What it is and how it can increase your traffic

Maybe you don’t know what it’s called, but I’m sure you’ve used it and as soon as you read the explanation you’ll immediately understand what it is. Google Discover.

Google Discover is the news feed personalized based on our tastes, our history and interactions with Google.

If you have the Google Chrome application on your mobile phone, you will see that news from various sectors and of different types appear arbitrarily under the search engine: This is Google Discover, and in this article we will see why it is essential to know it improve your traffic results.

What is Google Discover?

Google Discover It’s the social version of Google, as it’s still a news feed tailored to your tastes, browsing history and interests.

So it’s like you’re scrolling on Facebook’s home page, but on Google.

In fact, under each news item you have buttons that give you the possibility of adapting the content to your interests. It’s easy to do and you can also indicate whether you want to see more content of a certain type or not.

With the Google Discover customization option (customize discover) you can manage your interests tell Google directly what you’re interested ingiving you the order to hide some topics that do not interest you and thus improve the user experience:

What is the Google Discover discovery bar?

Another way to quickly access Google Discover is through the “discovery bar”, which appears right in the quick controls window that we all have on our mobile phone if we have Android and looks like this:

To turn the Discover Bar feature on and off, just go to Settings > Apps > About App > Discover Bar > Uninstall.

The discovery bar is useful if, as users, we find the contents provided by Google Discover interesting and tend to use them on a recurring basis, as well as being able to filter the type of content by categories that we want to consume in a moment of time available.

Differences between Google Discover, Google+ and Google News

Anyone who understands what Google Discover is, as a tool, knows that it is something very powerful in terms of the data recorded by Google. Thanks to the freedom of configuration given to the user, it is possible to receive news about their interests. There is also valuable feedback on user engagement with certain news stories.

However, it’s difficult to know how many users are changing their preferences here and narrowing their interests. Perhaps there are not as many as one would expect. Here because It’s worth seeing if it ends up being another Google+ and falls into oblivion. Although we hope that this is not the case and that Google has finally figured out how to create its own more social version.

This is to be expected, since for users the added value may lie in the fact that while in a traditional social network a lot of content they see appears because their friends or people they follow liked it, here 100% of what they see appears . it is personalized based on your tastes, interests and searches.

But the question may arise: and then how does it differ from Google News? The difference is that News is a news site, as the name itself indicates, it shows you news and trends of the last few hours and, at most, days, but In Google Discover, in addition to content from the last few days, you can see results from older articles.

The reason is that, as I just explained, What matters is your interest as a user and if something can be relevant to you. And even if it was published a year ago, Google will show it to you in Google Discover.

We talk about articles because they are the most common contents, but videos, match results or information about events, such as films in theaters and music festivals, among others, can also appear in Discover.

Are you starting to see the potential? Let’s see in detail How can you access Google Discover results with your blog?.

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How to rank on Google Discover?

As always in the Google environment, positioning depends on an algorithm, e.g Anyone who understands what Google Discover is can imagine that this application is no exception.

However, what takes precedence here is the interest of the user. Therefore, as content creators, we must focus on creating high-quality content. Pieces of text or audiovisual creations that provide answers to the pains and worries of those who access the search engine.

Not many years ago it was still more or less easy to position yourself on Google even with low-quality content that engaged in key stuffing or used other practices that are now “unpopular” by Google. But now, more and more, Quality content becomes very important as a positioning criterion.

In the next section we will see how to optimize articles so your content appears in your target audience’s Google Discover feed.

How to optimize articles to get traffic from Google Discover: 10 strategies

As we have seen, In Google Discover it is not correct to talk about positioning. To focus the topic precisely, we should refer to how well it fits into the user’s searches and interests, since everything depends on them.

However, there are some points that are essential to take into account in order to have it greater chances of appearing in prominent positions. I tell you 10 positioning strategies in Google Discover:

1. Perfect SEO and semantic SEO.

Work on traditional and semantic SEO optimization to ensure Google matches your content to relevant user searches.

2. Bet on evergreen and trending content.

It is essential to stay current and update content to ensure relevance, particularly on Google Discover where old content can resurface.

3. Follow Google’s publishing guidelines.

Make sure you comply with everything Google Publishing Standards to avoid sanctions and guarantee your presence.

4. Prioritize engagement.

Optimize your articles to ensure a high level of engagement. To do this, it is advisable to check that those posts that guarantee good performance in terms of engagement are well optimized (low bounce rate, longer time on page, higher comments, etc.).

5. Use social media insights.

Just as important as understanding what Google Discover is and how it works is examining which articles work best across the networks. The more successful it is, the more likely it is to appear in the user’s personalized feed.

6. Focus on mobile optimization.

Yes, the priorities are now clear: mobile first; but this statement has even more weight in this section of Google, created with the mobile environment in mind.

7. Deploy content to AMP.

Most of the featured content on Google Discover is AMP, so adapting your articles to this format can significantly improve your visibility.

8. Give importance to images.

In Google Discover, images play a fundamental role in making content more attractive. Images with a length of at least 1200 px increase the chance of appearing in the Google Discover feed by 5%.

9. Know and satisfy your buyer persona.

Relevance is key. Know your buyer persona thoroughly and create content that truly resonates with them.

10. Never compromise on quality.

Beyond techniques and tactics, the quality of the content should always be paramount. Make sure you always meet the user’s search intent.

If you follow the InboundCycle marketing blog, you’ll see this Some ranking points in Google Discover coincide with a good content strategy and SEO. In the end… it’s all within Google!

How to analyze Google Discover results?

Tracking and analyzing traffic data that reaches your website allows you to refine your strategy and align with your marketing goals. For analyze traffic from Google Discover, you can use Google Search Console. In this application you will be able to see:

• How much traffic did you receive from Google Discover.
• How many times your site appears on Google Discover.
• How your pages perform, if you compare them with the performance of traditional traffic (SEO).
• What content appears in Google Discover.
• What content is trending, what users like, what content your followers choose across networks and what your buyer personas choose… In short, you will be able to access interesting insights.

Note that, If you don’t see the Google Discover report, your site isn’t showing. As Google itself explains, the Discover performance report is only available for those sites that have exceeded a certain number of impressions (it does not specify how many) in the last 16 months.

This must also be taken into account traffic from Google Discover is not as stable as SEOsince it usually occurs with traffic peaks limited to 48-72 hours, although it can repeat over time for the same content.

So you shouldn’t be surprised to see a Google Discover chart with large variations (This is where the traffic is more similar to Social Media traffic, where it is more common to see spikes depending on the content we have posted.)

Here you can see the Appearance similar to a Google Discover traffic graph:

We have seen that Google Discover may not be a channel that can be worked on in such depth and with as many strategies as, for example, SEO. But, With this tool Google once again demonstrates to what extent it takes into account quality of contentthat is truly relevant to the user and can respond to their pain, even long after publication.

Are you already clear what Google Discover is and how to use it to increase conversion? Open the Google app and start investigating everything it has to offer! If you have any questions, I will read them in the comments section.

Originally published September 1, 2020, updated September 15, 2023.

Reviewed and validated by Susana MeijomilInbound content manager and InboundCycle.