Since its launch in 2018, Google Discover has seen millions of people discover content from around the web that is based on your interests. Each person’s Google Discover feed is unique and personalized to their preferences. Having content featured on Google Discover can lead to increased traffic, more leads, and more money for your business. But how do you appear in Google Discover?
How Google Discover Generates Content
To take advantage of Google Discover, you need to know how it works. How does Google Discover generate a personalized feed for someone? It’s very similar to how social media platforms curate your feed.
Data Used to Personalize a Discover Feed:
- A person’s activity across all Google products. That includes search activity, YouTube videos they’ve watched, and previous engagements with their Discover feed.
- A person’s location history
- A person’s location settings
- Topics that they follow in Google Discover
Google Discover is so personalized that it can even determine your level of expertise and how important topics are to you. It’s a powerful and intelligent tool that learns how you search and what you like to provide you with the most current or relevant content.
How to Appear in Google Discover
If you want to appear in Google Discover, you should already have a strong search engine optimization strategy in place. Google uses many of the same criteria as their SEO algorithms to select the content that is featured in Google Discover. If you don’t have an established organic website presence, appearing on Google Discover will be difficult. And if you do, there are still no set rules or sure-fire ways to get featured. What you can do, is increase your chances of it happening and Google has set out specific tips on how to get content on Google Discover.
Write Great Content
Sounds easy, doesn’t it? But it can be harder than it looks. Google has a lot of content to pull from, so you really need to stand out above the rest. If you want to appear in Discover, you have to make content the focal point of everything you do. And not just any content, it has to be excellent, high-quality content that answers questions your customers have.
What to concentrate on:
- Write content that is trending in your industry or is evergreen. Discover can uncover content quickly so look at trending topics or popular subjects that relate to your industry or niche.
- Content should have great headlines. Analyze them against your competitors. Are you using powerful headlines? Do they answer questions?
- Use engaging photos and video content along with written content.
- Implement schema markup where possible and make sure it’s done correctly.
- Use title tags and meta descriptions that summarize the page’s content in a way that encourages a reader to click.
Make Sure You E-A-T
Google Discover relies heavily on E-A-T (expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness). Google is looking for signals of trust on your website such as credible business citations, reviews, and mentions of the author. Users on your website should be able to understand why they should trust you. Take advantage of Google’s Affinity categories in Universal Analytics and look for topics where you can become an authority figure and write great content for those topics.
Use Unique High-Quality Images
Visuals get people’s attention, especially on a feed where you can doom-scroll all you want. Discover’s feed relies on great high-quality images. Google has specific recommendations for which images to use:
- Use large images that are more likely to generate visits (mages should be at least 1200 px wide)
- Enable the max-image-preview:large setting or by using AMP
- Avoid using your site logo as your image
- Use image schema to provide Google more data
Make Sure Your Site is Mobile-First
Google Discover is only on mobile devices. Your site’s mobile experience is crucial for getting featured on Google Discover. Google is looking for sites that have excellent user experiences, that are easy to navigate, and that load very quickly. Have you checked how your blogs appear in mobile view? Check it right now. If the content isn’t functional or easy to read through, it is unlikely to be featured in the Discover feed.
Monitor and Test Your Performance
Google Search Console is where you can gain insights into your website performance in Google Discover. There is a dedicated tab called “Discover” that can show you how your content performed in Google Discover. Because you can’t easily analyze your competitors, checking how your content is performing through Google Search Console is the best way to view successes or test different approaches. Be warned though, the data is limited.
Things to consider when looking at the data:
- Is your traffic spiking or in a straight line?
- What specific posts are causing traffic on that particular day?
- What trends can you identify?
What’s important to remember is that Google Discover is essentially a living entity. It’s built on the information that it’s fed. It’s going to be unique to each person which can make predicting success difficult. You’ll need to experiment to fine-tune your content and strategy for appearing on Discover.
Final Thoughts
There is no complete strategy for getting featured on Google Discover. It’s a constant, ever-changing feed that is extremely personalized to the individual. If you’ve implemented effective SEO on your website, you are already on your way. A smart SEO strategy can help you gain visibility in Google’s algorithms which in turn, help you to get featured on Google Discover. It’s really a win-win. The main takeaway is to always be creating unique and interesting content on your website that is highly relevant to your business.
At Ontario SEO, we do just that for our clients. We take an integrated approach to search engine marketing and work with your marketing team to optimize current content, create unique content, and develop content strategies that increase sales. Take your business to the next level by partnering with us.
