We all know the value of getting your web content ranking well on Google News but with Google’s ever evolving algorithms that’s easier said than done. Inside Online are obviously committed to all that is search engine optimisation so we have decided to focus on the difficulties facing those looking to move up those Google rankings and get your site some much needed authority.

Pages listed on the Google News channel command a much higher CTR and due to the fact that these listings rank much higher on the search listings, they present a gilt-edged opportunity to get on the first page of Google for your desired search term. It’s just getting there that seems to be the problem of late.

First of all, we recommend getting accepted as a news source. Requesting that Google includes your site as trustworthy source of news is of paramount importance and this will prompt the Google News team to review your website. They will then track whether or not you are regularly updating your site with news and if this is the case, you will stand a great chance of rising up the rankings and getting into Google News as desired.

Remember, your content must be fresh and original – any duplicate material will be overlooked by the powers that be.

Another good tip is staying topical, if there is something going on in the world then get writing about it. Google’s crawlers will pick up on this and the freshest content will rank far higher. Even if you get a short summary up and enhance it later, this will help you greatly.

Secondly, do your keyword research and make your headlines as enticing as possible. Although a traditional SEO technique, this process is as important as ever. Get your keywords in the headline and the teaser if possible; if you do this for all your posts you should see an improvement pretty quickly. Google now groups news items into clusters to give its readers a range of angles so try and work out their keyword system for each theme. Sounds easy doesn’t it!?

Nail this and you will get the CTR’s necessary to get a high Google ranking, your articles will also stay in the universal search results for longer. Happy days!

Lastly and perhaps most boringly, make sure you keep paying attention to the technical stuff. To get picked up by Google’s crawlers you need to make sure your site fulfils some basic technical requirements. These are basically good clean HTML and making sure images are at the end or the beginning of your articles. Don’t do anything on a HTML level that may confuse the crawlers.

Also make sure you have a well maintained news sitemap via the Google Webmaster Tools. This automatically pings Google every time you post articles, this is obviously priceless.

Getting onto Google News is becoming all the more difficult these days but follow these tips and Inside Online are sure you will start seeing results. Why not give us a call to discuss how we can help you with your SEO campaign?

Originally posted 2011-02-17 18:13:38.