Google News is about looks, too

Google News is about looks, too

Getting a site accepted as a Google News source is a very hard task indeed, and it’s not for everyone. If you are targeting Google News as part of your SEO, it’s important to realise it’s not just about content. If you want any hope of success, you have to have the right look.
It might sound strange that appearance can have any effect on your chances of being selected for Google News, but it’s true. Google has been cracking down on the number of non-news sites that have managed to work their way into its news sources, looking at more than content. This is why looking more like a media site helps.

Here’s some changes you can make if you’re targeting Google News as part of your search engine optimisation:
Design
If your site looks like a company website, it’s not going to make the grade. Convincing Google of your newsworthiness starts with the right layout, and magazine layouts are recommended. Talk to us at SEO.co.uk for further advice.
Supplementary pages
Having the right supplementary pages also gives off the signals that Google is looking for. As well as a good About Us page, one which features some meaty content, it’s a good idea to have a featured authors page, listing the names of your writers. This can make your site more attractive to site users as well.
Make things easier with a niche
No business can afford to run a general news site as part of their search engine optimisation campaign. Pick a niche in your industry, and feature news from there. This speciality gives you enough focus to make content writing easier, and give you more of a news drive. Cornering a niche will also increase the likelihood of Google choosing your site for its rare information.

Get Bitten by the News Bug!

Get Bitten by the News Bug!

The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism has recently released a survey which shows that the amount of people who get their news online has surpassed the number of people who get their information via newspapers. Forty-six per cent of Americans surveyed get their news online approximately three times throughout the week compared to forty per cent who get info through print media.
Getting news and information through televised broadcasts is still the leading platform, with fifty per cent of Americans getting their news from TV bulletins. What’s also incredibly interesting is that nearly half of Amercians surveyed – a fascinating forty-seven per cent – get their news from mobiles, especially when it relates to local matters.

Their report also shows that there is a steady decline when it comes to people getting their information through from traditional media. Every media sector apart from online is losing an audience in some shape or other, and we feel this data is imperative to showing people how important posting regular news items on a company blog or other actually is.
With more people searching online than ever before for products, news, opinion and more, having an up-to-date news blog on your site can help to attract organic traffic as well as keeping your core visitors coming back to your site for more.
But your news blogs should always be original, objective and say something to your readers that no other site does. Your news should be sourced by yourself in-house and be relevant to your industry when it comes to search engine optimisation. The better the quality of your news when content writing, the more relevant it is and if a lot of care’s been taken when writing it, you should win over a lot of fans and followers for years to come if you keep it up!