Google Discover exists within the Google App and it provides a query-less platform where users interact with content primarily based on what Google’s automated systems believe to be a good match with a user’s interests. Discover is a totally new way to interact with content, relying less on text and more on captivating visuals.
This personalized feed of content is more comparable to a Reddit-style app, but Discover carries much more potential for B2B marketers to reach new audiences. Google Discover is personal, so everyone will have their own experience with it. If you are just beginning to explore a topic you’ll receive content for beginners. If you’re more advanced, you’ll get more specialized recommendations.
Given the serendipitous nature of Discover, traffic from Discover is less predictable when compared to Search. So, how can you tweak your B2B marketing strategy so that your content will appear in Discover? Good news – you don’t have to do much if you’re already following a solid SEO strategy.
Content is automatically eligible to appear in Discover if it is indexed by Google and meets Discover’s content policies. No special tags or structured data are required. However, being eligible for Discover does not mean that your content will appear.
Here’s some advice directly from Google on how to increase the chances for your content to appear in Discover:
“Our automated systems surface content in Discover from sites that have many individual pages that demonstrate expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-A-T). Those looking to improve E-A-T can consider some of the same questions we encourage site owners to consider for Search. While Search and Discover are different, the overall principles for E-A-T as it applies to content within them are similar.”
Nine Strategies to Get Your Content Onto Google Discover
Aside from Google’s advice, there are other steps you can take to increase the likelihood for your B2B marketing content to appear in Discover.
- Keep practicing holistic SEO: continue writing great content that provides value for your specific audience. Holistic SEO also includes offering a good website and overall user experience. If you’re already practicing SEO, then you’re in good shape. Keep making good content and you’ll eventually reap the benefits.
- Write on timely topics: Discover uses news-worthy content and feeds can change by the second. Post your content in a timely manner and it has a higher chance to do well in Discover. Look at trending topics or popular subjects in your niche or industry and write about those. The digital marketing industry is constantly changing, and there’s an endless amount of topics to choose from. This is the same for any other industry. Just follow your passion and write about what’s happening in your industry that your audience would also want to know about.
- Don’t forget evergreen content: If you have good evergreen content, continue to improve on it from time to time. When you appear in Discover and a user interacts with your content, the next bit of content suggested to that person will likely be your evergreen content. This is content that has proven its worth and will always be valuable to your audience.
- EAT: As mentioned above, EAT is not just a factor for Discover, of course, it’s an increasingly helpful tool for Google to weed out misleading and, sometimes, plain dangerous content from the index. For your content, you need to prove that you know what you’re talking about. Make sure that people understand why they should trust you. Following Google’s EAT approach is actually a very good policy for your overall SEO strategy.
- Use quality images: Include compelling, high-quality images in your content, especially large images that are more likely to generate visits from Discover. Large images need to be at least 1200 px wide, and you should avoid using your logo as an image. Take some time to find a captivating image – you must stand out against a sea of content. You have to make an impact with your images.
- Avoid misleading your audience: Google penalizes you for using misleading or exaggerated details in preview content, or for click-bait style headlines that withhold crucial information. Google also recommends avoiding content that appeals to morbid curiosity, stokes outrage, or otherwise elicits strong feelings on sensitive topics.
- Use the Follow Feature: In Discover, users can choose to follow certain websites. The Follow feature lets people follow a website and get the latest updates from that website in the Following tab within Discover in Chrome. By default, the Follow feature uses RSS or Atom feeds on your website. If you have one or more feeds on your website, you can optimize your Follow experience by explicitly telling Google which feeds you want people to follow for a given page on your site.
- Google Web Stories: These are the same snackable bits of video content we know from Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook. But, this is open, findable in search — and in Google Discover. Building stories for your content might get you an easy way in the Discover feed, and they aren’t difficult to create.
- Monitor your performance: As with any B2B marketing campaign, you’ll want to track your performance and set goals for improvement. If you have content on Discover, you can monitor your performance using the Performance report for Discover. This report shows impressions, clicks, and CTR for any of your content that has appeared on Discover in the last 16 months, as long as your data reaches a minimum threshold of impressions.
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