How to Succeed in Google Discover via @abbynhamilton
Google Discover (previously known as Google Feed) is a personalized content feed created by Google that proactively serves relevant content to users.
While traditional search requires users to input a query, Google Discover anticipates user behavior to surface new and interesting content.
Discover is available to mobile users on the Google App, Android devices, and Google.com on all mobile browsers (when logged into a Google Account).
In addition to serving the latest news, Google Discover aims to make “exploring your interests easier than ever” and is one piece of a larger initiative to switch the focus of search – from instant information to understanding more intricate user journeys.
With infinite access to information, Google is trying to filter and highlight content for the drifting Internet user.
How Does It Work?
According to the product announcement, two primary mechanisms are used to determine what content is displayed in Google Discover:
User Interests
While deemed by Google as the latest innovation in “queryless search”, understanding of the individual user replaces the understanding of a singular query.
Thus, the user becomes the central focus in Discover.
Google Discover automatically shows personalized content based on a user’s:
- Search history.
- Browser history.
- App activity.
- Location (dependent on your Google account set up and privacy settings).
Google Discover uses your information to identify and display topics Google believes will be relevant for you, known as “interests”.
What’s Interesting
To gain a deeper understanding of Google Discover interests, I looked at over 700 Google Discover interests (provided by members of the SEO Community).
While this is an extraordinarily small sample size in comparison to all potential interests, there were a few notable observations.
Interests Related to Sports & Entertainment Were the Most Prevalent
While my Discover feed is primarily focused on who former Bachelor Peter Weber is dating, I imagine other’s feeds are full of the latest sports updates.
It’s Largely Focused on Hobbies & Activities
Whatever you do in your pastime – whether it be baking or beekeeping – you’re likely to see content on your favorite after-work activities.
Brands Also Had a Strong Presence
Almost every submission included specific brands or local businesses.
While Discover aims to suggest new content to users, it still remembers your go-to stores and restaurants.
SEO Has Its Own Category
We love SEO so much, that it got its own category.
Thanks to all the SEO folks who filled out my Google Form.
Below is a visual of all submitted user interests, organized by category (i.e., finance, education, etc.) and type of entity (i.e., brand, product, person, etc.).
User Input
Users can also provide direct feedback to further customize their feed by following or unfollowing topics, selecting “show more” or “show less”, and choosing not to see content from certain publishers.
Occasionally, Google will directly prompt the user for feedback.
Isn’t Google Discover Just News?
Well, kind of.
One of the goals of Google Discover is to serve fresh content, and scrolling through the Discover feed, it is mostly news.
But when clients from other industries started seeing Discover traffic in Google Search Console (GSC), it was time to investigate.
I analyzed 12 months of Google Discover traffic to over 11,000 URLs from 62 domains. Of those 11,000 URLs:
- 46% were from news sites.
- 44% were from ecommerce sites.
- 7% were from entertainment sites.
- 2% were from travel sites.
The remaining 1% were from other industries including:
- B2B.
- Automotive.
- Education.
- Finance.
- Health.
Research Findings
1. News Sites Received 99% of Clicks
While news accounted for less than half (46%) of URLs analyzed, it received 99% of Discover clicks and got significantly more clicks per page.
One news domain in the analysis saw over 30% of its total web traffic coming from Discover, while other publishers have reported that Google Discover drove more traffic than organic search in some months.
It’s likely that news content is shown to a large, broad audience, while content from other industries are targeted to smaller audiences based on specific interests.
Google emphasizes this idea in the announcement of Google Discover, stating: “When It comes to news, we believe it’s important that everyone has access to the same information.”
Takeaway: Google Discover is a major traffic driver for news publishers and can be used to reach a large, broad audience.
2. Blog Posts Are Prevalent Across All Other Industries
For non-news sites, the remaining 1% of clicks (still totaling over 1 million in the past 12 months) were dispersed across different types of content.
The most prevalent type of content across industries was blog posts.
Blog topics that were displayed in Google Discover were highly relevant to specific interests/hobbies, such as hiking, makeup, and nutrition.
Additionally:
- 49% of clicks to ecommerce sites went to product pages, which included both product category and product detail pages.
- Entertainment saw the largest percentage of clicks (16%) to pages with a video as the primary content (i.e., cast interviews, movie trailers).
- Special offers, mostly travel or hotel deals with limited time/availability pricing, accounted for the largest percentage of clicks to travel sites (53%).
Takeaway: Non-news content is heavily interest-focused, and will likely be displayed to a smaller, more targeted audience.
3. Discover Content Typically Has a Short Shelf-life
Aligned with Discover’s focus on delivering fresh content, most of the URLs in this study only received traffic for 3-4 days, with most of that traffic occurring 1-2 days after publishing.
However, some more mature, evergreen content was able to drive longer-term traffic.
This is the result of Google Discover serving evergreen content to meet new or evolving user interests.
In the instances where I’ve seen more mature, evergreen content appearing in my personal Discover feed, I was searching similar topics 2-3 days prior.
Takeaway: Most pages in Discover have a short shelf-life, around 3-4 days, but evergreen content can drive longer-term traffic.
4. Users Respond Well to Discover Content
One of the first things that stuck out about Google Discover was a high click-through rate (CTR), 11% across all pages analyzed.
Excluding news sites (which accounted for most of the data), the average CTR was 6%.
Looking at the same 62 domains, the CTR from traditional search was 4%.
Unfortunately, these numbers can’t be directly compared as CTR is calculated as clicks ÷ impressions = CTR, and impressions are measured differently in Discover than in traditional search.
Here’s how:
- Search impressions are recorded for a URL when a user opens a search results page containing the URL (even if the result is not scrolled into view).
- Discover impressions are recorded only when a Discover card is scrolled into view
Takeaway: Pages in Google Discover see higher click-through rates than traditional search; however, this may be a result of the difference in how impressions are measured rather than a difference in user behavior.
How to Connect With Users on Google Discover
In traditional search, queries serve as a connection point between a user’s need and relevant content (i.e., the user is hungry, searches [food near me], Google displays local restaurants).
Google Discover shows content before a user need is realized, “powered by the strength of the match between an article’s content and a user’s interests.”
Without keyword research and query reports, the traditional content creation process is limited – but there are still ways to increase chances of appearing in Discover.
Be Mobile-Friendly
Google Discover is only accessible on mobile devices, so this one is obvious.
But it’s always good to cover your bases by checking Google Search Console’s Mobile Usability Report and making sure there are no errors.
Focus Content Around Entities
Interests are entities, objects or concepts that can be uniquely identified.
They can be anything from general hobbies, to niche interests, to specific brands and businesses.
Using the Entity Explorer by Marketer’s Center, you can view the relationships between entities and see what entities are associated with your brand, your industry, products, etc.
Identify what entities serve as a connection point between your brand and your users.
Create Content That Is Relevant, Useful & Interesting to Your Audience
You are no longer bound by search volume.
Embrace this newfound freedom.
Once you’ve identified connection points – get specific and go in-depth.
Interest-based content is personalized, so write content that will resonate with your most passionate users.
One way to do this is to identify intersections and relationships between topics (i.e., “best ski resorts near Pennsylvania”, “running tips for winter”).
Bonus points if you can tie content into current events.
For example, this blog post from REI focuses on outdoor recreation, which is closely tied to REI’s products and their audience’s interests.
It was published just before interest in “social distancing” peaked.
Include High-Quality Images
Aside from creating content your users will find interesting, the best way to boost content on Discover is to use large, high-quality images that are at least 1,200 pixels wide.
According to Google’s data, Discover cards with large images experienced a 5% increase in click-through rate.
For more ways to optimize images in Discover, check out Brodie Clark’s case study, Google Discover: An Image Could Be Worth 1,000 Clicks.
Revisit Your Video Strategy
Videos have a huge presence in Google Discover, which aligns with Google’s shift in focus from text to more visual ways of finding information.
While videos made up only 17% of content in this analysis, this doesn’t include data for YouTube, which hosts a majority of videos appearing in Google Discover.
It may be hard to measure, but creating engaging videos and optimizing your YouTube channel could help increase your brand’s presence in Google Discover – and in traditional search too, as 19% of desktop search results include video carousels and 92% of those videos come from YouTube.
TL;DR
- Google Discover is a personalized content feed with the ability to understand user interests and how they progress over time.
- News sites receive the most clicks from Google Discover, but it’s more than just news – all industries can leverage Google Discover to connect with users.
- Fresh content has a higher chance of appearing in Discover, but some evergreen pieces can drive long-term traffic.
- To succeed in Google Discover, content creators should:
- Ensure pages are mobile-friendly.
- Focus content around entities that are meaningful to their brand and their target audience.
- Create content that is interesting, relevant, and useful to their most passionate users.
- Include meaningful visual content (i.e., high-quality images and videos).
More Resources:
Image Credits
Featured Image: Created by author, April 2020
All screenshots taken by author, April 2020
