We’ve talked about Google News before; how you can submit your website to Google News and how if you’re accepted you can expect to receive lots more traffic and links as a result of the inclusion, but exactly how does this work?
Here’s a case study of a website that is updated daily with content. The website is called ‘Dream Dogs’ and features news and tips to do with dogs. The website recently featured a post about the US President Barack Obama, and his quest to find a new dog for the White House. The subject of Obama’s dog caused quite a stir with news agencies and websites, resulting in a lot of searches within Google for his dog, what breed the dog would be and what the dog’s name was.
As a consequence of this, any sites that write about the subject featured within Google News for these searches, and received a lot of traffic for the searches.
This screenshot (click to enlarge) shows the sort of coverage the story received, and our case study website ranking at the top of the listings, together with an image. This means that anyone searching Google News for this particular news item found the case study website.
What this meant for the website was:
- Increased traffic as a result of the listing
- Increased new visitors
- Increased links as a result of other websites picking up the story, and linking back to the source: Dream Dogs
The level of content added to the website meant that Google saw it as an authority on the subject, and ranked it accordingly, at the top.
However, you may be thinking that not everyone uses Google News to search for things they’re looking for. You’d be right. Google though is one step ahead of you, as it features its news listings in with the organic search results as part of its Universal Search.
This screenshot shows a snapshot of the search listings for another search, a review for the film ‘Marley & Me’. The screenshot is from the front page of Google, from its organic listings, yet the case study website appears on the front page, as a Google News listing.
By getting into Google News you’re able to increase your traffic, increase your exposure, amass high quality, relevant links and compete for competitive search phrases through Universal Search that will gain you targeted traffic.
Is there anything content can’t do?
[...] written in the past about how you can use Google’s Universal search effectively to gain front page listings on Google for very competitive keywords. This last week we [...]