Traffic from Google Discover – every blogger wants it. It’s like leveling up your blog and adding an extra traffic magnet. Google feeds content to an 800 million-strong Discover market without them having to search for it or even knowing they need it. Blog traffic gold. 

Google Discover is getting smarter, using more than a simple typed-out search query to deliver results to people. This shift in how we find and experience content is all part of Google’s ‘more better content’ ambitions and – along with regular SEO – is a critical tool for getting your blog to reach its full potential.

But what is Google Discover all about, and what is the secret to how to appear on Google Discover feeds everywhere? 

Google Discover is yet another product of a smarter, algorithm-powered, AI-enabled new world. As content gets more valuable and the stakes grow higher, search is evolving along the way. Interest is now as valuable as keywords, and Google is getting pretty good at knowing exactly what users are interested in – far better than they can predict which keywords they’ll choose to search with.

We explore what it means for your blog’s content to appear in Google Discover’s super-personalized results feeds. We’ll look at the areas you’ll need to focus on the steps for how to optimize your blog for Google Discover traffic, and give you some pointers for getting there.  

Google Discover is the next step in user mobile search customization. It anticipates the content a user will want to see, delivering it to them without them having to actively search for it. Google takes your information, including your search history, personal movements, app behavior, shopping habits, interests, and other characteristics collected by their automated systems, and uses it to ‘surface’ or display a highly personalized content feed aligned with your interests and potential needs. This makes developing an SEO for Google Discover strategy essential if you want your content to reach those feeds.

Goodbye Feed, Hello Discover

Google Discover has only been around since 2018. You may have noticed that Google Feed is no longer available – it’s been replaced with Discover. Only available on mobile, Discover reaches around 800 million people and takes a different approach to search, improving on how its predecessor surfaced content before.

Where Feed focuses primarily on delivering mostly text-based results, Discover pushes everything from stories to videos, images, blog content, and much more. Discover results are even more personalized, less dependent on content being applicable to a wider audience, and styled to become available to the user passively. 

Google Discover vs. Google News

No, Discover isn’t Google News. While they both work in a similar context, delivering personalized information to the user, Google News requires people to enter a search query, but Discover does not. Google News pushes breaking stories and news related to the user’s stated interests and location. Discover aligns far more closely with your interests, developed from your search history and other automatically collected metrics. In other words, you need to tell Google which news you want to see, while Discover anticipates what you want to see. 

Two people of similar age and sharing matching characteristics will see many similarities when comparing their Google News feeds. If they were to contrast their Discover feeds, though, they’d see a far more different and uniquely attuned content thread reflecting each individual’s own diverse interests. 

Query-less Searching

Google Discover’s development is part of Google’s major shift to improve user experience, satisfy intent and make finding information easier, giving us an idea of what it takes for how to appear on Google Discover. Their stated ambitions include:

• Changing the search experience into more of a journey rather than an answer-seeking exercise. 
• Shifting away from a need to ask questions in order to obtain information, anticipating and delivering results more passively and on a more personal level. 
• And enriching results with more visually stimulating information rather than mostly text-based answers. 

Discover’s goal is to change the way people search by providing relevant information to them based on their historical interactions with Google. More relevant content aligned with a user’s preferences means more engagement and a higher degree of satisfaction. Who doesn’t want answers before they even know what the question is? 

All this means that content creators, bloggers, and website owners have a golden opportunity for their content to appear in the feeds of an 800 million-strong market without those people even having to search for it. Sounds great, right? It is. All we need to do is figure out how to optimize your blog for Google Discover traffic.

But before you get too excited, it is important to remember that Discover traffic is less predictable and harder tap into than regular search traffic. This is because Discover users are being fed content that is relevant to them individually – not necessarily a niche or specific target audience group. And that makes sense. Everyone is unique and different, making it nearly impossible to target more than one Discover user at a time.

But Discover traffic that receives results leading to your blog or website is very valuable. You don’t need to actively work on feeding it to them, and once your content is seen as Discover-worthy by Google’s algorithms, you will enjoy a healthy supplement to your regular search traffic as well as learn how to increase traffic from Google Discover. 

So how do you ensure your content is optimized for appearing on Google Discover results on people’s feeds? Let’s find out. 

Optimizing your blog and content and SEO for Google Discover is similar to managing your SEO for search. Google still values high-quality, original, useful, and relevant content that adheres to its policies. They’re also looking for searchable and current content, but if you’re trying to figure out how to appear on Google Discover feeds, you’ll need to outperform everyone else. 

Yes, that means providing outstanding, extraordinarily valuable content that people will appreciate – especially when it appears on their Discover feeds. Google Discover is all about personalization and improving the user experience and search journey, so giving your content a more optimized edge is a surefire way to boost your chances to increase traffic from Google Discover. 

Let’s look at some of the focus areas that matter most for getting your content onto Google Discover. While almost all of these areas cover traditional SEO for blogs and other websites, we’ve added a little extra context for how they affect your Discover potential. 

Mobile

First and foremost – mobile. Google Discover is currently only available on mobile devices, so you’ll need to take care of your site’s mobile-friendliness as a priority. Optimize in line with Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) guidelines and test to ensure that all typical mobile hand gestures and features are working.  

Content quality

Google has been on a mission to improve content quality in line with their ever more important E-E-A-T principles. But with Discover, you’ll need to stand out with your content. Posts should outperform the competition on all fronts, providing a new level of relevance, helpfulness, and trustworthiness. 

Visual content

Video and images are adding tremendous value to everything, and the same goes for blogs looking to earn increase traffic from Google Discover. Bloggers need to start incorporating more optimized visual content into their posts. And no, not attractive or appealing content only – visual elements that actively contribute to the content itself, performing their own roles and adding even more value. 

Indexing

Boosting your webpage crawl ability is a standard SEO element that allows Google to find your content better. But if you want Google to index your content faster and more effectively, you will have to help the search engine speed things up by adding in some SEO for Google Discover. Spend more time perfecting your sitemap, constantly updating every change to your site, and ensuring that the pages with the most relevant Discover content are front and center for indexing. This is an important Discover focus area that will deliver more Discover traffic if done right. 

Google’s policies & guidelines

Adhering to Google’s rules and policies is a no-brainer when learning how to optimize your blog for Google Discover traffic. However, using their published guidelines is an often overlooked tactic that can mean the difference between making it onto Discover feeds or not. Google publishes regular content policies and recommended guidelines, which can sometimes take some doing to get through but are always worth a read. Making sure your blog matches every one of those policies maximizes your chances of earning Discover traffic. 

Now that you have an idea of the areas you need to focus on, it’s clear that Google Discover prioritizes certain areas, like mobile and indexing, more than others. While all SEO elements are crucial to your blog appearing anywhere (not just on Discover), targeting these focus areas will increase the likelihood of successfully nailing how to appear on Google Discover feeds. 

Optimizing your blog and its content for Google Discover is a process that looks something like this: