Posted by Polemic Today we're tackling a question that many of us have asked over the years: how do you increase your chances of getting your content into Google News? We're delighted to welcome renowned SEO specialist Barry Adams to share the framework you need to have in place in order to have a chance of appearing in that much-coveted Google News carousel.
Video TranscriptionHi, everyone. I'm Barry Adams. I'm a technical SEO consultant at Polemic Digital and a specialist in news SEO. Today we're going to be talking about how to get into Google News. I get a lot of questions from a lot of people about Google News and specifically how you get a website into Google News, because it's a really great source of traffic for websites. Once you're in the Google News Index, you can appear in the top stories carousel in Google search results, and that can send a lot of traffic your way. How do you get into Google News' manually curated index?So how do you get into Google News? How do you go about getting your website to be a part of Google News' manual index so that you can get that top stories traffic for yourself? Well, it's not always as easy as it makes it appear. You have to jump through quite a few hoops before you get into Google News. 1. Have a dedicated news websiteFirst of all, you have to have a dedicated news website. You have to keep in mind when you apply to be included in Google News, there's a team of Googlers who will manually review your website to decide whether or not you're worthy of being in the News index. That is a manual process, and your website has to be a dedicated news website. I get a lot of questions from people asking if they have a news section or a blog on their site and if that could be included in Google News. The answer tends to be no. Google doesn't want news websites in there that aren't entirely about news, that are commercial websites that have a news section. They don't really want that. They want dedicated news websites, websites whose sole purpose is to provide news and content on specific topics and specific niches. So that's the first hurdle and probably the most important one. If you can't clear that hurdle, you shouldn't even try getting into Google News. 2. Meet technical requirementsThere are also a lot of other aspects that go into Google News. You have to jump through, like I said, quite a few hoops. Some technical requirements are very important to know as well. Have static, unique URLs.Google wants your articles and your section pages to have static, unique URLs so that an article or a section is always on the same URL and Google can crawl it and recrawl it on that URL without having to work with any redirects or other things. If you have content with dynamically generated URLs, that does not tend to work with Google News very well. So you have to keep that in mind and make sure that your content, both your articles and your static section pages are on fixed URLs that tend not to change over time. Have your content in plain HTML.It also helps to have all your content in plain HTML. Google News, when it indexes your content, it's all about speed. It tries to index articles as fast as possible. So any content that requires like client-side JavaScript or other sort of scripting languages tends not to work for Google News. Google has a two-stage indexing process, where the first stage is based on the HTML source code and the second stage is based on a complete render of the page, including executing JavaScript.
For Google News, that doesn't work. If your content relies on JavaScript execution, it will never be seen by Google News. Google News only uses the first stage of indexing, based purely on the HTML source code. So keep your JavaScript to a minimum and make sure that the content of your articles is present in the HTML source code and does not require any JavaScript to be seen to be present. Have clean code.It also helps to have clean code. By clean code, I mean that the article content in the HTML source code should be one continuous block of code from the headline all the way to the end. That tends to result in the best and most efficient indexing in Google News, because I've seen many examples where websites put things in the middle of the article code, like related articles or video carousels, photo galleries, and that can really mess up how Google News indexes the content. So having clean code and make sure the article code is in one continuous block of easily understood HTML code tends to work the best for Google News. 3. Optional (but more or less mandatory) technical considerationsThere's also quite a few other things that are technically optional, but I see them as pretty much mandatory because it really helps with getting your content picked up in Google News very fast and also makes sure you get that top stories carousel position as fast as possible, which is where you will get most of your news traffic from. Have a news-specific XML sitemap.Primarily the news XML sitemap, Google says this is optional but recommended, and I agree with them on that. Having a news-specific XML sitemap that lists articles that you've published in the last 48 hours, up to a maximum of 1,000 articles, is absolutely necessary. For me, I think this is Google News' primary discovery mechanism when they crawl your website and try to find new articles. So that news-specific XML sitemap is absolutely crucial, and you want to make sure you have that in place before you submit your site to Google News. Mark up articles with NewsArticle structured data.I also think it's very important to mark up your articles with news article structured data. It can be just article structured data or even more specific structured data segments that Google is introducing, like news article analysis and news article opinion for specific types of articles. But article or news article markup on your article pages is pretty much mandatory. I see your likelihood of getting into the top stories carousel much improved if you have that markup implemented on your article pages. Helpful-to-have extras:Also, like I said, this is a manually curated index. So there are a few extra hoops that you want to jump through to make sure that when a Googler looks at your website and reviews it, it ticks all the boxes and it appears like a trustworthy, genuine news website. A. Multiple authorsHaving multiple authors contribute to your website is hugely valuable, hugely important, and it does tend to elevate you above all the other blogs and small sites that are out there and makes it a bit more likely that the Googler reviewing your site will press that Approve button. B. Daily updatesHaving daily updates definitely is necessary. You don't want just one news post every couple of days. Ideally, multiple new articles every single day that also should be unique. You can have some sort of syndicated content on there, like from feeds, from AP or Reuters or whatever, but the majority of your content needs to be your own unique content. You don't want to rely too much on syndicated articles to fill your website with news content. C. Mostly unique contentTry to write as much unique content as you possibly can. There isn't really a clear ratio for that. Generally speaking, I recommend my clients to have at least 70% of the content as unique stuff that they write themselves and publish themselves and only 30% maximum syndicated content from external sources. D. Specialized niche/topicIt really helps to have a specialized niche or a specialized topic that you focus on as a news website. There are plenty of news sites out there that are general news and try to do everything, and Google News doesn't really need many more of those. What Google is interested in is niche websites on specific topics, specific areas that can provide in-depth reporting on those specific industries or topics. So if you have a very niche topic or a niche industry that you cover with your news, it does tend to improve your chances of getting into that News Index and getting that top stories carousel traffic. So that, in a nutshell, is how you get into Google News. It might appear to be quite simple, but, like I said, quite a few hoops for you to jump through, a few technical things you have to implement on your website as well. But if you tick all those boxes, you can get so much traffic from the top stories carousel, and the rest is profit. Thank you very much. This has been my Whiteboard Friday. Further resources:
Video transcription by Speechpad.com Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read! The post How to Get Into Google News – Whiteboard Friday appeared first on Sorcerer Digital.
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Posted by Polemic Today we're tackling a question that many of us have asked over the years: how do you increase your chances of getting your content into Google News? We're delighted to welcome renowned SEO specialist Barry Adams to share the framework you need to have in place in order to have a chance of appearing in that much-coveted Google News carousel.
Video TranscriptionHi, everyone. I'm Barry Adams. I'm a technical SEO consultant at Polemic Digital and a specialist in news SEO. Today we're going to be talking about how to get into Google News. I get a lot of questions from a lot of people about Google News and specifically how you get a website into Google News, because it's a really great source of traffic for websites. Once you're in the Google News Index, you can appear in the top stories carousel in Google search results, and that can send a lot of traffic your way. How do you get into Google News' manually curated index?So how do you get into Google News? How do you go about getting your website to be a part of Google News' manual index so that you can get that top stories traffic for yourself? Well, it's not always as easy as it makes it appear. You have to jump through quite a few hoops before you get into Google News. 1. Have a dedicated news websiteFirst of all, you have to have a dedicated news website. You have to keep in mind when you apply to be included in Google News, there's a team of Googlers who will manually review your website to decide whether or not you're worthy of being in the News index. That is a manual process, and your website has to be a dedicated news website. I get a lot of questions from people asking if they have a news section or a blog on their site and if that could be included in Google News. The answer tends to be no. Google doesn't want news websites in there that aren't entirely about news, that are commercial websites that have a news section. They don't really want that. They want dedicated news websites, websites whose sole purpose is to provide news and content on specific topics and specific niches. So that's the first hurdle and probably the most important one. If you can't clear that hurdle, you shouldn't even try getting into Google News. 2. Meet technical requirementsThere are also a lot of other aspects that go into Google News. You have to jump through, like I said, quite a few hoops. Some technical requirements are very important to know as well. Have static, unique URLs.Google wants your articles and your section pages to have static, unique URLs so that an article or a section is always on the same URL and Google can crawl it and recrawl it on that URL without having to work with any redirects or other things. If you have content with dynamically generated URLs, that does not tend to work with Google News very well. So you have to keep that in mind and make sure that your content, both your articles and your static section pages are on fixed URLs that tend not to change over time. Have your content in plain HTML.It also helps to have all your content in plain HTML. Google News, when it indexes your content, it's all about speed. It tries to index articles as fast as possible. So any content that requires like client-side JavaScript or other sort of scripting languages tends not to work for Google News. Google has a two-stage indexing process, where the first stage is based on the HTML source code and the second stage is based on a complete render of the page, including executing JavaScript.
For Google News, that doesn't work. If your content relies on JavaScript execution, it will never be seen by Google News. Google News only uses the first stage of indexing, based purely on the HTML source code. So keep your JavaScript to a minimum and make sure that the content of your articles is present in the HTML source code and does not require any JavaScript to be seen to be present. Have clean code.It also helps to have clean code. By clean code, I mean that the article content in the HTML source code should be one continuous block of code from the headline all the way to the end. That tends to result in the best and most efficient indexing in Google News, because I've seen many examples where websites put things in the middle of the article code, like related articles or video carousels, photo galleries, and that can really mess up how Google News indexes the content. So having clean code and make sure the article code is in one continuous block of easily understood HTML code tends to work the best for Google News. 3. Optional (but more or less mandatory) technical considerationsThere's also quite a few other things that are technically optional, but I see them as pretty much mandatory because it really helps with getting your content picked up in Google News very fast and also makes sure you get that top stories carousel position as fast as possible, which is where you will get most of your news traffic from. Have a news-specific XML sitemap.Primarily the news XML sitemap, Google says this is optional but recommended, and I agree with them on that. Having a news-specific XML sitemap that lists articles that you've published in the last 48 hours, up to a maximum of 1,000 articles, is absolutely necessary. For me, I think this is Google News' primary discovery mechanism when they crawl your website and try to find new articles. So that news-specific XML sitemap is absolutely crucial, and you want to make sure you have that in place before you submit your site to Google News. Mark up articles with NewsArticle structured data.I also think it's very important to mark up your articles with news article structured data. It can be just article structured data or even more specific structured data segments that Google is introducing, like news article analysis and news article opinion for specific types of articles. But article or news article markup on your article pages is pretty much mandatory. I see your likelihood of getting into the top stories carousel much improved if you have that markup implemented on your article pages. Helpful-to-have extras:Also, like I said, this is a manually curated index. So there are a few extra hoops that you want to jump through to make sure that when a Googler looks at your website and reviews it, it ticks all the boxes and it appears like a trustworthy, genuine news website. A. Multiple authorsHaving multiple authors contribute to your website is hugely valuable, hugely important, and it does tend to elevate you above all the other blogs and small sites that are out there and makes it a bit more likely that the Googler reviewing your site will press that Approve button. B. Daily updatesHaving daily updates definitely is necessary. You don't want just one news post every couple of days. Ideally, multiple new articles every single day that also should be unique. You can have some sort of syndicated content on there, like from feeds, from AP or Reuters or whatever, but the majority of your content needs to be your own unique content. You don't want to rely too much on syndicated articles to fill your website with news content. C. Mostly unique contentTry to write as much unique content as you possibly can. There isn't really a clear ratio for that. Generally speaking, I recommend my clients to have at least 70% of the content as unique stuff that they write themselves and publish themselves and only 30% maximum syndicated content from external sources. D. Specialized niche/topicIt really helps to have a specialized niche or a specialized topic that you focus on as a news website. There are plenty of news sites out there that are general news and try to do everything, and Google News doesn't really need many more of those. What Google is interested in is niche websites on specific topics, specific areas that can provide in-depth reporting on those specific industries or topics. So if you have a very niche topic or a niche industry that you cover with your news, it does tend to improve your chances of getting into that News Index and getting that top stories carousel traffic. So that, in a nutshell, is how you get into Google News. It might appear to be quite simple, but, like I said, quite a few hoops for you to jump through, a few technical things you have to implement on your website as well. But if you tick all those boxes, you can get so much traffic from the top stories carousel, and the rest is profit. Thank you very much. This has been my Whiteboard Friday. Further resources:
Video transcription by Speechpad.com Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read! The post How to Get Into Google News – Whiteboard Friday appeared first on Sorcerer Digital. Posted by Polemic Today we're tackling a question that many of us have asked over the years: how do you increase your chances of getting your content into Google News? We're delighted to welcome renowned SEO specialist Barry Adams to share the framework you need to have in place in order to have a chance of appearing in that much-coveted Google News carousel.
Video TranscriptionHi, everyone. I'm Barry Adams. I'm a technical SEO consultant at Polemic Digital and a specialist in news SEO. Today we're going to be talking about how to get into Google News. I get a lot of questions from a lot of people about Google News and specifically how you get a website into Google News, because it's a really great source of traffic for websites. Once you're in the Google News Index, you can appear in the top stories carousel in Google search results, and that can send a lot of traffic your way. How do you get into Google News' manually curated index?So how do you get into Google News? How do you go about getting your website to be a part of Google News' manual index so that you can get that top stories traffic for yourself? Well, it's not always as easy as it makes it appear. You have to jump through quite a few hoops before you get into Google News. 1. Have a dedicated news websiteFirst of all, you have to have a dedicated news website. You have to keep in mind when you apply to be included in Google News, there's a team of Googlers who will manually review your website to decide whether or not you're worthy of being in the News index. That is a manual process, and your website has to be a dedicated news website. I get a lot of questions from people asking if they have a news section or a blog on their site and if that could be included in Google News. The answer tends to be no. Google doesn't want news websites in there that aren't entirely about news, that are commercial websites that have a news section. They don't really want that. They want dedicated news websites, websites whose sole purpose is to provide news and content on specific topics and specific niches. So that's the first hurdle and probably the most important one. If you can't clear that hurdle, you shouldn't even try getting into Google News. 2. Meet technical requirementsThere are also a lot of other aspects that go into Google News. You have to jump through, like I said, quite a few hoops. Some technical requirements are very important to know as well. Have static, unique URLs.Google wants your articles and your section pages to have static, unique URLs so that an article or a section is always on the same URL and Google can crawl it and recrawl it on that URL without having to work with any redirects or other things. If you have content with dynamically generated URLs, that does not tend to work with Google News very well. So you have to keep that in mind and make sure that your content, both your articles and your static section pages are on fixed URLs that tend not to change over time. Have your content in plain HTML.It also helps to have all your content in plain HTML. Google News, when it indexes your content, it's all about speed. It tries to index articles as fast as possible. So any content that requires like client-side JavaScript or other sort of scripting languages tends not to work for Google News. Google has a two-stage indexing process, where the first stage is based on the HTML source code and the second stage is based on a complete render of the page, including executing JavaScript.
For Google News, that doesn't work. If your content relies on JavaScript execution, it will never be seen by Google News. Google News only uses the first stage of indexing, based purely on the HTML source code. So keep your JavaScript to a minimum and make sure that the content of your articles is present in the HTML source code and does not require any JavaScript to be seen to be present. Have clean code.It also helps to have clean code. By clean code, I mean that the article content in the HTML source code should be one continuous block of code from the headline all the way to the end. That tends to result in the best and most efficient indexing in Google News, because I've seen many examples where websites put things in the middle of the article code, like related articles or video carousels, photo galleries, and that can really mess up how Google News indexes the content. So having clean code and make sure the article code is in one continuous block of easily understood HTML code tends to work the best for Google News. 3. Optional (but more or less mandatory) technical considerationsThere's also quite a few other things that are technically optional, but I see them as pretty much mandatory because it really helps with getting your content picked up in Google News very fast and also makes sure you get that top stories carousel position as fast as possible, which is where you will get most of your news traffic from. Have a news-specific XML sitemap.Primarily the news XML sitemap, Google says this is optional but recommended, and I agree with them on that. Having a news-specific XML sitemap that lists articles that you've published in the last 48 hours, up to a maximum of 1,000 articles, is absolutely necessary. For me, I think this is Google News' primary discovery mechanism when they crawl your website and try to find new articles. So that news-specific XML sitemap is absolutely crucial, and you want to make sure you have that in place before you submit your site to Google News. Mark up articles with NewsArticle structured data.I also think it's very important to mark up your articles with news article structured data. It can be just article structured data or even more specific structured data segments that Google is introducing, like news article analysis and news article opinion for specific types of articles. But article or news article markup on your article pages is pretty much mandatory. I see your likelihood of getting into the top stories carousel much improved if you have that markup implemented on your article pages. Helpful-to-have extras:Also, like I said, this is a manually curated index. So there are a few extra hoops that you want to jump through to make sure that when a Googler looks at your website and reviews it, it ticks all the boxes and it appears like a trustworthy, genuine news website. A. Multiple authorsHaving multiple authors contribute to your website is hugely valuable, hugely important, and it does tend to elevate you above all the other blogs and small sites that are out there and makes it a bit more likely that the Googler reviewing your site will press that Approve button. B. Daily updatesHaving daily updates definitely is necessary. You don't want just one news post every couple of days. Ideally, multiple new articles every single day that also should be unique. You can have some sort of syndicated content on there, like from feeds, from AP or Reuters or whatever, but the majority of your content needs to be your own unique content. You don't want to rely too much on syndicated articles to fill your website with news content. C. Mostly unique contentTry to write as much unique content as you possibly can. There isn't really a clear ratio for that. Generally speaking, I recommend my clients to have at least 70% of the content as unique stuff that they write themselves and publish themselves and only 30% maximum syndicated content from external sources. D. Specialized niche/topicIt really helps to have a specialized niche or a specialized topic that you focus on as a news website. There are plenty of news sites out there that are general news and try to do everything, and Google News doesn't really need many more of those. What Google is interested in is niche websites on specific topics, specific areas that can provide in-depth reporting on those specific industries or topics. So if you have a very niche topic or a niche industry that you cover with your news, it does tend to improve your chances of getting into that News Index and getting that top stories carousel traffic. So that, in a nutshell, is how you get into Google News. It might appear to be quite simple, but, like I said, quite a few hoops for you to jump through, a few technical things you have to implement on your website as well. But if you tick all those boxes, you can get so much traffic from the top stories carousel, and the rest is profit. Thank you very much. This has been my Whiteboard Friday. Further resources:
Video transcription by Speechpad.com Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read! The post How to Get Into Google News – Whiteboard Friday appeared first on Sorcerer Digital. Posted by Polemic Today we're tackling a question that many of us have asked over the years: how do you increase your chances of getting your content into Google News? We're delighted to welcome renowned SEO specialist Barry Adams to share the framework you need to have in place in order to have a chance of appearing in that much-coveted Google News carousel.
Video TranscriptionHi, everyone. I'm Barry Adams. I'm a technical SEO consultant at Polemic Digital and a specialist in news SEO. Today we're going to be talking about how to get into Google News. I get a lot of questions from a lot of people about Google News and specifically how you get a website into Google News, because it's a really great source of traffic for websites. Once you're in the Google News Index, you can appear in the top stories carousel in Google search results, and that can send a lot of traffic your way. How do you get into Google News' manually curated index?So how do you get into Google News? How do you go about getting your website to be a part of Google News' manual index so that you can get that top stories traffic for yourself? Well, it's not always as easy as it makes it appear. You have to jump through quite a few hoops before you get into Google News. 1. Have a dedicated news websiteFirst of all, you have to have a dedicated news website. You have to keep in mind when you apply to be included in Google News, there's a team of Googlers who will manually review your website to decide whether or not you're worthy of being in the News index. That is a manual process, and your website has to be a dedicated news website. I get a lot of questions from people asking if they have a news section or a blog on their site and if that could be included in Google News. The answer tends to be no. Google doesn't want news websites in there that aren't entirely about news, that are commercial websites that have a news section. They don't really want that. They want dedicated news websites, websites whose sole purpose is to provide news and content on specific topics and specific niches. So that's the first hurdle and probably the most important one. If you can't clear that hurdle, you shouldn't even try getting into Google News. 2. Meet technical requirementsThere are also a lot of other aspects that go into Google News. You have to jump through, like I said, quite a few hoops. Some technical requirements are very important to know as well. Have static, unique URLs.Google wants your articles and your section pages to have static, unique URLs so that an article or a section is always on the same URL and Google can crawl it and recrawl it on that URL without having to work with any redirects or other things. If you have content with dynamically generated URLs, that does not tend to work with Google News very well. So you have to keep that in mind and make sure that your content, both your articles and your static section pages are on fixed URLs that tend not to change over time. Have your content in plain HTML.It also helps to have all your content in plain HTML. Google News, when it indexes your content, it's all about speed. It tries to index articles as fast as possible. So any content that requires like client-side JavaScript or other sort of scripting languages tends not to work for Google News. Google has a two-stage indexing process, where the first stage is based on the HTML source code and the second stage is based on a complete render of the page, including executing JavaScript.
For Google News, that doesn't work. If your content relies on JavaScript execution, it will never be seen by Google News. Google News only uses the first stage of indexing, based purely on the HTML source code. So keep your JavaScript to a minimum and make sure that the content of your articles is present in the HTML source code and does not require any JavaScript to be seen to be present. Have clean code.It also helps to have clean code. By clean code, I mean that the article content in the HTML source code should be one continuous block of code from the headline all the way to the end. That tends to result in the best and most efficient indexing in Google News, because I've seen many examples where websites put things in the middle of the article code, like related articles or video carousels, photo galleries, and that can really mess up how Google News indexes the content. So having clean code and make sure the article code is in one continuous block of easily understood HTML code tends to work the best for Google News. 3. Optional (but more or less mandatory) technical considerationsThere's also quite a few other things that are technically optional, but I see them as pretty much mandatory because it really helps with getting your content picked up in Google News very fast and also makes sure you get that top stories carousel position as fast as possible, which is where you will get most of your news traffic from. Have a news-specific XML sitemap.Primarily the news XML sitemap, Google says this is optional but recommended, and I agree with them on that. Having a news-specific XML sitemap that lists articles that you've published in the last 48 hours, up to a maximum of 1,000 articles, is absolutely necessary. For me, I think this is Google News' primary discovery mechanism when they crawl your website and try to find new articles. So that news-specific XML sitemap is absolutely crucial, and you want to make sure you have that in place before you submit your site to Google News. Mark up articles with NewsArticle structured data.I also think it's very important to mark up your articles with news article structured data. It can be just article structured data or even more specific structured data segments that Google is introducing, like news article analysis and news article opinion for specific types of articles. But article or news article markup on your article pages is pretty much mandatory. I see your likelihood of getting into the top stories carousel much improved if you have that markup implemented on your article pages. Helpful-to-have extras:Also, like I said, this is a manually curated index. So there are a few extra hoops that you want to jump through to make sure that when a Googler looks at your website and reviews it, it ticks all the boxes and it appears like a trustworthy, genuine news website. A. Multiple authorsHaving multiple authors contribute to your website is hugely valuable, hugely important, and it does tend to elevate you above all the other blogs and small sites that are out there and makes it a bit more likely that the Googler reviewing your site will press that Approve button. B. Daily updatesHaving daily updates definitely is necessary. You don't want just one news post every couple of days. Ideally, multiple new articles every single day that also should be unique. You can have some sort of syndicated content on there, like from feeds, from AP or Reuters or whatever, but the majority of your content needs to be your own unique content. You don't want to rely too much on syndicated articles to fill your website with news content. C. Mostly unique contentTry to write as much unique content as you possibly can. There isn't really a clear ratio for that. Generally speaking, I recommend my clients to have at least 70% of the content as unique stuff that they write themselves and publish themselves and only 30% maximum syndicated content from external sources. D. Specialized niche/topicIt really helps to have a specialized niche or a specialized topic that you focus on as a news website. There are plenty of news sites out there that are general news and try to do everything, and Google News doesn't really need many more of those. What Google is interested in is niche websites on specific topics, specific areas that can provide in-depth reporting on those specific industries or topics. So if you have a very niche topic or a niche industry that you cover with your news, it does tend to improve your chances of getting into that News Index and getting that top stories carousel traffic. So that, in a nutshell, is how you get into Google News. It might appear to be quite simple, but, like I said, quite a few hoops for you to jump through, a few technical things you have to implement on your website as well. But if you tick all those boxes, you can get so much traffic from the top stories carousel, and the rest is profit. Thank you very much. This has been my Whiteboard Friday. Further resources:
Video transcription by Speechpad.com Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read! The post How to Get Into Google News – Whiteboard Friday appeared first on Sorcerer Digital. Posted by Polemic Today we're tackling a question that many of us have asked over the years: how do you increase your chances of getting your content into Google News? We're delighted to welcome renowned SEO specialist Barry Adams to share the framework you need to have in place in order to have a chance of appearing in that much-coveted Google News carousel.
Video TranscriptionHi, everyone. I'm Barry Adams. I'm a technical SEO consultant at Polemic Digital and a specialist in news SEO. Today we're going to be talking about how to get into Google News. I get a lot of questions from a lot of people about Google News and specifically how you get a website into Google News, because it's a really great source of traffic for websites. Once you're in the Google News Index, you can appear in the top stories carousel in Google search results, and that can send a lot of traffic your way. How do you get into Google News' manually curated index?So how do you get into Google News? How do you go about getting your website to be a part of Google News' manual index so that you can get that top stories traffic for yourself? Well, it's not always as easy as it makes it appear. You have to jump through quite a few hoops before you get into Google News. 1. Have a dedicated news websiteFirst of all, you have to have a dedicated news website. You have to keep in mind when you apply to be included in Google News, there's a team of Googlers who will manually review your website to decide whether or not you're worthy of being in the News index. That is a manual process, and your website has to be a dedicated news website. I get a lot of questions from people asking if they have a news section or a blog on their site and if that could be included in Google News. The answer tends to be no. Google doesn't want news websites in there that aren't entirely about news, that are commercial websites that have a news section. They don't really want that. They want dedicated news websites, websites whose sole purpose is to provide news and content on specific topics and specific niches. So that's the first hurdle and probably the most important one. If you can't clear that hurdle, you shouldn't even try getting into Google News. 2. Meet technical requirementsThere are also a lot of other aspects that go into Google News. You have to jump through, like I said, quite a few hoops. Some technical requirements are very important to know as well. Have static, unique URLs.Google wants your articles and your section pages to have static, unique URLs so that an article or a section is always on the same URL and Google can crawl it and recrawl it on that URL without having to work with any redirects or other things. If you have content with dynamically generated URLs, that does not tend to work with Google News very well. So you have to keep that in mind and make sure that your content, both your articles and your static section pages are on fixed URLs that tend not to change over time. Have your content in plain HTML.It also helps to have all your content in plain HTML. Google News, when it indexes your content, it's all about speed. It tries to index articles as fast as possible. So any content that requires like client-side JavaScript or other sort of scripting languages tends not to work for Google News. Google has a two-stage indexing process, where the first stage is based on the HTML source code and the second stage is based on a complete render of the page, including executing JavaScript.
For Google News, that doesn't work. If your content relies on JavaScript execution, it will never be seen by Google News. Google News only uses the first stage of indexing, based purely on the HTML source code. So keep your JavaScript to a minimum and make sure that the content of your articles is present in the HTML source code and does not require any JavaScript to be seen to be present. Have clean code.It also helps to have clean code. By clean code, I mean that the article content in the HTML source code should be one continuous block of code from the headline all the way to the end. That tends to result in the best and most efficient indexing in Google News, because I've seen many examples where websites put things in the middle of the article code, like related articles or video carousels, photo galleries, and that can really mess up how Google News indexes the content. So having clean code and make sure the article code is in one continuous block of easily understood HTML code tends to work the best for Google News. 3. Optional (but more or less mandatory) technical considerationsThere's also quite a few other things that are technically optional, but I see them as pretty much mandatory because it really helps with getting your content picked up in Google News very fast and also makes sure you get that top stories carousel position as fast as possible, which is where you will get most of your news traffic from. Have a news-specific XML sitemap.Primarily the news XML sitemap, Google says this is optional but recommended, and I agree with them on that. Having a news-specific XML sitemap that lists articles that you've published in the last 48 hours, up to a maximum of 1,000 articles, is absolutely necessary. For me, I think this is Google News' primary discovery mechanism when they crawl your website and try to find new articles. So that news-specific XML sitemap is absolutely crucial, and you want to make sure you have that in place before you submit your site to Google News. Mark up articles with NewsArticle structured data.I also think it's very important to mark up your articles with news article structured data. It can be just article structured data or even more specific structured data segments that Google is introducing, like news article analysis and news article opinion for specific types of articles. But article or news article markup on your article pages is pretty much mandatory. I see your likelihood of getting into the top stories carousel much improved if you have that markup implemented on your article pages. Helpful-to-have extras:Also, like I said, this is a manually curated index. So there are a few extra hoops that you want to jump through to make sure that when a Googler looks at your website and reviews it, it ticks all the boxes and it appears like a trustworthy, genuine news website. A. Multiple authorsHaving multiple authors contribute to your website is hugely valuable, hugely important, and it does tend to elevate you above all the other blogs and small sites that are out there and makes it a bit more likely that the Googler reviewing your site will press that Approve button. B. Daily updatesHaving daily updates definitely is necessary. You don't want just one news post every couple of days. Ideally, multiple new articles every single day that also should be unique. You can have some sort of syndicated content on there, like from feeds, from AP or Reuters or whatever, but the majority of your content needs to be your own unique content. You don't want to rely too much on syndicated articles to fill your website with news content. C. Mostly unique contentTry to write as much unique content as you possibly can. There isn't really a clear ratio for that. Generally speaking, I recommend my clients to have at least 70% of the content as unique stuff that they write themselves and publish themselves and only 30% maximum syndicated content from external sources. D. Specialized niche/topicIt really helps to have a specialized niche or a specialized topic that you focus on as a news website. There are plenty of news sites out there that are general news and try to do everything, and Google News doesn't really need many more of those. What Google is interested in is niche websites on specific topics, specific areas that can provide in-depth reporting on those specific industries or topics. So if you have a very niche topic or a niche industry that you cover with your news, it does tend to improve your chances of getting into that News Index and getting that top stories carousel traffic. So that, in a nutshell, is how you get into Google News. It might appear to be quite simple, but, like I said, quite a few hoops for you to jump through, a few technical things you have to implement on your website as well. But if you tick all those boxes, you can get so much traffic from the top stories carousel, and the rest is profit. Thank you very much. This has been my Whiteboard Friday. Further resources:
Video transcription by Speechpad.com Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read! The post How to Get Into Google News – Whiteboard Friday appeared first on Sorcerer Digital. The post Value Propositions: What, Why, and How to Use Them appeared first on ClickFunnels. When convincing a potential customer to buy your product or service, it all comes down to one simple question. Why? Why should they try your product/service instead of another from a competitor? If you can't offer value in your message, then you lose out on a sale and worse, stunt your growth. So, how do you instill value, gain an advantage over the competition, and most importantly, close a sale? It all starts with a well-written value proposition. In this article, we'll discuss everything you need to know about value propositions – what they are, why they're important to your sales funnels, and how to use them most effectively. What is a value proposition and why is it key to your sales funnel strategy?The value proposition definition is the message you create that tells potential customers about your product or service. It also explains why customers should do business with you and not with your competitors. A value proposition lists clear benefits potential customers will enjoy with you and exactly how what you offer will help them in their daily activities. Where do you find value propositions? Value propositions can be found on the landing pages of your sales funnels. Value propositions are a wonderful tool, but they need to be written in a clear and concise way so you can instantly build value and trust with potential customers. The proposition should also cater to the questions potential customers are asking about your product. Also, a value proposition should show potential customers how your business will ultimately solve a pain point they have. As you can see, your value propositions need to be compelling so that they ultimately turn a potential customer into a loyal customer. However, it's important to note that value propositions are not slogans, so don't think of them like that. In short, value propositions are a critical component to your sales funnels. Whether your product is well-known or new on the market, value propositions are a necessary element that can help drive in more sales. What is a customer value proposition? A customer value proposition (CVP) is the actual benefits a customer gains by paying for your product or service. The idea is similar to a value proposition in that the customer understands exactly what the outcomes are when purchasing your product and how it will address any issues they are facing. How to write a value proposition When creating a value proposition, it's important to first answer the following questions:
Once you have those questions answered, you'll need to rephrase them in a clear and concise way. A value proposition should only be 2-4 sentences long. Anything longer could potentially drive your customers away. If bullet points answer the questions better, then use them instead of the paragraph format. Just be sure that you are catering to your audience with your value proposition format and wording. Remember, you can reiterate your value proposition on other landing pages of your sales funnels. Emphasize parts of the message that makes sense for that specific landing page. Next, you'll need to create a headline that clearly describes the ultimate benefit of your product. You want to offer a hook for those visiting your landing page of your sales funnels and this is it – so make it count! Ultimately, during the creation process, be sure to revisit the value proposition with a fresher pair of eyes. And if you can, get feedback from other creative minds. A few other opinions can really help. but don't involve a huge number of people because you'll run into “too many cooks in the kitchen.” Where should you place value propositions in your sales funnels?Now that you know what value propositions are and what good ones look like, where do they go in your sales funnels? A value proposition should be one of the first things a potential customer sees when entering a sales funnel, so keep your value proposition top of mind. It should appear on the landing page, above the fold. In addition, it should appear throughout your sales funnels, in order to drill your simple messaging into the minds of your potential customers. So don't be afraid to add value proposition wording throughout the majority of your landing pages in your sales funnels. Other value proposition best practicesBelow are six best practices to keep in mind when creating a value proposition for your sales funnel. 1. Think like your audienceWhat type of person are you trying to cater to with your product? Keep that answer top of mind when creating a value proposition. Your language should definitely relate and clearly answer the questions they are asking about your product. If you don't know your audience, then it's time to do some research. Send out surveys and get their input. The better you can appeal to them, the higher conversions you'll have. An additional way to appeal to your audience is to stick with “you” pronouns instead of “we.” 2. Don't be vagueYou need to be specific with your writing so there's no confusion, especially when describing benefits and results. The last thing you want is for your customers to be led astray and expect an outcome that you don't promise. Each sentence or bullet point in your value proposition should be short and should clearly communicate specific benefits they will receive. 3. Create value propositions for separate products, services, and buyersAccording to a Hubspot survey, 52% of organizations develop unique value propositions for separate products or services. This makes sense as you want the same customers buying product A to also buy a separate product you sell, product B. Look at your sales funnels as a whole and see if you could benefit from multiple variations of value propositions. This again helps build your customer relationship by instilling more value and trust. Additionally, in the same survey, they found that 45% of organizations target specific value propositions for specific buyer personas. So, after you do your research and understand your audience better, be sure to incorporate different wording and split test to see what gets you the best results. 4. Incorporate social proof – if possibleA great way to build trust and add value is from positive customer reviews and expert testimonials, AKA social proof. Social proof can also work within your value proposition – a short sentence length. Any more than a sentence and your value proposition is no longer a proposition and is instead a regular review. Use those numbers to your advantage, especially if you have other expert endorsements. It's a great way to establish value quickly. 5. Read and rereadAfter crafting a value proposition, read and reread it again to make sure it not only covers the important topics, but can be understood in less than 8 seconds. If you can't read it straight through, then you'll need to continue crafting it. You don't want to lose a potential customer because they got lost in your messaging. Better yet, share your value proposition with 3-5 people and see if they can answer the four questions posed earlier. That will be the ultimate test to see if your value proposition is effective. 6. Change it upLastly, your value propositions should be reworked every two to three years. Why? Your value and benefits should be evolving and growing the same way your target audience is. Chances are you won't be attracting the same people year after year and instead, have a more diverse target audience due to your growth. And these changes don't need to be a 180 degree turn. Instead create copy that does an even better job of describing your business value. It's a good practice to keep in mind as you can take a step back and look at how far you've come. Value proposition examplesSo, what do good value propositions look like? Below are five examples of businesses that have compelling value propositions. The main benefit of this project management and collaboration tool is helping coworkers stay connected. They have a great headline/hook: “Imagine what you'll accomplish together.” This sentence alone tells the audience that their main focus is in collaboration and helping you achieve that. This is a good example of using a type of social proof within a value proposition. They write, “We handle billions of dollars every year for forward-thinking businesses around the world.” By using “wisdom of the crowd” social proof, it quickly builds value as well as a sense of trust. It's also a persuasive tactic in order to steer your potential customers away from competitors. This email automation tool is a good example of how to use a variety of value propositions to appeal to different buyer personas. Currently on their homepage, they have a value proposition that is specifically targeted for marketing/communication/development departments looking to grow their audience in the new year as well as what they can do during the holiday season. Meanwhile, on their About Us landing page, they have their main value proposition about how their tool engages current and future target audiences. It's a more universal value proposition, as they appeal to a diverse and expanding customer base. Here's another example with a great headline/hook: “Feel organized without the effort.” Following their headline, the note-taking app emphasizes exactly how you'll become more organized within the app. In addition, Evernote has a simple web design to the right of the text, with their product on both a laptop and on a phone, showing off its versatility without having to write it out and make their value proposition even longer. GoToMeeting does a good job of clear and concise messaging with their value proposition. Their headline and copy revolves around providing a professional product. In fact it uses the word “professional” twice to get its message across, without sounding too redundant: “Professional meetings deserve a professional online meeting software. That's GoToMeeting – simple, reliable and effective.” In addition, they included a hook before inserting the value proposition – “Our customers love GoToMeeting” – which again is a great tactic to keep the reader engaged in wanting to learn more. Then after the value proposition, GoToMeeting introduces the audience to their user numbers – again, using “wisdom of the crowd” social proof. What to start implementing nowEven if you've already created a value proposition, chances are you can probably refine it, as we pointed out earlier. Brainstorm in order to enhance your value proposition messaging. You can always include others. They'll probably point out something that didn't even cross your mind. As you finalize your value propositions, implement two to three of them and split test them to see what gives you a better conversion rate. See if it makes sense for you to have specific value propositions for multiple landing pages within your sales funnels. With practice and split testing, you'll be well on your way to not only add value to your work, but more importantly, build trust and positive relationships with customers. What has your experience been with value propositions? What value proposition best practices do you follow? Sound off in the comments below!
Thanks for reading Value Propositions: What, Why, and How to Use Them which appeared first on ClickFunnels. The post Value Propositions: What, Why, and How to Use Them appeared first on Sorcerer Digital. Posted by Polemic Today we're tackling a question that many of us have asked over the years: how do you increase your chances of getting your content into Google News? We're delighted to welcome renowned SEO specialist Barry Adams to share the framework you need to have in place in order to have a chance of appearing in that much-coveted Google News carousel.
Video TranscriptionHi, everyone. I'm Barry Adams. I'm a technical SEO consultant at Polemic Digital and a specialist in news SEO. Today we're going to be talking about how to get into Google News. I get a lot of questions from a lot of people about Google News and specifically how you get a website into Google News, because it's a really great source of traffic for websites. Once you're in the Google News Index, you can appear in the top stories carousel in Google search results, and that can send a lot of traffic your way. How do you get into Google News' manually curated index?So how do you get into Google News? How do you go about getting your website to be a part of Google News' manual index so that you can get that top stories traffic for yourself? Well, it's not always as easy as it makes it appear. You have to jump through quite a few hoops before you get into Google News. 1. Have a dedicated news websiteFirst of all, you have to have a dedicated news website. You have to keep in mind when you apply to be included in Google News, there's a team of Googlers who will manually review your website to decide whether or not you're worthy of being in the News index. That is a manual process, and your website has to be a dedicated news website. I get a lot of questions from people asking if they have a news section or a blog on their site and if that could be included in Google News. The answer tends to be no. Google doesn't want news websites in there that aren't entirely about news, that are commercial websites that have a news section. They don't really want that. They want dedicated news websites, websites whose sole purpose is to provide news and content on specific topics and specific niches. So that's the first hurdle and probably the most important one. If you can't clear that hurdle, you shouldn't even try getting into Google News. 2. Meet technical requirementsThere are also a lot of other aspects that go into Google News. You have to jump through, like I said, quite a few hoops. Some technical requirements are very important to know as well. Have static, unique URLs.Google wants your articles and your section pages to have static, unique URLs so that an article or a section is always on the same URL and Google can crawl it and recrawl it on that URL without having to work with any redirects or other things. If you have content with dynamically generated URLs, that does not tend to work with Google News very well. So you have to keep that in mind and make sure that your content, both your articles and your static section pages are on fixed URLs that tend not to change over time. Have your content in plain HTML.It also helps to have all your content in plain HTML. Google News, when it indexes your content, it's all about speed. It tries to index articles as fast as possible. So any content that requires like client-side JavaScript or other sort of scripting languages tends not to work for Google News. Google has a two-stage indexing process, where the first stage is based on the HTML source code and the second stage is based on a complete render of the page, including executing JavaScript.
For Google News, that doesn't work. If your content relies on JavaScript execution, it will never be seen by Google News. Google News only uses the first stage of indexing, based purely on the HTML source code. So keep your JavaScript to a minimum and make sure that the content of your articles is present in the HTML source code and does not require any JavaScript to be seen to be present. Have clean code.It also helps to have clean code. By clean code, I mean that the article content in the HTML source code should be one continuous block of code from the headline all the way to the end. That tends to result in the best and most efficient indexing in Google News, because I've seen many examples where websites put things in the middle of the article code, like related articles or video carousels, photo galleries, and that can really mess up how Google News indexes the content. So having clean code and make sure the article code is in one continuous block of easily understood HTML code tends to work the best for Google News. 3. Optional (but more or less mandatory) technical considerationsThere's also quite a few other things that are technically optional, but I see them as pretty much mandatory because it really helps with getting your content picked up in Google News very fast and also makes sure you get that top stories carousel position as fast as possible, which is where you will get most of your news traffic from. Have a news-specific XML sitemap.Primarily the news XML sitemap, Google says this is optional but recommended, and I agree with them on that. Having a news-specific XML sitemap that lists articles that you've published in the last 48 hours, up to a maximum of 1,000 articles, is absolutely necessary. For me, I think this is Google News' primary discovery mechanism when they crawl your website and try to find new articles. So that news-specific XML sitemap is absolutely crucial, and you want to make sure you have that in place before you submit your site to Google News. Mark up articles with NewsArticle structured data.I also think it's very important to mark up your articles with news article structured data. It can be just article structured data or even more specific structured data segments that Google is introducing, like news article analysis and news article opinion for specific types of articles. But article or news article markup on your article pages is pretty much mandatory. I see your likelihood of getting into the top stories carousel much improved if you have that markup implemented on your article pages. Helpful-to-have extras:Also, like I said, this is a manually curated index. So there are a few extra hoops that you want to jump through to make sure that when a Googler looks at your website and reviews it, it ticks all the boxes and it appears like a trustworthy, genuine news website. A. Multiple authorsHaving multiple authors contribute to your website is hugely valuable, hugely important, and it does tend to elevate you above all the other blogs and small sites that are out there and makes it a bit more likely that the Googler reviewing your site will press that Approve button. B. Daily updatesHaving daily updates definitely is necessary. You don't want just one news post every couple of days. Ideally, multiple new articles every single day that also should be unique. You can have some sort of syndicated content on there, like from feeds, from AP or Reuters or whatever, but the majority of your content needs to be your own unique content. You don't want to rely too much on syndicated articles to fill your website with news content. C. Mostly unique contentTry to write as much unique content as you possibly can. There isn't really a clear ratio for that. Generally speaking, I recommend my clients to have at least 70% of the content as unique stuff that they write themselves and publish themselves and only 30% maximum syndicated content from external sources. D. Specialized niche/topicIt really helps to have a specialized niche or a specialized topic that you focus on as a news website. There are plenty of news sites out there that are general news and try to do everything, and Google News doesn't really need many more of those. What Google is interested in is niche websites on specific topics, specific areas that can provide in-depth reporting on those specific industries or topics. So if you have a very niche topic or a niche industry that you cover with your news, it does tend to improve your chances of getting into that News Index and getting that top stories carousel traffic. So that, in a nutshell, is how you get into Google News. It might appear to be quite simple, but, like I said, quite a few hoops for you to jump through, a few technical things you have to implement on your website as well. But if you tick all those boxes, you can get so much traffic from the top stories carousel, and the rest is profit. Thank you very much. This has been my Whiteboard Friday. Further resources:
Video transcription by Speechpad.com Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read! The post How to Get Into Google News – Whiteboard Friday appeared first on Sorcerer Digital. The post Value Propositions: What, Why, and How to Use Them appeared first on ClickFunnels. When convincing a potential customer to buy your product or service, it all comes down to one simple question. Why? Why should they try your product/service instead of another from a competitor? If you can't offer value in your message, then you lose out on a sale and worse, stunt your growth. So, how do you instill value, gain an advantage over the competition, and most importantly, close a sale? It all starts with a well-written value proposition. In this article, we'll discuss everything you need to know about value propositions – what they are, why they're important to your sales funnels, and how to use them most effectively. What is a value proposition and why is it key to your sales funnel strategy?The value proposition definition is the message you create that tells potential customers about your product or service. It also explains why customers should do business with you and not with your competitors. A value proposition lists clear benefits potential customers will enjoy with you and exactly how what you offer will help them in their daily activities. Where do you find value propositions? Value propositions can be found on the landing pages of your sales funnels. Value propositions are a wonderful tool, but they need to be written in a clear and concise way so you can instantly build value and trust with potential customers. The proposition should also cater to the questions potential customers are asking about your product. Also, a value proposition should show potential customers how your business will ultimately solve a pain point they have. As you can see, your value propositions need to be compelling so that they ultimately turn a potential customer into a loyal customer. However, it's important to note that value propositions are not slogans, so don't think of them like that. In short, value propositions are a critical component to your sales funnels. Whether your product is well-known or new on the market, value propositions are a necessary element that can help drive in more sales. What is a customer value proposition? A customer value proposition (CVP) is the actual benefits a customer gains by paying for your product or service. The idea is similar to a value proposition in that the customer understands exactly what the outcomes are when purchasing your product and how it will address any issues they are facing. How to write a value proposition When creating a value proposition, it's important to first answer the following questions:
Once you have those questions answered, you'll need to rephrase them in a clear and concise way. A value proposition should only be 2-4 sentences long. Anything longer could potentially drive your customers away. If bullet points answer the questions better, then use them instead of the paragraph format. Just be sure that you are catering to your audience with your value proposition format and wording. Remember, you can reiterate your value proposition on other landing pages of your sales funnels. Emphasize parts of the message that makes sense for that specific landing page. Next, you'll need to create a headline that clearly describes the ultimate benefit of your product. You want to offer a hook for those visiting your landing page of your sales funnels and this is it – so make it count! Ultimately, during the creation process, be sure to revisit the value proposition with a fresher pair of eyes. And if you can, get feedback from other creative minds. A few other opinions can really help. but don't involve a huge number of people because you'll run into “too many cooks in the kitchen.” Where should you place value propositions in your sales funnels?Now that you know what value propositions are and what good ones look like, where do they go in your sales funnels? A value proposition should be one of the first things a potential customer sees when entering a sales funnel, so keep your value proposition top of mind. It should appear on the landing page, above the fold. In addition, it should appear throughout your sales funnels, in order to drill your simple messaging into the minds of your potential customers. So don't be afraid to add value proposition wording throughout the majority of your landing pages in your sales funnels. Other value proposition best practicesBelow are six best practices to keep in mind when creating a value proposition for your sales funnel. 1. Think like your audienceWhat type of person are you trying to cater to with your product? Keep that answer top of mind when creating a value proposition. Your language should definitely relate and clearly answer the questions they are asking about your product. If you don't know your audience, then it's time to do some research. Send out surveys and get their input. The better you can appeal to them, the higher conversions you'll have. An additional way to appeal to your audience is to stick with “you” pronouns instead of “we.” 2. Don't be vagueYou need to be specific with your writing so there's no confusion, especially when describing benefits and results. The last thing you want is for your customers to be led astray and expect an outcome that you don't promise. Each sentence or bullet point in your value proposition should be short and should clearly communicate specific benefits they will receive. 3. Create value propositions for separate products, services, and buyersAccording to a Hubspot survey, 52% of organizations develop unique value propositions for separate products or services. This makes sense as you want the same customers buying product A to also buy a separate product you sell, product B. Look at your sales funnels as a whole and see if you could benefit from multiple variations of value propositions. This again helps build your customer relationship by instilling more value and trust. Additionally, in the same survey, they found that 45% of organizations target specific value propositions for specific buyer personas. So, after you do your research and understand your audience better, be sure to incorporate different wording and split test to see what gets you the best results. 4. Incorporate social proof – if possibleA great way to build trust and add value is from positive customer reviews and expert testimonials, AKA social proof. Social proof can also work within your value proposition – a short sentence length. Any more than a sentence and your value proposition is no longer a proposition and is instead a regular review. Use those numbers to your advantage, especially if you have other expert endorsements. It's a great way to establish value quickly. 5. Read and rereadAfter crafting a value proposition, read and reread it again to make sure it not only covers the important topics, but can be understood in less than 8 seconds. If you can't read it straight through, then you'll need to continue crafting it. You don't want to lose a potential customer because they got lost in your messaging. Better yet, share your value proposition with 3-5 people and see if they can answer the four questions posed earlier. That will be the ultimate test to see if your value proposition is effective. 6. Change it upLastly, your value propositions should be reworked every two to three years. Why? Your value and benefits should be evolving and growing the same way your target audience is. Chances are you won't be attracting the same people year after year and instead, have a more diverse target audience due to your growth. And these changes don't need to be a 180 degree turn. Instead create copy that does an even better job of describing your business value. It's a good practice to keep in mind as you can take a step back and look at how far you've come. Value proposition examplesSo, what do good value propositions look like? Below are five examples of businesses that have compelling value propositions. The main benefit of this project management and collaboration tool is helping coworkers stay connected. They have a great headline/hook: “Imagine what you'll accomplish together.” This sentence alone tells the audience that their main focus is in collaboration and helping you achieve that. This is a good example of using a type of social proof within a value proposition. They write, “We handle billions of dollars every year for forward-thinking businesses around the world.” By using “wisdom of the crowd” social proof, it quickly builds value as well as a sense of trust. It's also a persuasive tactic in order to steer your potential customers away from competitors. This email automation tool is a good example of how to use a variety of value propositions to appeal to different buyer personas. Currently on their homepage, they have a value proposition that is specifically targeted for marketing/communication/development departments looking to grow their audience in the new year as well as what they can do during the holiday season. Meanwhile, on their About Us landing page, they have their main value proposition about how their tool engages current and future target audiences. It's a more universal value proposition, as they appeal to a diverse and expanding customer base. Here's another example with a great headline/hook: “Feel organized without the effort.” Following their headline, the note-taking app emphasizes exactly how you'll become more organized within the app. In addition, Evernote has a simple web design to the right of the text, with their product on both a laptop and on a phone, showing off its versatility without having to write it out and make their value proposition even longer. GoToMeeting does a good job of clear and concise messaging with their value proposition. Their headline and copy revolves around providing a professional product. In fact it uses the word “professional” twice to get its message across, without sounding too redundant: “Professional meetings deserve a professional online meeting software. That's GoToMeeting – simple, reliable and effective.” In addition, they included a hook before inserting the value proposition – “Our customers love GoToMeeting” – which again is a great tactic to keep the reader engaged in wanting to learn more. Then after the value proposition, GoToMeeting introduces the audience to their user numbers – again, using “wisdom of the crowd” social proof. What to start implementing nowEven if you've already created a value proposition, chances are you can probably refine it, as we pointed out earlier. Brainstorm in order to enhance your value proposition messaging. You can always include others. They'll probably point out something that didn't even cross your mind. As you finalize your value propositions, implement two to three of them and split test them to see what gives you a better conversion rate. See if it makes sense for you to have specific value propositions for multiple landing pages within your sales funnels. With practice and split testing, you'll be well on your way to not only add value to your work, but more importantly, build trust and positive relationships with customers. What has your experience been with value propositions? What value proposition best practices do you follow? Sound off in the comments below!
Thanks for reading Value Propositions: What, Why, and How to Use Them which appeared first on ClickFunnels. The post Value Propositions: What, Why, and How to Use Them appeared first on Sorcerer Digital. Posted by Polemic Today we're tackling a question that many of us have asked over the years: how do you increase your chances of getting your content into Google News? We're delighted to welcome renowned SEO specialist Barry Adams to share the framework you need to have in place in order to have a chance of appearing in that much-coveted Google News carousel.
Video TranscriptionHi, everyone. I'm Barry Adams. I'm a technical SEO consultant at Polemic Digital and a specialist in news SEO. Today we're going to be talking about how to get into Google News. I get a lot of questions from a lot of people about Google News and specifically how you get a website into Google News, because it's a really great source of traffic for websites. Once you're in the Google News Index, you can appear in the top stories carousel in Google search results, and that can send a lot of traffic your way. How do you get into Google News' manually curated index?So how do you get into Google News? How do you go about getting your website to be a part of Google News' manual index so that you can get that top stories traffic for yourself? Well, it's not always as easy as it makes it appear. You have to jump through quite a few hoops before you get into Google News. 1. Have a dedicated news websiteFirst of all, you have to have a dedicated news website. You have to keep in mind when you apply to be included in Google News, there's a team of Googlers who will manually review your website to decide whether or not you're worthy of being in the News index. That is a manual process, and your website has to be a dedicated news website. I get a lot of questions from people asking if they have a news section or a blog on their site and if that could be included in Google News. The answer tends to be no. Google doesn't want news websites in there that aren't entirely about news, that are commercial websites that have a news section. They don't really want that. They want dedicated news websites, websites whose sole purpose is to provide news and content on specific topics and specific niches. So that's the first hurdle and probably the most important one. If you can't clear that hurdle, you shouldn't even try getting into Google News. 2. Meet technical requirementsThere are also a lot of other aspects that go into Google News. You have to jump through, like I said, quite a few hoops. Some technical requirements are very important to know as well. Have static, unique URLs.Google wants your articles and your section pages to have static, unique URLs so that an article or a section is always on the same URL and Google can crawl it and recrawl it on that URL without having to work with any redirects or other things. If you have content with dynamically generated URLs, that does not tend to work with Google News very well. So you have to keep that in mind and make sure that your content, both your articles and your static section pages are on fixed URLs that tend not to change over time. Have your content in plain HTML.It also helps to have all your content in plain HTML. Google News, when it indexes your content, it's all about speed. It tries to index articles as fast as possible. So any content that requires like client-side JavaScript or other sort of scripting languages tends not to work for Google News. Google has a two-stage indexing process, where the first stage is based on the HTML source code and the second stage is based on a complete render of the page, including executing JavaScript.
For Google News, that doesn't work. If your content relies on JavaScript execution, it will never be seen by Google News. Google News only uses the first stage of indexing, based purely on the HTML source code. So keep your JavaScript to a minimum and make sure that the content of your articles is present in the HTML source code and does not require any JavaScript to be seen to be present. Have clean code.It also helps to have clean code. By clean code, I mean that the article content in the HTML source code should be one continuous block of code from the headline all the way to the end. That tends to result in the best and most efficient indexing in Google News, because I've seen many examples where websites put things in the middle of the article code, like related articles or video carousels, photo galleries, and that can really mess up how Google News indexes the content. So having clean code and make sure the article code is in one continuous block of easily understood HTML code tends to work the best for Google News. 3. Optional (but more or less mandatory) technical considerationsThere's also quite a few other things that are technically optional, but I see them as pretty much mandatory because it really helps with getting your content picked up in Google News very fast and also makes sure you get that top stories carousel position as fast as possible, which is where you will get most of your news traffic from. Have a news-specific XML sitemap.Primarily the news XML sitemap, Google says this is optional but recommended, and I agree with them on that. Having a news-specific XML sitemap that lists articles that you've published in the last 48 hours, up to a maximum of 1,000 articles, is absolutely necessary. For me, I think this is Google News' primary discovery mechanism when they crawl your website and try to find new articles. So that news-specific XML sitemap is absolutely crucial, and you want to make sure you have that in place before you submit your site to Google News. Mark up articles with NewsArticle structured data.I also think it's very important to mark up your articles with news article structured data. It can be just article structured data or even more specific structured data segments that Google is introducing, like news article analysis and news article opinion for specific types of articles. But article or news article markup on your article pages is pretty much mandatory. I see your likelihood of getting into the top stories carousel much improved if you have that markup implemented on your article pages. Helpful-to-have extras:Also, like I said, this is a manually curated index. So there are a few extra hoops that you want to jump through to make sure that when a Googler looks at your website and reviews it, it ticks all the boxes and it appears like a trustworthy, genuine news website. A. Multiple authorsHaving multiple authors contribute to your website is hugely valuable, hugely important, and it does tend to elevate you above all the other blogs and small sites that are out there and makes it a bit more likely that the Googler reviewing your site will press that Approve button. B. Daily updatesHaving daily updates definitely is necessary. You don't want just one news post every couple of days. Ideally, multiple new articles every single day that also should be unique. You can have some sort of syndicated content on there, like from feeds, from AP or Reuters or whatever, but the majority of your content needs to be your own unique content. You don't want to rely too much on syndicated articles to fill your website with news content. C. Mostly unique contentTry to write as much unique content as you possibly can. There isn't really a clear ratio for that. Generally speaking, I recommend my clients to have at least 70% of the content as unique stuff that they write themselves and publish themselves and only 30% maximum syndicated content from external sources. D. Specialized niche/topicIt really helps to have a specialized niche or a specialized topic that you focus on as a news website. There are plenty of news sites out there that are general news and try to do everything, and Google News doesn't really need many more of those. What Google is interested in is niche websites on specific topics, specific areas that can provide in-depth reporting on those specific industries or topics. So if you have a very niche topic or a niche industry that you cover with your news, it does tend to improve your chances of getting into that News Index and getting that top stories carousel traffic. So that, in a nutshell, is how you get into Google News. It might appear to be quite simple, but, like I said, quite a few hoops for you to jump through, a few technical things you have to implement on your website as well. But if you tick all those boxes, you can get so much traffic from the top stories carousel, and the rest is profit. Thank you very much. This has been my Whiteboard Friday. Further resources:
Video transcription by Speechpad.com Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read! The post How to Get Into Google News – Whiteboard Friday appeared first on Sorcerer Digital. Posted by Polemic Today we're tackling a question that many of us have asked over the years: how do you increase your chances of getting your content into Google News? We're delighted to welcome renowned SEO specialist Barry Adams to share the framework you need to have in place in order to have a chance of appearing in that much-coveted Google News carousel.
Video TranscriptionHi, everyone. I'm Barry Adams. I'm a technical SEO consultant at Polemic Digital and a specialist in news SEO. Today we're going to be talking about how to get into Google News. I get a lot of questions from a lot of people about Google News and specifically how you get a website into Google News, because it's a really great source of traffic for websites. Once you're in the Google News Index, you can appear in the top stories carousel in Google search results, and that can send a lot of traffic your way. How do you get into Google News' manually curated index?So how do you get into Google News? How do you go about getting your website to be a part of Google News' manual index so that you can get that top stories traffic for yourself? Well, it's not always as easy as it makes it appear. You have to jump through quite a few hoops before you get into Google News. 1. Have a dedicated news websiteFirst of all, you have to have a dedicated news website. You have to keep in mind when you apply to be included in Google News, there's a team of Googlers who will manually review your website to decide whether or not you're worthy of being in the News index. That is a manual process, and your website has to be a dedicated news website. I get a lot of questions from people asking if they have a news section or a blog on their site and if that could be included in Google News. The answer tends to be no. Google doesn't want news websites in there that aren't entirely about news, that are commercial websites that have a news section. They don't really want that. They want dedicated news websites, websites whose sole purpose is to provide news and content on specific topics and specific niches. So that's the first hurdle and probably the most important one. If you can't clear that hurdle, you shouldn't even try getting into Google News. 2. Meet technical requirementsThere are also a lot of other aspects that go into Google News. You have to jump through, like I said, quite a few hoops. Some technical requirements are very important to know as well. Have static, unique URLs.Google wants your articles and your section pages to have static, unique URLs so that an article or a section is always on the same URL and Google can crawl it and recrawl it on that URL without having to work with any redirects or other things. If you have content with dynamically generated URLs, that does not tend to work with Google News very well. So you have to keep that in mind and make sure that your content, both your articles and your static section pages are on fixed URLs that tend not to change over time. Have your content in plain HTML.It also helps to have all your content in plain HTML. Google News, when it indexes your content, it's all about speed. It tries to index articles as fast as possible. So any content that requires like client-side JavaScript or other sort of scripting languages tends not to work for Google News. Google has a two-stage indexing process, where the first stage is based on the HTML source code and the second stage is based on a complete render of the page, including executing JavaScript.
For Google News, that doesn't work. If your content relies on JavaScript execution, it will never be seen by Google News. Google News only uses the first stage of indexing, based purely on the HTML source code. So keep your JavaScript to a minimum and make sure that the content of your articles is present in the HTML source code and does not require any JavaScript to be seen to be present. Have clean code.It also helps to have clean code. By clean code, I mean that the article content in the HTML source code should be one continuous block of code from the headline all the way to the end. That tends to result in the best and most efficient indexing in Google News, because I've seen many examples where websites put things in the middle of the article code, like related articles or video carousels, photo galleries, and that can really mess up how Google News indexes the content. So having clean code and make sure the article code is in one continuous block of easily understood HTML code tends to work the best for Google News. 3. Optional (but more or less mandatory) technical considerationsThere's also quite a few other things that are technically optional, but I see them as pretty much mandatory because it really helps with getting your content picked up in Google News very fast and also makes sure you get that top stories carousel position as fast as possible, which is where you will get most of your news traffic from. Have a news-specific XML sitemap.Primarily the news XML sitemap, Google says this is optional but recommended, and I agree with them on that. Having a news-specific XML sitemap that lists articles that you've published in the last 48 hours, up to a maximum of 1,000 articles, is absolutely necessary. For me, I think this is Google News' primary discovery mechanism when they crawl your website and try to find new articles. So that news-specific XML sitemap is absolutely crucial, and you want to make sure you have that in place before you submit your site to Google News. Mark up articles with NewsArticle structured data.I also think it's very important to mark up your articles with news article structured data. It can be just article structured data or even more specific structured data segments that Google is introducing, like news article analysis and news article opinion for specific types of articles. But article or news article markup on your article pages is pretty much mandatory. I see your likelihood of getting into the top stories carousel much improved if you have that markup implemented on your article pages. Helpful-to-have extras:Also, like I said, this is a manually curated index. So there are a few extra hoops that you want to jump through to make sure that when a Googler looks at your website and reviews it, it ticks all the boxes and it appears like a trustworthy, genuine news website. A. Multiple authorsHaving multiple authors contribute to your website is hugely valuable, hugely important, and it does tend to elevate you above all the other blogs and small sites that are out there and makes it a bit more likely that the Googler reviewing your site will press that Approve button. B. Daily updatesHaving daily updates definitely is necessary. You don't want just one news post every couple of days. Ideally, multiple new articles every single day that also should be unique. You can have some sort of syndicated content on there, like from feeds, from AP or Reuters or whatever, but the majority of your content needs to be your own unique content. You don't want to rely too much on syndicated articles to fill your website with news content. C. Mostly unique contentTry to write as much unique content as you possibly can. There isn't really a clear ratio for that. Generally speaking, I recommend my clients to have at least 70% of the content as unique stuff that they write themselves and publish themselves and only 30% maximum syndicated content from external sources. D. Specialized niche/topicIt really helps to have a specialized niche or a specialized topic that you focus on as a news website. There are plenty of news sites out there that are general news and try to do everything, and Google News doesn't really need many more of those. What Google is interested in is niche websites on specific topics, specific areas that can provide in-depth reporting on those specific industries or topics. So if you have a very niche topic or a niche industry that you cover with your news, it does tend to improve your chances of getting into that News Index and getting that top stories carousel traffic. So that, in a nutshell, is how you get into Google News. It might appear to be quite simple, but, like I said, quite a few hoops for you to jump through, a few technical things you have to implement on your website as well. But if you tick all those boxes, you can get so much traffic from the top stories carousel, and the rest is profit. Thank you very much. This has been my Whiteboard Friday. Further resources:
Video transcription by Speechpad.com Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read! The post How to Get Into Google News – Whiteboard Friday appeared first on Sorcerer Digital. |
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