GOOGLE Discover is a great way to drive millions of clicks to your website.
However, your content will not feature on the feed if the headline is not optimised.
TRAFCK are the industry leading experts when it comes to Google Discover.
We have driven over one billion Discover clicks to a single site in the US in under a year.
Our team have pulled together a step-by-step guide on how to optimise your content.
We have also revealed how to use images to drive more clicks from Discover.
Now, SEO experts TRAFCK will reveal the secret to success when it comes to writing headlines.
How important are headlines for Google Discover?
If you want your content to be surfaced on Discover, you need to write an optimised headline.
Do:
- Write headlines that capture the essence of the content
- Write timely headlines that are based on current interests
- Write a headline that tells a story well
Do not:
- Write a clickbait headline
- Write a headline to artificially inflate engagement
- Use misleading or exaggerated details
- Withhold crucial information from the headline
All of the above are featured on Google’s website.
TRAFCK’s top tips
- Teased headlines
Given our years of experience, we have tried and tested countless different headline formats.
One approach that we see repeated success from is using teased headlines.
This means you withhold one element of the headline from the reader.
As a result, they want to click into the story and find out more.
For example, let’s pretend you are a health blogger and are writing content about how to get a six pack.
If you are writing this content for organic search you would want to cram as many keywords in as possible.
For example: “I tried mountain climbers, sit ups and planks to get a six pack.”
However, for Discover you would take a very different approach.
You would want to tease an element of the headline in order to make it clickable.
For example: “I tried five different exercises to get a six pack – here’s what happened.”
The clickable elements are the exercises and the results.
However, do not oversell the story or tease the entire story as this could be clickbait.
Below shows an example of a teased headline that has been surfaced.
- Exclusive content
TRAFCK encourage all of our clients to produce as much exclusive content as possible.
Exclusive content ranks better organically – and will make the story more likely to get picked up on Discover.
Google’s algorithm will be aware of content it has crawled before.
It will also follow all of the links from competitors than point back to your exclusive.
Google’s guidelines support our claims that exclusive content is the preferred choice on Discover.
It states: “Provide content that’s timely for current interests, tells a story well, or provides unique insights.”
The unique insights will come from your exclusive content.
- Competitor analysis
TRAFCK advise all of our clients to get used to using Google Discover as a source of news.
This will allow you to see the content that is working for your competitors.
It can also be a great way to see how other publishers headline their articles.
Google Discover is an automated news feed that you can view on your smartphone.
A feed of stories based on your search activity and interests will be shown.
For example, if you regularly search ‘boxing’ then you can expect to see boxing stories on your feed.
To view it on an iPhone, simply open the Google app and scroll down.
To view it on an Android, simply open the Google app and click the Discover tab.
Will my content get picked up on Google Discover if it has a good headline?
No. A well-optimised headline will not be enough to guarantee your success on Discover.
There are several types of content that Google will not feature on the feed – no matter how well optimised it is.
These include:
- Dangerous content
- Deceptive practices
- Harassing content
- Hateful content
- Manipulated media
- Medical content
- Sexually explicit content
- Terrorist content
- Violence & gore
- Vulgar language & profanity
- Ads & sponsored content
- Misleading content
Do you need help with your Google Discover strategy? Contact us to find out how we can help you with guaranteed results at hi@trafck.co.uk
If your Discover feed is not working, find out how to fix it here with TRAFCK’s six top tips.