by Guest Author – Ben Starr
Initially formed in 1998 to organize information and make it accessible to audiences worldwide, Google has now become the largest search engine in the world. It stores billions of web pages. Over the years, Google went on to organize this information into videos, images, news, shopping, maps, text, and other forms. If you want to make a mark online, getting featured on Google News is the best way to do it. The news section of Google is read by billions of people across the world and can increase your company’s exposure.
Make your articles news-worthy
Providing a wide array of current events and recent developments, Google News mainly features large corporations and major media outlets. But with a few smart steps, you can have your story featured on Google News and increase traffic to your website. The first step to writing a successful story for Google News is to ensure that it sounds like a news-worthy article. Many individuals and organizations use the standard press release format to make their story appear like a news story. Your articles need to be based on a relevant and current topic that highlights one or more aspects of your organization.
Do not include articles that border on informative, fiction, advice column, or how-to techniques.
Avoid including job postings, event announcements, or classified ads in your articles. Ensure that your story has been formatted with HTML coding to make your contribution to Google. HTML is a commonly used language to code websites. So, submitting your article in any other format will decrease you chances of featuring on Google News. Avoid using PDF formats at all times.
You should know that if your contribution is in the form of a video or infographic, it will not appear on Google News. Instead, these additions will be listed under Images or Videos.
Complete your article before you attempt to have it ranked by Google. Each link suggested on Google News is usually crawled only once. So if you do make changes to your article after publishing it, Google News will not feature it again. In simple terms, web crawling is a process where the software program automatically downloads websites that match their criteria. Google News uses the same algorithm to find news programs and feature them.
Nailing the technical details
If you are attempting to have your story featured on Google News, it is important to know that each story requires a unique and permanent URL. Hundreds of sites post links and make suggestions for news entries everyday. If you do not want your news story to be featured by another article, ensure that your URL is unique and identifiable from the rest. Make the URL as specific as possible without letting the page link too long.
Ensure that your unique URL consists of at least three or more numerals in it. These numbers should ideally be unique and relevant to your story to make the URL stand out. Avoid using 4-digit numbers that start with ‘19’ or ‘20’ as they could resemble a year.
Understanding the process of suggesting news
To make your suggestion for a featured link on Google News, start by visiting the Google News Publishers Support Page. On this page, you will find a yellow envelope icon that says ‘Email Us’. Click on the first link and select the first option – ‘Suggest News Content’. After this step, you will be directed to a question that asks whether or not you are a representative for the content’s news provider. Select ‘yes’ as your answer. You will then be enquired whether the news article has already been published on another website, mobile website, or YouTube. Select the appropriate options if your news story has been previously covered on another website.
After you have completed the initial steps, you will be directed to a form at the bottom of the web page where you are asked to list essential information. Fill out details like the URL, location, category, language, authors, as well as contact information. If needed, provide additional information that is relevant to your news story. Click the ‘Submit’ button when you are done with filling the form. After you have submitted the form, Google News will crawl your site for more data and the required information to feature your news story.
‘Ben Starr is the Managing Director of 15 Marketing that operate websites such as ohmybingo.com. If you wish to submit your own editorial please contact Bill Beatty.
