[Case Study] Maximizing the Potential of Google Discover

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roydan said:
Where have I said that? I may have explained myself in a bad way.
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Oh, I was referring to your Discover guide, where you said, you have to show Google about the content being engaging, So, I was referring to that. Probably Paid traffic will do it too. Pinterest, Reddit, Instagram. Right?
 
Epicster said:
Oh, I was referring to your Discover guide, where you said, you have to show Google about the content being engaging, So, I was referring to that. Probably Paid traffic will do it too. Pinterest, Reddit, Instagram. Right?
Click to expand...
I meant to show Google that the content created a discussion on Reddit, and that the overall sentiment is positive.
 
roydan said:
I meant to show Google that the content created a discussion on Reddit, and that the overall sentiment is positive.
Click to expand...
Ahhh got it. Reddits too harsh. I was thinking of doing something with Facebook or maybe Pinterest. Oh wait, You only have to show google. It can be faked with fake upvotes etc. Right? Finally got it. haha
 
roydan said:
This was planned to be a short case study, showing what I found to drive more traffic from Google Discover.
First of all, this is the data I’m basing my observation of:

View attachment 254944

Do you see all of these peaks at the beginning? These are articles on one of my sites that performed very well on Google Discover. ‘Very well’, of course, is relative, so bear that in mind. Somewhere in July 2022, I started getting traffic more consistently, which is great for me, but it makes it harder to differentiate between articles just by looking at the graph, so you have to take my word for some of my observations.

What’s Google Discover?
Google Discover is some sort of mobile feed of content from around the web that Google makes for you based on your interests.

Any Special Requirements?
To be featured on Discover, your site have to be “whitelisted”. Additionally each post on Google Discover must have an image which is at least 1200px wide, so make sure your featured image is at least 1200px wide.

Moving on...
Anyway, I analyzed the articles that performed above average, and these are the things that differentiated them from other content on that site:

  • They will interest any single one of my users.
  • They are broad yet very relevant to my audience.
  • They are written very well.
  • Most of them are lists (random numbers work better than the usual top 10)
  • They are comprehensive but not exhausting - no fluff whatsoever!
  • They are not optimized for search, but would be a nice youtube video if I had filmed them - I hope you get what I mean by that.

You need to understand that if your post doesn’t bring a good CTR, it’ll get 300-400 impressions, and Google won’t show it again.

There are two things you can optimize for good CTR:
  • Headline
  • Featured Image
The headline on Discover is longer than in Search, don’t be afraid to go over the character limit if you thought of a good one.

This is your time to be clickbaity, but make sure your headline represents the content.
  • 5 Different Ways to Get Infinite Ammo in Doom 95
  • These are the Best 17 (and a half) Supercars of All Time
  • Have a Baby? This Simple Test Will Tell if They’re Gonna Have ADHD
  • Stay A While and Listen. Have You Heard Deckard Cain’s Rap Song?

Your featured image can make or break your feature on Discover. Do not half-ass it. Make it pop, add some text, and make it awesome! AI-Generated Images also work very well for some reason. Just make sure they’re good.



When I applied everything that I learned (and got a bit lucky), this is what I got:

View attachment 254945

I’m still experimenting with it, and I’ll post updates in this thread if I find anything worth sharing.


If you're interested in my method of getting a site into Google Discover, let me know, and I can write a guide for that.
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Guide me please
 
I have had similar experience one of my weirdly titled article gain 300k impressions and 7000 clicks within the span of 2 days.

0 social signals done to the post, I truly believe it’s google news approved site and consistent high quality content updates.

I only got 6 posts from my website to discover, 5 of those performed poorly with 1k impressions and 2.7% CTR. Just one post got viral, I am also experimenting by writing more and more quality content now. Will provide an input if anything works!
 
micke09 said:
What do you mean By "whitelisted"?
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Before an article can be featured in the Discover feed, the site needs to be able to be shown there.
You'll know that it happens if you see the Discover tab under performance in GSC.
 
Interesting topic, I'm following this thread.
 
Quick question:

I got a post doing quite well on G Discover.

The next one got 10-15 views on G Discover. Can I still take advantage of the fact that it's showing up there? Any ways to optimize?
 
Golden Nose Slim said:
Quick question:

I got a post doing quite well on G Discover.

The next one got 10-15 views on G Discover. Can I still take advantage of the fact that it's showing up there? Any ways to optimize?
Click to expand...
It's mostly about CTR and content quality. The 2nd article could've been less interesting or it didn't catch much attention from users.
This is also a changing feed, so it's hard to determine whether this is something you can fix or if there's a trent that your audience is reacting to.
 
roydan said:
It's mostly about CTR and content quality. The 2nd article could've been less interesting or it didn't catch much attention from users.
This is also a changing feed, so it's hard to determine whether this is something you can fix or if there's a trent that your audience is reacting to.
Click to expand...
Oh, I see. That makes sense.

Although I did try making an article as similar as possible to the one that got views.

I seem to have a pretty steady CTR of 6-7% on all the articles that made it onto Discover.

It's just that some have a lot of impressions and some just a few.

Oh, and yeah, almost all the articles are lists. I have a music site so a lot of articles are "Band X's Top 10 songs" or "Band Y's best albums".
 
Golden Nose Slim said:
Quick question:

I got a post doing quite well on G Discover.

The next one got 10-15 views on G Discover. Can I still take advantage of the fact that it's showing up there? Any ways to optimize?
Click to expand...

Yes there are many ways to optimize and increase views on Discover. I recently got 3 articles in Discover - while 1 got good number of clicks the other 2 started getting impressions and clicks at over 7% CTR and then just dropped dead. I made some on page seo and technical changes to those two articles, and google discover just shot them up and those 2 posts are still going very strong.
 
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