How to Get A Website or Blog Approved and Listed in Google News

Google News is one of the most important source of Traffic for all of the websites since few years. Previously there were small number of publishers on Google News so things were pretty easy then now. But now many of the sites got into google news to drive traffic to their blog/websites. However, Google News still acts as a good source of traffic for websites.

If you are new here you should check out my article on Things you need to know about Google News.

In this article, I will explain you the step by step process to get your website/blog into Google News. It is  not so easy but if you follow all the steps properly then the chances of your website getting into news would increase.

Steps to get your Website into Google News:

1.Your Website Theme/Look/Design

The theme of your page plays an important role in getting approved for google news. Magazine Style with proper section wise news on various topics like Politics, Education, Entertainment, Technology etc. are highly preferred. There are many different kinds of themes out there, if you are a WordPress user you can go ahead with some popular Magazine Style Theme.

You can have a look at popular news sites India Today, Times of India,  etc

2. Your Website must be complete with all required info:

Your website must have different section of pages like About Us, Contact Us, Media Kit and an Authors page as well. Of all these, you must have an about us page where you have to list all your authors with a brief biography or their details.

• You can have a look at the above given sites.

3. Website must be Multi-Authored:

This is quite obvious as a single person cannot produce the required amount of content daily. So, it should have a minimum of 2-3 authors who can cover on various topics each and every single day.

4. Do not post about Job Updates, Notifications,etc.

This is one of the biggest mistakes people do, posting about jobs and job notifications is completely against Google News Terms Of Service. So, the article containing Job updates and notifications should be removed as soon as possible before applying for Google News.

However, you can post few job updates after your site gets a full approval for Google News.

Along with that do not post How-To guides, a website with how to guides doesn’t get a news approval as the name says the website must be updated with latest news stuff and not how to guides. If in case you are posting How to guides exclude them for the news sitemap.

5. Author bio on Post Pages

The author name is the must, but bio is generally optional during posting the news. But if you don't want a risk of not getting approved in Google news then including a bio will increase the chance of getting approved.

6. You must divide content into sections/categories

News website must have different categories so to be published so, it needs to be divided into different categories. As Google News will also ask for it with different sections like Current News, Tech News, Entertainments,etc. So, you should take care of it while you are applying for Google News.

7. You must publish good number of articles per day

Generally they say you can get into news if you publish 3 articles per day. But that wouldn’t be sufficient enough for applying in Google News. You must publish at least 10 articles per day and before few days of applying publish at least 15+ articles per day.

8. Grammar also plays a key role

Your application will be reviewed manually by someone from Google News team. They will verify the complete website to the best possible extent and they will manually read few articles posted on your website. So, even if you have satisfied all the above guidelines if it doesn’t have proper grammar then your application will be declined by Google News team.

9. Google News Sitemap and News Keyword Tags

Google News sitemap is a little different from the sitemap which you generally have on your blog. A Google News sitemap will have only a maximum of 1000 URLs in the index at a time.

Also, you need one more additional tag called news_keywords tag, however, this is optional initially but if you have one for your blog the chances of getting approval would increase.

For these above two it would be better if you go for Yoast SEO News Plugin for the WordPress user which is a premium plugin and you have to pay for it.

Alternately you can also use Google News XML Plugin for Sitemap and Google News Keywords from Tags plugin for news_keywords tag.

10. If you cannot do all the above steps then do this

If you follow all the above steps properly then you can definitely get into google news but I know the above-mentioned steps are a little difficult to achieve and takes some time.

Also, sometimes even though you have followed all the above steps, still your application might get rejected due to some unknown reasons.

Alternately you can also buy a website/domain which is already listed in Google News. There are quite a few brokers on Flippa and few other marketplaces who sell expired/parked domains that are already listed in Google News. It would cost you anywhere between $500 to $5000 based on the demand for the domain/website.

• One you are done with all the steps head over to this page and click on Google News Publisher Center at the bottom of the page. Generally it takes 2-5 days to know whether your application is accepted or rejected. If in case its rejected you have to wait for 90 more days. So, give your best on the first attempt itself.

So, I guess you are very clear about getting your site listed on to Google News. It’s not easy at the same time it’s not impossible as well.