Why Choose Google News
Did you know that Google News press releases can benefit even a local business? Really, there’s no need to be modest and stick to small media outlets. Being seen on Google News and other well-known sites will just make you stand out from the competition that’s aiming too low!
When your business gets published on Google News, you have the possibility of being seen by millions of people across the globe. This increased visibility can lead to more traffic, potential leads, and, ultimately, more customers.
Data from Think With Google reveals that users spend 31 minutes per day on news apps, such as Google News.
When users see your content on such a reputable platform, they are more likely to trust your brand – this is important, especially if you’re just getting started and trying to establish your name in the market.
In this article, we’ll take a look at how visibility on Google News can benefit your brand and how to get published.
Understanding the Google News Audience
In all marketing, knowing your audience is the key to a successful campaign. It will help you tailor your content to their interests and habits – increasing the likelihood that your story will be read and shared.
Before you sit down to write your press release, you should get familiar with Google News’ audience. This will increase your chances of capturing their attention and being shared.
Here is the key Google News audience information as collated from online sources like SimilarWeb:
- User Demographics: The audience is predominantly male (67.26%), with the largest age group being 35-44 years old.
- Global Reach: Google News is a global news aggregator, pulling from over 20,000 publishers in multiple languages.
- Geographic Distribution: The primary audience for Google News is based in the United States, which accounts for about 47.64% of traffic. Other significant countries include France (8.66%), Germany (5.63%), and Japan (5.49%).
- Monthly Visits: Google News attracts approximately 342.3 million visits each month, with a steady increase of 3.98% compared to the previous month.
- User Trust: Over 60% of people trust Google News more than other outlets – which means you’re increasing your brand’s authority when your press release is published there.
- Engagement Metrics: Users spend an average of 5 minutes and 50 seconds per visit – it’s a pretty strong level of engagement with the content.
- User Interests: The audience is generally interested in categories like News & Media Publishing, technology, business, and other areas that highlight current events and trends.
Submit to Google-Approved News Sites
While you can’t submit your press release directly to Google News, you can submit your content to Google-approved news sites. These sites meet Google’s quality and content guidelines and journalistic standards – increasing the chances of your press release being picked up.
Identifying Approved Sites
To do this, you must first find the right Google-approved news sites. Here are some examples of such sites:
- Hindustan Times Deccan Herald
- The Print
- Outlook India
- NewsX
- Asian Age
- DNA
- IBTimes
- Mid Day
- Vents Magazine
- Estrade Herald
These sites have established credibility and consistently publish original news content, which is crucial for maintaining their status as Google-approved sources.
Evaluate the sites based on their audience, content style, and submission requirements and choose the ones that align with your brand’s message and target demographic so that your press release reaches the right audience.
Submission Guidelines
Each Google-approved site will have specific guidelines you need to follow – like formatting requirements, content length, and acceptable topics. To get your press release approved and published, you need to follow these rules closely.
Your press release needs to follow general as well as site-specific guidelines to be published.
Your content should be well-written, informative, and free of errors. It needs to avoid overly promotional language and focus on delivering newsworthy information. Also, make sure your press release includes all the necessary details, such as who, what, when, where, and why.
What You Need to Know About the Changes to Google Publisher Center
Previously, publishers could create source pages manually in the Publisher Center. In April 2024, Google released an update that publishers cannot manually add their publications to the Google Publisher Center anymore. Instead, eligible publications will be automatically created by Google in early 2025.
So, as long as your site and content adhere to Google’s content policies, it’s automatically considered for inclusion in Google News and other news surfaces.
“Our content and behavior policies help ensure a positive experience for our users and publishers. To be eligible to appear in Google News or news surfaces, content should follow best practices for article pages and must not violate Google Search’s overall policies, Google Search’s spam policies, or [the] policies for Search features.”
Google News Policies
Key Criteria for Google News Eligibility
Here’s a summary of the key criteria your content must follow to be included in Google News:
- Content Quality
- Content must be original, accurate, and provide unique insights. Aggregated content should be clearly differentiated from self-generated content.
- Articles should be relevant and published regularly to reflect current events or trending topics.
- Content must be well-written, free of grammatical errors, and engaging for readers.
- Technical Requirements
- Use permanent and unique URLs for each article. Your site must be structured in a way that is easy for Googlebot to crawl. Content must be provided in HTML format since non-HTML formats
- Content must be provided in HTML format since non-HTML formats like PDFs cannot be crawled by Google News. Learn more about how Google crawling works here.
- The site must be accessible to search engine bots, with a properly configured robots.txt file.
- Adherence to Google News Policies
- Avoid prohibited content types which are:
- Dangerous content
- Deceptive practices
- Harassing content
- Hateful content
- Manipulated media
- Medical content
- Sexually explicit content
- Violent extremist content
- Violent & gory content
- Vulgar language & profanity
- Provide clear dates, bylines, author information, and contact details to establish trustworthiness.
- Avoid prohibited content types which are:
- Regular Updates
- Sites should publish news articles regularly (daily or multiple times a week) to demonstrate active engagement with news topics.
- Niche Focus
- The site should primarily focus on news articles rather than a mix of content types (e.g., blogs or product reviews). A dedicated news section is advisable.
- Use of News Sitemap
- Submit a Google News-specific XML sitemap that includes metadata about your articles, such as publication dates and titles.
- User Experience
- The website design is clean and easy to use for better overall user experience.
By meeting these criteria, you can improve your chances of having your press releases being included in Google News.
Does this all sound a bit overwhelming? Then, Ethos Media & Marketing LLC is here for you, offering a simple, done-for-you solution!
How Ethos Media & Marketing LLC Helps with Google News Submission
Ethos Media & Marketing LLC is a content creation and distribution platform that can help submit your press releases to Google News. We identify your niche and build a strong brand by creating high-quality, well-researched content in various formats – such as news articles, blog posts, slideshows, podcasts, infographics, and videos. We then distribute this content across high-authority sites like Google News, Yahoo Finance, Business Insider, YouTube and Spotify.
Our 3-step process to drive long-term organic traffic:
- Create: We discover what people want to buy from you and create the ideal content to capture their attention.
- Repurpose: We create a news article, blog post, video, infographic, slideshow, and an audio ad from a single piece of seed content.
- Distribute: We distribute all this content across hundreds of trusted brands, sites, and platforms across the internet such as Business Insider, Youtube, Spotify, and Pinterest.
Since we’ll handle it all for you, you’ll save valuable time that you can invest in your business. Once the content is submitted, you’ll also get a detailed report showing all the sites your press release is distributed to and how it’s performing.
Learn more about how Ethos Media & Marketing LLC’s fully managed content creation, repurposing, and distribution solution works here.
