog will be highly visible.
So this all sounds great, right? Be prepared for a lot of hard work to come, but if you can get included in Google News, it will be well worth the effort.
- You Must Have High-Quality Content
One of the most important aspects of getting your blog accepted into Google news is having quality material. Content that is full of a variety of errors and has a low level of writing will not be accepted into Google’s news system. It should be written in more of a news voice than the typical “anything goes” blogger’s voice. While some may argue this takes away from the whole point of a blog, you can still keep other sections of your blog available for opinion and other related content. You can point to a crawler and one section of your blog which you can reserve for the type of content which is most likely to be included.
- You Have to Post regularly
In addition to quality material, it is pertinent that you post regularly and maintain an updated blog and website. You need to have multiple authors and must post new articles each day. The articles need to be at least 300-500 words (closer to 500 is most desirable) in length and of high-quality writing. It is important always to include images and include video whenever possible. Remember all content needs to be 100% unique. Google penalizes duplicate content so posting the same content to more than one site or using spun copy can undermine your efforts.
- Make Your Blog Crawler Friendly
Google web crawlers automatically check the web for items to be included. It is important to take the time to be sure your URLs and website are web crawler friendly. Make sure your URLs have no odd characters and the URL ends in three digits. Also, the URL title should include the article title. URLs play a huge role in Google Algorithm Updates excepting your website or blog. You will also need to include a specific Google News sitemap on your blog. If you are using WordPress, you may have luck with the plug-in. For other platforms, you may need to speak with your web designer or IT team about getting this included. It must be done to the exact requirements of Google News for the spider to begin crawling it. With this said, it may take some time before you see results but you can check and see if the crawler has been to your site with Google analytics.
- Have Contributing Writers – Can’t be Just One Author
The look of your website or blog is also very important when Google is deciding who to accept. You must look very professional and must appear the website is run by an organization rather than an individual. You mustn’t use a blog platform to host the site, instead choose a CMS platform. If you do use a blog platform, you will need to host it on your site rather than on the individual platform to be included. Also, be sure that there is an “about us” and “contact us” page so that the crawler can see author bios and identify that this is not just a site run by one person. Many believe there should be at least 3 different writers listed. This is when guest posting can also come in handy since this allows more and more writers to contribute therefore boosting the legitimacy of your site.
- Make Sure Your Blog Has History
Make sure you have over 100 articles posted before you submit the site to Google. They want you to be established and have a history before considering your addition to their system. Google News will bring you a large increase in visitors to your blog. The increased traffic will give your blog much extra exposure, which can generate advertising revenue and various professional opportunities.
It is important to keep your blog SEO optimized with conversion optimization in mind. Take advantage of as many opportunities as you can to get your blog out there with new content. While it does take some persistence and quality work to get listed in Google news, it is possible. Once you do it will be worth the trouble getting listed. Your increase in traffic and exposure will get you the readers you have been looking for.
