Introduced in 2018, Discover (previously known as Feed) is an attractive element in the Google Chrome mobile app. It essentially contains information including news, videos, articles, live sports results, advertisements, etc.
Google Discover provides a query-free way to get information. Naturally, it's time to optimize websites for the new way of finding information. Today we will take a look at it.
What is Google Discover?
Google Discover is basically an AI-powered content recommendation tool that sits just below the Google search bar in the Chrome app.
It is similar to a social media feed and offers highly personalized content by tracking user behavior.
Why is it important in SEO?
SEO experts have already noticed that Discover generates a significant amount of organic traffic. This indicates that organic traffic is no longer solely dependent on typing queries into the search bar.
This poses a significant challenge. For most SEO efforts, there is a source, usually a keyword or a subset of keywords. You create content around target keywords to satisfy the users' query and hope to appear in the top search results when users search for similar information, products or services.
But with Discover, there is no origin since users are not actively searching for you! This means that users don't always have to rely on their own search queries to find the most relevant or interesting content for them.
So how to optimize your content to be found on Google Discover? We will unravel it in the next section.
Optimization strategies for Google Discover
As you can understand, keywords are not enough to rank content on Discover. However, there is good news: many of the same search engine optimization rules still apply. Here are a few worth noting:
#Create engaging, high-quality content
Creating quality content has always been essential for search engine optimization. It has become even more important when it comes to displaying content on Google Discover.
Now, in addition to quality, you need to focus on user engagement with your content.
Think about your social media feed for a while. It's dictated by what you interact with the most. Discover feed works on a similar principle.
All your content must be attractive and of high quality to attract the user's attention. Additionally, you need to create modern and relevant content that attracts the audience. Discover, as its name suggests, encourages users to take a look at something new.
Here's another bonus tip to improve user engagement: try leveraging personalization, email marketing, loyalty benefits, etc. to attract your target audience to interact with you all the time. The more your audience interacts with your website, the more likely it is to appear in their Google Discover feed.
#EarnTrust
Trustworthiness is an important ranking factor, both on the search engine results page and on Google Discover.
This is what keeps Google Search Center about being found on Google Discover:
“Our automated systems display content in Discover from sites that have many individual pages that demonstrate expertise, authority and trustworthiness (EAT). Those looking to improve EAT can consider some of the same questions we recommend site owners consider for Search. While Search and Discover are different, the general EAT principles that apply to the content within them are similar.”
To build trustworthiness, you need to build strong authority on the site. And it depends on creating relevant and useful content.
Make sure you have a proper link building strategy that helps you get high-quality backlinks from trusted sites. If you are not sure how to get started with link building, collaborating with one of the best SEO agencies will be a good idea.
#Focus on user experience
Writing user-engaging content will not produce a desirable result if the website does not offer a top-notch user experience. For example, the web page should load in 3 to 5 seconds. A clickbait article that has more ads than content is less likely to appear on Discover.
Additionally, since Google Discover is only available on mobile phones and tablets, it's important to optimize your content for smartphones. For example, intrusive pop-ups should not block your view. Images and visuals should be easily accessible. Make sure users can click and zoom on the image to expand it.
#Visual content
Users engage with new visual content in the Discover feed. So be sure to include high-quality images and videos to earn a spot on Google Discover and get clicks. Your images must be at least 1200px wide and enabled with the max-image-preview:large setting.
Remember, users aren't searching for something specific as they scroll through the Discover feed. Therefore, the image you use becomes an important factor in getting them to click on the link. Likewise, be sure to use an eye-catching title to generate more clicks. The more clicks you receive, the more relevant you are to Google's algorithm and the more your content will be shown to audiences with a similar taste.
#Pay attention to open graph meta tags
Your open graph meta tags can also play a role in Google Discover. If you're not familiar with Open Graph meta tags, let us quickly introduce them to you. OG meta tags are the code snippets that control how URLs are displayed on social media. Google can now choose to present content using og: title, og: description, and og: image in the Discover preview card.
Interestingly, the Ahrefs team found the relationship between Google Discover and Open Graph meta tags. Pros noticed that there was a typo in the og:title ('Ink Creation Case Study: How We Create Backlinks with a Statistics Page') in Google Discover. However, the typo was not present in the actual title of the article ('Link Building Case Study: How We Build Backlinks with a Statistics Page').
Taking note, right?
#Createsocialmediabuzz
It's no surprise that Google favors posts that are viral or at least turned out to be quite engaging on social media. As you can understand, the distinction between a search engine and social networks is gradually blurring. It's not enough to generate content, optimize it for the search engine, and hope that people search for related terms and come across your content.
You have to take the driver's seat, hire social media marketing services if necessary and create a buzz on social media about your post. That way, you can reach a larger audience. In turn, it will help you earn a spot in the Discover feed.
