By Anyone hooked up to Google News (Google Alert anyone?) will have heard the news announced by Google last week about the new portal, Google News Publisher Center.
This really is a must for any business that needs to be on the forefront of its industry.
As long as your site is verified within Google Webmaster Tools and included in Google news, the centre means that businesses are able to:
- Update your news site details, including changing your site name and labelling your publication with any relevant source labels.
- Update your section URLs when you change your site structure
- Label your sections with a specific topic, such as ‘technology.’
Google software engineer Eric Weigle wrote that:
“Until now, when you made changes to the structure of your site, we might not have discovered them unless you told us. And that meant they might not have shown up in Google News, which in turn could have resulted in readers not seeing your great content.
“Ultimately, our goal is to make this a platform where news publishers and Google News can work together to provide readers with the best, most diverse news on the web.”
So what does this mean for SEO?
Well if you’re in the UK, not a lot, as at the moment the centre is only available in the United States, though Google has stated that it will soon be released for use around the world as it continues to add new features and modifications.
But when it does, it’ll make things a lot easier for news agencies, magazines, marketers and in-house folk alike, because getting content to the right people, through channels that are swift and manageable is what it is all about – and that isn’t going to change.
But is there an alternative for now?
If you’re looking for something to give you inspiration for your content, want to see what works, or need to know what has happened in the past 24 hours, Buzzsumo works a little like Google News, although the focus is more on researching content and finding influencers for content marketing.
It can be used for three important tasks:
- Discovering the latest topics and news
- Identifying key influences in certain niches
- Researching and discovering websites that are worth paying attention to
And what’s more, it’s totally free. I’ve been using it since its launch and so far, I’ve found it to be more dynamic than Google News, as it sources content from all over the web; not just the publishers that are registered with Google.
Buzzsumo is releasing a Pro edition (paid) pretty soon; I’d advise anyone who hasn’t yet explored this amazing resource to do so right now.
It may be a while until the UK is able to use the new Google News Publisher Center, if Google Wallet is anything to go by (which still isn’t available in the UK), but having optimised for Google News in previous SEO agencies I’ve seen the impact it can have – that is, generating large volumes of free traffic.