Google Discover has brought in a new dimension to the world of SEO. Marketers are using this personalized news feed for their SEO gains. Google builds the Discover content automatically based on user search preferences and mobile activity.
Interested to know about this feature of search engine search. Lets dive deeper into Google Discover and learn more.
What Is Google Discover?
Google’s Discover feature was introduced just three years ago in 2018. Back then, it was known as Feed. In the Discover feature, Google users can see a customized list of cards on news, videos, entertainment articles, and more just below the Google search bar.
Google says that it takes four sources for building the feed
- Search queries
- Youtube queries and videos watched
- User interaction with other Google products
- Location history
- Topics users follow for long
However, users don’t have to search for this information. Rather, Google Discover serves highly tailored content which users can further customize! Also, the users can choose to hide any story or article on Google Discover that they don’t like or find irrelevant.
As a result, SEO marketers now target and utilize this feature to ensure that their content makes it to the top of the Discover section on Google.
After all, with Google Discover’s help, you don’t have to wait for the user to search for your content with keywords. Instead, you will already be on your target audience’s homepage. But only if you know how to leverage this feature.
How to Make Your Content Appear on Google Discover?
With appropriate and correct utilization of the Google Discover feature, you can significantly increase the traffic to your site. But the question is- how? So, here’s how you can optimize your content to ensure that it trends on Google’s homepage-
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Make Amazing and Exciting Videos
You can’t emphasize enough how big of a role visual contents play on Google Discover. You can say that the feature is entirely based on visual contents. That’s why it’ll benefit you a lot if you produce different images and videos per your target audience’s preferences.
Need some help figure out where to begin? Google it! That’s right; you can search for the content you want to develop and get some inspiration from the already trending, high-rank web pages. After all, creativity is all about how well you hide your sources. The result is, you get an enhanced customer engagement.
But if you still struggle to find a good topic for your video, you can give a shot at creating how-to videos, demo videos, etc. As strange as it may sound, but these videos are one of the most in-demand contents right now.
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Create Engaging Content
Content is indeed the king, but it’s the content’s quality that makes it the king. That’s why your very first goal should be to create high-quality content that would lure the users into reading it. You will have to optimize your writing by opting for methods that will enhance user engagement. The solution is to create social-media oriented content. Keep Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook home feed in mind.
As a result, your content will be effective, relevant, and trendy. It is needless to mention the fact that your content should offer new values to the users. After all, you are developing it for Google’s “Discover” page. Additionally, you can also maximize your content’s user reach and engagement by opting for email marketing and other tactics. The goal here is to get more people to interact with your content. Higher the interaction, the higher the chances your content will get featured on your target audience’s Google Discover feed.
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Add Visuals to Your Content
Google itself said that the Discover feed ranks the articles based on the quality and the tangible connection between the content-type and audience interest. Therefore, you will have to pertinently publish content that is informative and engaging at the same time for your readers.
Besides, adding well designed and relevant visual elements enhance your content’s chances to trend on Google Discover feed. But you have to keep in mind that just any visual content will not do the deed. Instead, your content has to be high-quality and appropriately optimized. How to optimize the visual contents? Use exciting infographics, videos, and stock images.
Another thing is that you should replace the thumbnail with high-resolution images. After all, Google itself confirmed that the larger images work better since Discover is all about scrolling through the Feed, and a neat high-resolution image will itself catch the viewer’s attention.
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Research Your Competitors
If your content isn’t ranking on Discover feed even after carrying out all the adjustments stated above, then something must be lacking in your content. As a result, it’s time for you to carry out proper competitive market research for your content.
While researching, pay attention to the different tactics that your competitors are using. After all, the sole reason for your research is to find out what makes Google Discover pick your competition’s content but not yours. Here’s a little tip: make sure that you take your competitor’s posts’ visuals and content quality into account during your research.
However, doing this might not be enough. You will also have to follow relevant and trending topics on Discover itself. It will keep you posted with the latest trending posts in your niche and allow you to know about their content quality. As a result, you will be able to improve your writing and visual content.
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Leverage Your Social Media Followers
Discover comes with a lot of fascinating abilities. One of them is that Google Discover lets users customize the sources they want information from. But that’s not all. Users can also choose the topics per their interest. However, not many users know that they can indeed customize their Discover feed.
Use your social media as a marketing tool. Tell your followers to add your social media handles on Discover. Not only will they get a notification when you publish something, but they’ll also know if Discover automatically picks content from your site/ blog.
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Optimize Your Content for Google’s AMPs
AMPs or Accelerated Mobile Pages will help you improve the audience experience on your site. Since enhanced target audience experience on a site is a significant ranking factor on Google, you should not hesitate to manipulate it to improve your chances of getting your content rank on the Discover feed.
However, you might not know what AMPs do. But you don’t need to worry about it. After all, its function lies in its name. Accelerated Mobile Pages will make your site load faster and improve the user experience on your site. Your website will load more quickly, and you will be able to enhance customer satisfaction, and with that, your ranking chances too.
So, keep in mind that if your site doesn’t load fast, it will decrease your site’s search ranking. As a result, your content might not get picked up by Discover.
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Open-Graph-Meta-Tags Play A Huge Role
Know that OGMT or Open-Graph-Meta-Tags are code snippets that determine how your URLs will show up on various social media feeds. For this, you need to pay attention to the URLs of the posts that are trending on Google Discover. Now, observe these contents and format the URL of your posts accordingly.
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Optimize Content For Smartphones
Google Discover is a feature that’s only available on mobile phones. Therefore, it’s essential that you create optimized content pages for mobile and tablet users. It means that you should create informative content that doesn’t get overshadowed by ads or pop-ups.
Needless to mention here that you have to take special care of the visuals as well. The images have to be large and of high-quality. They should also be relevant to your content. Ensure that when your reader clicks on the image, they can zoom in the picture.
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Know About Google’s Content Policies
Google has said that if you want your content to trend on Discover feed, you will have to follow their content guidelines. Now, note that the guidelines include NM (Needs Met) and PQ (Page Quality) Ratings. Keep in mind that these two falls under the Search Quality (SQ) Ratings.
However, following these guidelines won’t ensure that your content will indeed show up on Discover. Instead, it is an acknowledgement by Google that your content is eligible for the Discover feed as it follows all the needed guidelines.
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Make Sure That You Earn Trust
Note that trustworthiness is vital for both Google Discover as well as SERP. It means you have to build E-A-T or Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness through your content. It translates to building a powerful site authority that delivers reliable content.
You can build powerful site expertise and authority only by creating relevant content. However, that alone won’t be enough. You will also have to generate high-quality backlinks from various trusted high authoritative websites. However, link building takes skill. So, if you feel like you alone can’t do that, then enlist an expert & professional SEO agency for getting your job done.
To sign off
Google Discover is the new evolution in SEO content. Here, users will get the content they desire without even searching for it. It’s crucial that as a content developer, you optimize content for this new feature to get significant traffic on your website to grow the user base. To optimize your content for Google Discover, you need to ensure quality writing and improve the visual elements on the website. Besides, don’t forget to monitor the performance of your competitors closely. Pay attention to why their content is getting a better rank than yours. Adhere to the ethical and effective optimization practices, and you’ll get your content trending on the Google Discover feeds in no time at all.