Wonderful. Right. I think we're gonna get started now as people roll in
they can catch up online. And so that shouldn't be a problem
Welcome to our webinar today, which will be a guide to getting into Google's good books and how to revamp your content
This has been a question that a lot of our publishers have been asking as a response to the craziness that's been going on in
the industry at the moment. So I hope that some of the tips in here will prove useful to you
So great to meet you all. I'm Matt, uh I, a publisher, success manager at a Zoic and here are a fun few facts about
me. So as I said before, I'm based out of our Newcastle office
beautiful city, very windy, very rainy. Um We have seven wonderful bridges uh and we also have a beautiful light display across
them. So very lucky to live here. Uh I've been with the Zoic for over five years now and I've been from sales to marketing
to account management and even hr I've implemented revenue growth and speed strategies for over 3000 publishers and a little
fun fact about me is I regularly go bouldering, which is a form of rock climbing
And I also look after my nine month old dash and Daisy there
she is looking all adorable at the top. So let's talk, Google Discover
Is there a secret? Now? A lot of publishers are trying to adjust their content
I'm sure you guys know this. Um in order to get into Google's good books after the update in March
it was incredibly significant that shift in page views and revenue and other metrics and people felt themselves going out of the
search results. They also experienced sites that previously were consistently members of Google Discover being knocked out
Now, Google Discover is a less predictable or dependent version when compared to keyword driven search visits
And so it is not the most consistent, but that doesn't mean we can't try to get more consistent and try to take
more advantage of Google Discover. So I am going to give you some recommendations today that don't guarantee success
but will hopefully garner you more traffic and give you a better chance of being able to be featured more likely and discover
Now a top trend for performers within Google Discover is their ability to effectively demonstrate high quality Eeat
You may have heard of this before. Uh Eeat stands for expertise
which is demonstrating a history of delivering reliable information. Uh For example
you have a qualification, your background in it. Um You know this before you have previously done a job
You know, if you've got a gardening website, you used to be a professional gardener that's experience expertise is showcasing knowledge and skills in a
specific domain. For example, if we go by that gardening ogy, you may know a specific way to take care of plants that
are very niche and not very popular. And because you know that specific skill that's showing that you're an expert in that area because of
your knowledge, authoritativeness is establishing credibility and authority, people know you. And
so you are an authority in this area and that leads very
very nicely into trustworthiness, which is really about building confidence through transparency and reliability
Now, authoritativeness and trustworthiness is incredibly important now more than ever because there's a lot of people who
um go through result after result after result and they don't trust whether it's A I generated or human generated
They don't know if they can trust what they are reading or whether it's just a really good imitation
And it's important to be able to establish that somebody can trust you that you are honest so that you are able to demonstrate your
expertise in your experience. Now, Eeat is one of the many guidelines that Google uses to determine whether your topic
is valuable to readers and whether or not you're an expert in that given topic
So one way that you can strengthen your eat to get into discover is to develop a detailed about us page
A lot of people don't realize the power of an About Us page
They think, you know, this is just AAA little extra part of having a website
everyone has them. So I guess I'll spend an extra 10 minutes or about even use chat GP T to create one uh about Us
page can be a real significant source of your eeat principles because it demonstrates that you are professional
it demonstrates that you have information in this topic and therefore you are an expert
It demonstrates your experience and also what visitors should expect so that they can trust the articles that come out
If somebody is going to follow you or sign up to a mailing list, they need to know that this content is going to be
consistently relevant to them and to their interests. Uh I've just seen the front says Eeat is
a big buzz everywhere, but seriously, how would the Google algorithm be able to recognize
I'm an expert? That is a fantastic question. Now, Eeat is very
very interesting because Google themselves don't say that it is a specific ranking factor
However, the content of Eeat really inhabits every principle that Google underlines within their core principles
of good content and high quality content, which is what we know the Google bot looks for and that can also lead to people spending
on average. I'm on a page which is also a strong ranking signal
So site stems clear ees might not be able to look through your expertise and say
oh, this man knows exactly how to prune his hedge. However, a bot can see that this visitor has read that has recognized that and
so has clicked on a couple more pages than usual and it can see that ranking go up as a result
So the ee a principles are really about their effects, their ripple effects onto your website and therefore the strength
that you can possess in increasing your user experience or in increasing your mailing list as a result of increased trustworthiness
So they may not be a instant get out of jail free card
but they are incredibly important. And we do very clearly see sites that demonstrate high levels of ee a have much
better metrics on growth metrics specifically compared to sites that do not use it
Um There are a few questions that are also coming through. I am going to uh leave those to the end of the session because
we have a question and answer section if that's ok. So now we've talked about the about us that leads very
very nicely into an author page. An author page is slightly different and a bit more human than about us pages
Let's say we continue with this weird gardening trend that we keep using
Um And about us page via gardening website may discuss exactly what you post on a weekly basis
Why you should be taken seriously what posts people can expect to see on a weekend versus a weekday
Uh and what they may entail uh signing up to a mailing list
For example, author pages are more human and focus more on the trustworthiness and the transparency
So who are you? Why should we trust? You put some fun facts and humanize yourself
That empathy and humanity is something that A I still really struggles to come across
So you as a potential smaller publisher may have that as a strong suit to be able to really push that in your visitors faces
You could also then link to your socials as well as your mailing list to try and build those as additional channels
You can identify author pages and then link articles that will be relevant to your author pages
potentially articles where you have more of a informational um pardon me informal element to them
So not just informative but saying this is my opinion on this situation that invites people to know who is this person with
this opinion. I'd like to get to know them more. It's a prime way to create internal linking within your site to link back to
your author page and therefore people may form a connection with you
Remember, your visitor has come potentially just for one page and it's these author pages that get them to stick around for life because
they become connected to you as a brand rather than just this page
Another way you can strengthen, strengthen your eeat is to establish editorial guidelines and you'll be very shocked at how many
sites don't do this. It is one of the simplest parts of creating a website that seems professional and can be trusted
having the same reliability, the same professionalism across your articles is incredibly important
And as you potentially do a rebrand and then a ret theme and you hire another writer
it can be really difficult to spend that time to go back through previous articles
But I implore you to do so because if you go back through and they're using a different page uh font
they, they're smaller or they're larger and they maybe have a different cadence to them
They have a angrier or a happier voice, they're more formal. There's so many different ways they could be different
And if a visitor goes from page one to page two and they notice a real dissonance or a difference that they dislike that
might get them to click off because they think, well, I liked what was on the first page
but this second page I don't like. And that makes me worried about what happens on page three and page four
Are they going to be different in other ways? So, one of the biggest guidelines that I can give you that you may not have
thought about is keeping all of this the same and featuring your brand in everything you do
deciding that font, deciding the colors and keeping those consistent. Finally design a trust building home page
Make sure that what you do is effectively demonstrated. It may not be that a lot of your visitors come through to your home page
as home pages don't tend to be the high performing landing pages
However, they do tend to be an important marker of where the loyal visitors stick around as it tends to be a very popular second
or third landing page after I've looked at what I wanted to
If I like your website, I may click home and see what else you have to offer
And that is your chance to demonstrate those principles. So give yourself a little author snippet that links to your author page
Give yourself some of the most interesting articles you've worked on that demonstrate your uniqueness and your brand
Make sure to spend that time making your home page, not just a placeholder
but somewhere where visitors will come to appreciate your brand. This is uh something that I think a lot of publishers
don't realize. But image size is also really important when getting into Google Discover
So Google actually recommends using large images at least 1200 pixels wide to increase visibility
These should be enabled with max image preview settings or through a MP for optimal display
Now A MP is really starting to be sunset and we're seeing pretty negative results for A MP
So my recommendation is to use a max image preview setting for optimal display
I would also avoid using your website logo as the featured image on any of your articles because you really want the engagement
and visual appeal to be as high as possible. If you're featured in Google Discover your text and the featured image will be pretty significant
And having an eye catching relevant featured image is a big differentiator as to whether somebody clicks that or whether they think
this is a sponsored post. This is jargon. I'm gonna scroll past. So make sure your featured images are not your logos
Another note on images is that you want to make sure that they're compatible with your article templates
which goes back to what we were saying before about a consistent theme and brand
So if you are making these changes after looking at this webinar
make sure that your article template support large image display. If it doesn't look to change your article template
make sure there's no resizing or distortion and ensure that those templates do not restrict image width due to sidebars or other elements
Because the last thing you want is for these images that look fantastic in the preview to end up
resized, blown up, pixelated and hidden by lots of other elements. You
want to make sure that when you are using these images and you're picking those images carefully that they are your own and you have
permission to use them. This sounds very, very simple and I'm very sorry for having to say it
But you'd be surprised the amount of people that I've had to deal with even this month and help them out with Google because Google
have either knocked them or given them a penalty because they've noticed that they have featured this creator with Discover using an image that didn't
belong to them. So provide a clear description of your image if you do not have this image as something you've created yourself
but you have permission, make sure to include the credit. So that's very clear that way it does enhance credibility
It enhances the experience and it ensures you don't have any problems further down the line
Also ensure that you avoid clutter and images are relevant and engaging to the content
Finally ensure that you've had a quick check on Google's image guidelines and that these recommendations are followed
Discover has a certain visual format as we've discussed and making sure you're adhering to those is a big differentiator of whether your site is
even considered to be featured or not. Another way that you might want to consider revamping your content is adding video
video like we discussed before. In response to Franz's question is a great way to show positive signals to Google
that you have a high user experience or high quality user experience that people go on your site
they enjoy it and they stick around. There is a large session duration
there are more clicks per session and more pages being accessed, adding video to your articles can boost your page views by 70
or more, which is a very large amount and it can increase E PM V by 50% plus
So it's a really significant shift when you go from not having any videos to having a significant amount of high quality created videos
on your pages. And it can also allow you to write multiple times
So if you're using our humi product, because this is coming from your site
it's hosted on your site and it is an additional link that can go back to your pages
You might be able to rank as the Discover featured snippet, but you might also be able to rank in the video carousel as well
So you're appearing twice and doubling the chance somebody can click on your content
So this sends a powerful signal to Google that your content is high quality
It will increase your revenue and it will also as a result
increase the likelihood that you'll be featured within Discover because you're continuing to demonstrate that you are high quality
Now, this webinar can be found at support.ozo.com or just from your levels dashboard or from the support dashboard
I'm gonna be answering the Q and A S and the chats now. So if you have a question that you would love to be
answered about this, please get it in. I was