Google Discover is the Google News equivalent for non-news sites. It is a feed of content from around the web. It can potentially bring hundreds of thousands of users to your site, regardless of whether your site ranks well on Google Search.
Most of this type of traffic comes from the US on Android phones, so bear that in mind, too.
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This is a follow-up to a
short case study I wrote for optimizing content for Google Discover, so if you got featured, make sure to check it out, too.
This method is quite simple and consistent. I tried it with every one of my sites, and today they’re all featured on Discover. It may have not worked in the first time, but it never took my more than 2-3 times (once I figured it out, of course).
How Does it Work
The Idea here is to show Google that your content is interesting and engaging. Please note that I wrote ‘show Google’ and not ‘make Google believe’ because if your content sucks, even if it were to show up on Discover, it wouldn't perform, and you’ll stop appearing.
Technical Requirements
There are a couple of requirements you need to meet:
- Well-written content that is not promotional.
- A well-optimized, fast site (preferably with AMP)
- Your content must include an image that is at least 1200px wide.
The Method
We’ll post our newly posted article to a relevant subreddit that accepts the type of content you’re about to share. It’s important because you don’t want the crazy bastards from Reddit to tear you apart just so the mods can remove the post after a few minutes. This is also the reason you need your content to be good.
Your content must be brand new because the newer it is, the better your chances of success are. You can see that even if the content is really good and engaging, it naturally dies after a few days:
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Write a few words, add a link to the article, and post it to Reddit. Buy a few upvotes, more than you need to be on the top of the Subreddit.
If you can, buy some comments from aged accounts (This is the part I struggled with the most) to show that your content is engaging. Include some believable compliments, questions, and remarks on specific parts of your content. It has to look real. If you don't have a reliable source for this, your content must be of the type that gets this type of comments on its own.
Make sure your featured image is great, as well as your headline. You can afford to go over the Google search character limit a bit, but don’t waste characters on your site name. I went over some more best practices
here if you’re interested.
An ideal scenario is that over time, you'll be constantly on Discover, no matter if your articles are hits or not. Remember that Google needs some filler content, too.
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Sometimes it won’t catch Google’s attention right away. You can get featured within a couple of hours, the next day, or not at all. If your content weren’t good enough, you’d have to try again with another article. Save your most interesting content for this.
Good luck.
