Google NewsGetting indexed by Google News is a fairly new trophy for bloggers. The extra exposure you’d get from being included on a major news site such as Google News blows the mind. Who wouldn’t want it? As yet though, there’s not much out about how to achieve it. It’s one of my goals and when I set out to discover what I need to do, it occurred to me there must be plenty of others who’d be interested. So here goes.

It’s important to note that getting indexed by Google, and getting indexed by Google News are two entirely different things. Getting indexed by Google is a simple matter of having someone who is crawled regularly link to you. Can be a matter of only a few hours.

But getting Google News to like you is harder. There are rules and if you’re not following them, well, you can forget about getting indexed.

Much of it has to do with common sense. Make sure you comply with all of Google Webmaster’s guidelines.

WordPress Default Theme

  • Never use a default theme for your blogging platform. Google hates ‘em (see right).
  • Make sure you’re getting indexed for your chosen keywords–one good way to do this is to name your blog categories for your major keywords.
  • Make sure your stories fit the criteria for the type of stories regularly included on Google News. A good way to get an idea would be to simply go over there and take a look in the category where stories from your site might get posted.

You Need Multiple Bloggers

One thing that Matt Cutts mentioned in his 2007 SEO WordPress talk at WordCamp, was that you stand a much higher chance of getting indexed if you have more than one person posting to your blog.

This is fairly easy to arrange: swap blog posts with other bloggers you know and whose work you like. It goes without saying that their niche has to at least be compatible with yours if it isn’t identical. It’s also a good idea to invite selected bloggers to write guest posts for you. This is usually a win-win situation because you will be providing exposure and backlinks to your guests.

Remember too that even if some of your posts are indexed by Google News, they probably won’t all be, as the most important criteria are to do with the article itself and not the website overall. This is another way in which Google News differs from the Google search engine, which will index all your stuff if it has accepted your site.

If anyone has any more good tips for getting indexed by Google News, please post a comment below. We’ll all thank you for it.