5 Google News SEO Tactics to Help Your Articles Rank

Optimizing your content for Google News can give you visibility beyond standard SEO.

We’ll tell you exactly how to do that in this article, but let’s first go over the basics. 

What Is Google News?

Google News is a news aggregation service that curates content from publishers and presents users with personalized news articles based on their interests, locations, and preferences. 

In other words, it uses technology to find and organize relevant stories from many different sources. Then shows those stories to people likely to find them interesting or useful.

Here’s what the Google News page can look like for a user in the New York area:

Where Do Google News Stories Appear?

Google News stories appear on Google News and other News surfaces.

Here are some of the more prominent Google platforms where you may see Google News stories:

• Top stories SERP features on search engine results pages (SERPs)
• Google Discover and Google Assistant on mobile devices
• Google Trends homepage
• News tabs on SERPs and YouTube
• Within Google’s AI Overviews

Here’s how Google cites news sources in AI Overviews:

I used Semrush’s Organic Research tool to understand how five major U.S. news publications’ appearance in AI Overviews compares to their appearance in top stories features. And how it’s changed over time.

Looking at six months of keyword data from February 2025 through August 2025, I found that:

• The number of keywords triggering AI Overviews that these publications appear in grew by 994%
• The number of keywords triggering top stories that these publications appear in fell by 2%

Here’s the publication-specific breakdown of how appearance in AI Overviews and top stories changed from February 2025 to August 2025:

The change is particularly noticeable for Yahoo. But The New York Times actually saw the greatest percentage increase (1,169%) in AI Overview appearances.

So, optimizing your site for AI Overviews might help you reach more people. And get more traffic to your news articles. (We’ll give you tips to help you rank in Google News and AI Overviews later on.)

How Does Google News Select Stories?

Google News uses computer algorithms to select and rank content.

Here are seven key ranking factors for Google News:

1. Relevance of content: The degree to which an article aligns with the user's search query or interests
2. Prominence: The significance of an event based on whether it’s being heavily covered by news outlets 
3. Authoritativeness: The credibility of the source
4. Freshness: The recency of the content, with newer articles generally prioritized to provide up-to-date information for timely topics
5. Usability: The overall user experience on the site (page load times, mobile compatibility, etc.)
6. Location: The geographical relevance of the content to the user
7. Language: The language the content is written in and whether it matches users’ preferences

The Google News “For you” tab also involves aligning with interests users have specified. Or interests Google has gathered based on the users’ activity settings. 

For example, users can choose topics they’re interested in by scrolling down to “Your topics” and clicking “Customize.”

You can see if your site ranks in top stories or AI Overviews with Semrush’s Position Tracking tool.

Configure Position Tracking to meet your specifications. When the tool is ready, click “Overview” and use the SERP features filter to find keywords that rank in AI Overviews and top stories. 

Performing SEO for news publishers can help you improve your rankings in Google News.

Here’s how.

How to Appear in Google News: 5 Tactics

Any site that creates timely, relevant, and original content (like traditional news publishers or sites that cover current events) can appear in Google News surfaces.

Here’s how to do Google News SEO: 

1. Adhere to Google’s News Guidelines

Google’s News guidelines emphasize transparency, accurate bylines, clear publication dates, and comprehensive information about the authors or organization behind the content.

Google also implements strict rules about ads, sponsored content, and transparency. Here are some specific guidelines to take note of:

• Avoid misleading previews (like clickbait headlines) that can misrepresent your content
• Display author names and publication dates for all articles
• Be transparent about your publication and any companies or networks behind it
• Clearly disclose sponsored content and ads
• Make sure promotional content doesn’t exceed editorial content

And comply with Google’s article best practices, overall search policies, and spam policies.

2. Find Trending Topics You Can Cover

Creating content around trending topics can help you rank on Google News because it helps you address the relevance ranking factor. 

Find these topics by looking through the main Google Trends page. And see if it makes sense to create content around any featured topics shown there.

For example, you might see that a certain celebrity is trending:

If your publication covers entertainment, an article discussing what’s going on with that celebrity could be a good way to try to attract some of the current interest in the topic.

You can see that several news outlets targeted this topic and achieved top spots on Google News:

To find trending topics that are specifically relevant to the areas you cover, try the Exploding Topics app.

Just browse the database to see which categories are gaining traction.

Clicking any of these categories reveals more specific topics you might be able to write about. 

Then, incorporate the trending term into your piece. And use the term as part of a compelling headline that makes users want to click on your article to read more.

Here are some tips for creating good headlines for news and other timely articles:

• Announce the topic of the article clearly and concisely
• Avoid puns and jokes for more serious news topics
• Use action words
• Write in active voice (e.g., “Veronika Slowikowska Joins SNL Cast” vs. “SNL Cast is Joined by Veronika Slowikowska”)

3. Create High-Quality Content That Demonstrates E-E-A-T

You can improve site visibility in Google News by creating content that demonstrates Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T)—a framework Google’s human reviewers use to assess the quality of and provide feedback on search results.

Google discusses the concept in its Search Quality Rater Guidelines and makes it clear that the intent behind E-E-A-T is to ensure search results meet high standards. And stories that cover important topics with the potential to impact people’s safety and well-being are held to even higher standards.

Here’s a breakdown of E-E-A-T principles:

• Experience: Refers to the content creator’s first-hand experience with the subject matter
• Expertise: Refers to the content creator’s qualifications and knowledge of the subject matter
• Authoritativeness: Refers to the creator’s or website’s reputation as a credible source
• Trustworthiness: Refers to the extent to which the website is transparent, uses credible sources, etc.

There are a few ways to focus on E-E-A-T.

First, add detailed author profiles to your articles. This can include a photo of the writer/journalist, a descriptive bio detailing experience and credentials, and links to social media profiles.

Second, create an “About Us” page.

This page should outline your site’s mission, editorial policies, overall team credentials, and commitment to journalistic integrity.

Include details about your fact-checking process, sources of funding, and any affiliations to demonstrate transparency and build trust.

It’s also wise to publish a clear corrections policy.

And prominently display corrections or updates to demonstrate transparency and accountability.

4. Keep Content Fresh

Keeping your news content up to date matters because content freshness is one of the Google News ranking factors.

So, aim to create a series of timely stories. And give your articles clear publish dates.

For example, the below publication releases many news articles daily. Which makes dates important.

You can see one of its recently published articles in the search results for “google chrome” under the “News” tab.

You can also adjust news articles as stories develop—be sure to note the change and update the article’s date.

Just keep in mind that your Google News SEO content should truly be newsworthy.

Evergreen content like how-to guides, advice columns, and listicles can still be important for your overall SEO strategy. Just don’t expect them to appear in Google News or News surfaces.

5. Improve Your Site’s Technical SEO

Optimizing your site for technical SEO ensures that Google is able to effectively crawl, index, and display your content—which makes you eligible to appear in search results. 

One way news sites can optimize their technical SEO is using news-specific structured data (often called schema markup)—HTML added to pages that helps Google understand your content.

The most popular structured data types for Google News are “Article” and “NewsArticle.” They provide fields for you to add more information about your article, such as:

• datePublished: The date and time when the article was first published
• dateModified: The date and time when the article was last updated
• headline: The title of the article
• image: The URL of an image from or related to the article
• isAccessibleForFree: A true or false flag showing whether the article can be accessed without paying
• author: The full name of the author of the article

Here’s a Google example of what “NewsArticle” structured data looks like:

Create news article schema markup using Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper. Select the “Articles” type and generate your code.

Once you’ve created your structured data, add it to the <head> section of your page.

Then, verify that you provide a good page experience—something Google notes as important—by making sure your site has the following characteristics:

• Fast page speeds: Make sure your page content loads quickly. One way to do this is by compressing images and converting them to modern image formats (like WebP) with tools like Squoosh.
• Optimized for mobile: Use a responsive website design that adjusts to different screen sizes
• Minimal intrusive ads: In particular, avoid pop-up ads that stop users from easily viewing your content

Use Semrush’s Site Audit tool to check for these and more issues that might be affecting your technical performance.

Set up a project and crawl your website. Then go to the “Issues” tab. And scroll down to see a list of technical issues on your website.

Click “Why and how to fix it” next to any listed issue for advice on how to resolve the problem.

Once you’ve resolved the issues, rerun the audit to check if your fixes worked.

Get Set for Google News SEO Success

Optimizing for Google News is key for gaining visibility with your news content. 

And you can get started by using Site Audit to see how your site performs. A free Semrush trial lets you try this tool and many others that can help with your overall SEO strategy.