I regularly get asked about official Google documentation relating to Google News, as well as helpful resources and tools that can inform and educate people interested in the topic.

Rather than type out a fresh list of links whenever such a question pops up, I figured I’d create a single list of resources that I can keep updated and send people to.

So that’s what this edition will be for.

Below I’ll list various docs, guides, tools, etc. categorised in a way that sort of makes sense to me and along the lines that people most regularly ask me about. If you know of any link that you feel should be added to this list, please let me know via a comment or email: barry@polemicdigital.com.

I’ll be updating this page with new and changed links to documents, guides, and tools, so make sure you bookmark this URL and check back regularly.

Getting into Google News

How do you get into Google News? That’s the million-dollar question. Here are all the best documents and guides I can find on the subject.

Official Google Documentation

3rd Party Guides

How to get into Google News - Coywolf
How to get approved as a Google News source - Alexa
The complete guide to Google News SEO - DeepCrawl
How to get your website listed in Google News - SEJ
Thoughts on Google’s Algorithmic News Inclusion Process

Optimising for Google News

Getting included in Google News doesn’t mean the traffic just comes flooding in. Your articles need to be optimised for maximum visibility.

Official Google Documentation

3rd Party Guides

The ultimate guide to Google News SEO - SODP
News SEO: How to optimize your news site - Yoast
How do I optimise for Google News? - SISTRIX
WTF is SEO - Jessie Willms & Shelby Blackley

Technical SEO

A technically sound foundation is crucial for all SEO success. Here are some Google documents and 3rd party guides that provide best practices on various aspects of technical SEO.

Official Google Documentation

3rd Party Guides

Technical SEO: The Definitive Guide - Backlinko
SEO for Extensive Websites - SISTRIX
Technical SEO Beginner’s Guide - Ahrefs
Pagination & SEO: Ultimate Best Practice Guide - DeepCrawl
How to do a Technical SEO Audit - Optimisey
TechnicalSEO.com - Merkle
How to get a Live badge with LiveBlogPosting - Clickseed
Bing IndexNow Live Indexing - Search Engine Land

XML Sitemaps

Sitemap files allow you to submit to Google all the pages you want crawled and indexed. For news publishers, extra challenges arise regarding large scale sitemaps and Google News specific sitemap files.

Official Google Documentation

3rd Party Guides

Perfecting XML Sitemaps - Polemic Digital
XML Sitemap: The Ultimate Guide - ContentKing

Video SEO

Video content is a cornerstone of many publishers. Google have some official documentation on how to maximise your videos’ potential impact in search.

Official Google Documentation

Page Experience / Core Web Vitals

The Page Experience update is now rolling out, which means core web vitals are now ranking factors. Slow loading pages are at a disadvantage in all of Google’s results.

Official Google Documentation

3rd Party Guides

Advanced Core Web Vitals; a Technical SEO Guide - SEJ
How to Improve Core Web Vitals - Simon Hearne
The Ultimate Guide to Page Experience - Onely
Core Web Vitals Audit - Seosly

Paywalls

When it comes to paywalled content, there’s a lot of confusion about what to show Google versus what to show your end users. Here are some official Google docs and general guides into paywalls for publishers.

Official Google Documentation

3rd Party Guides

Paywalls, SEO, and the need for a damn good brand - CXL
Publisher paywall strategies from WaPo, Le Monde, and Substack - Press Gazette

Tools

SEOs rely heavily on tools to help them identify and analyse issues. Here are some of the most useful tools from Google and 3rd party providers that I regularly use in my work.

Official Google Tools

3rd Party Tools

NewsFlashboard - check if a site is in Google News
NewsDashboard - Google News tracking
NewzDash - Google News tracking
SISTRIX - SEO Suite
DeepCrawl - SEO crawler
Sitebulb - SEO crawler
Screaming Frog - SEO crawler
Schema Markup Validator
TechnicalSEO.com Tools
Google Discover Insights

This is just the first version of a comprehensive list of resources for people working in news SEO. I’ll be expanding and updating this list regularly, so make sure you bookmark this page and check back once in a while.

And please do let me know what links you feel should be added here. I want this list to be as good and useful as possible, which can only happen with your help. Leave a comment on email me on barry@polemicdigital.com.

As always, thanks for reading and subscribing. Please send this on to anyone it may be useful for, and see you at the next one.

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SEO for Google News

Google News SEO: The Definitive Resources…