Google Discover is a powerful tool for driving traffic to your website. It delivers personalized content to users based on their interests, search history, and other factors. If you want to get your articles featured on Google Discover and indexed quickly, you need to follow certain best practices that improve your chances of visibility.
This guide will walk you through the steps to ensure your website is optimized for fast indexing and can appear on Google Discover.
What is Google Discover?
Google Discover is a content feed available on the Google app and homepage, which shows users relevant content based on their interests, location, and search history. It is personalized for each user and can feature content in a variety of formats, including articles, videos, and images.
Getting your content featured in Google Discover can be a game-changer for driving traffic, especially for news websites, blogs, or content creators. The key to success lies in how Google indexes your site and what criteria they use to include content in Discover.
1. Ensure Your Content Meets Google’s Content Guidelines
Before diving into technical optimizations, it’s crucial to ensure that your content meets Google’s editorial and content standards. Google Discover has specific guidelines that content must adhere to.
Google’s Content Guidelines for Discover
- High-Quality Content: Google prioritizes original, useful, and relevant content. Your articles should provide value to users and be authoritative on the topic.
- No Clickbait: Titles and images should reflect the actual content. Misleading content can be penalized.
- Timeliness: For news sites, Google Discover often features fresh, timely content. Your articles should be updated regularly.
- Mobile-First: Discover is primarily accessed on mobile devices, so your site should be mobile-friendly.
2. Optimize Your Site for Google Search (SEO)
For Google to index your articles quickly and recommend them to users, your site must be easily discoverable and crawlable. Proper SEO is essential for this process.
Technical SEO Tips for Fast Indexing
- Submit Your Site to Google Search Console: Make sure your website is verified in Google Search Console. This helps Google understand your site’s structure and content.
- Create and Submit an XML Sitemap: An up-to-date sitemap helps Googlebot crawl and index your site efficiently. Ensure your sitemap includes all key pages, especially your news or article pages.
- Ensure Fast Loading Times: Slow websites can affect the chances of being featured in Google Discover. Google uses page speed as a ranking factor, so optimize your site’s load time.
- Tools to Improve Page Speed: Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or GTMetrix to check and optimize loading times.
Mobile Optimization
- Google Discover is mobile-first, meaning it’s essential that your website is optimized for mobile. Ensure your site uses responsive design and offers a smooth user experience on mobile devices.
3. Use Structured Data (Schema Markup)
Structured data is critical for helping Google understand the content of your articles. Google uses this data to enhance its search results and can also use it for Google Discover.
How to Implement Structured Data
- Use Article schema or NewsArticle schema to mark up your news articles. This helps Google understand the title, author, publication date, and other important elements of your article.
- You can add structured data using JSON-LD (recommended by Google), which can be placed in the head of your HTML code.
Example of Article Schema (JSON-LD)
Here’s a basic example of how to implement structured data using JSON-LD for an article:
json
Copy
{
“@context”: “http://schema.org”,
“@type”: “NewsArticle”,
“headline”: “How to Get Featured in Google Discover”,
“image”: “https://example.com/cover-image.jpg”,
“author”: {
“@type”: “Person”,
“name”: “John Doe”
},
“publisher”: {
“@type”: “Organization”,
“name”: “Example News”,
“logo”: {
“@type”: “ImageObject”,
“url”: “https://example.com/logo.png”
}
},
“datePublished”: “2025-03-21T08:00:00+08:00”,
“dateModified”: “2025-03-21T09:00:00+08:00”,
“description”: “Learn how to get your content indexed quickly and featured on Google Discover with these tips.”
}
Adding this schema markup helps Google display rich results and improves the likelihood of your article appearing in Google Discover.
4. Consistently Publish Fresh, High-Quality Content
Google Discover tends to prioritize fresh and trending content, especially for news articles. Publishing new content regularly and ensuring that it’s timely and relevant will increase your chances of appearing in the Discover feed.
Best Practices for Publishing Content
- Keep Your Articles Updated: Regularly update your content, especially on trending or evergreen topics.
- Focus on Headlines and Images: Compelling, clear headlines paired with high-quality images are essential for Discover visibility. Google uses the headline and images to decide if your article is relevant to a user’s feed.
- Use High-Quality Images: Use eye-catching, high-quality images (preferably at least 1200px wide) that are relevant to your content.
5. Optimize Your Content for Google Discover
Google Discover prioritizes content that aligns with users’ interests. To increase your chances of being featured, ensure that your content is engaging and provides value.
Content Optimization Tips
- Use Engaging Titles: The title should be attention-grabbing and accurate. Avoid sensationalism or clickbait, as this can lead to penalties.
- Write for Humans, Not Search Engines: Google Discover is about user experience. Focus on writing high-quality, human-friendly content rather than overly optimized articles for SEO.
- Incorporate Rich Media: Including videos, images, and other multimedia can increase your chances of being featured in Discover.
6. Leverage Social Media and External Traffic Sources
Google Discover considers the popularity of content as one of the factors for inclusion. If your articles get shared widely or receive engagement on social platforms, it signals to Google that your content is relevant.
How to Leverage Social Media
- Share Articles on Social Media: Regularly promote your articles on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Engaging social media posts can help your content gain traction and be noticed by Google.
- Encourage User Engagement: Invite users to comment, share, and engage with your content. This can increase the chances of your content being shared and picked up by Google Discover.
7. Monitor Performance and Adjust
Once you start publishing content, it’s important to monitor how it performs in Google Discover. Using tools like Google Search Console and Google Analytics, you can track which articles are being indexed and appearing in the Discover feed.
Key Metrics to Track
- Impressions and Click-Through Rates (CTR): Track the number of times your content appears in Discover and how often users click on it.
- Engagement Metrics: Look at user interaction and how your audience is engaging with your content.
Conclusion
Getting your articles indexed and featured on Google Discover isn’t an instant process, but by following these best practices, you’ll increase your chances significantly. Focus on high-quality, timely content, mobile optimization, and structured data, and engage with users through social media to boost your content’s visibility.
Remember, Google Discover is all about relevance and user engagement. By producing great content that users find interesting and timely, you’ll build the foundation for appearing in the Discover feed and seeing increased traffic.