Google Discover Optimization: How to Drive More Traffic to Your Site

In today’s fast-paced world, you’re always looking for new approaches to expand your reach and attract more readers to your content.

Staying up-to-date with the latest tools and techniques is essential to help you grow your audience.

One powerful tool that has gained significant attention recently is Google Discover. It helps you explore interesting topics, presenting you with articles and other content as per your preferences on mobile devices.

In this post, we’ll discuss the ins and outs of Google Discover and how you can optimize your blog content to make the most out of this powerful content discovery tool.

So, let’s begin the discovery!

1 What is Google Discover?

Google Discover is a content discovery tool available on mobile devices and offers personalized content recommendations. You can easily access it as it’s a feature in the Google app and the Chrome mobile browser.

This personalized content recommendation feed aims to keep you interested in high-quality and relevant information.

Google Discover presents content cards that are relevant based on your browsing history, search activity, and interests.

Google Discover can be a game-changer for your content marketing strategy. With its massive user base and personalized content recommendations, Google Discover can drive significant traffic to your blog, increase your brand exposure, and help you connect with new readers genuinely interested in your niche.

2 How Does Google Discover Generate Your Feed

Google Discover is personalized for you, but how exactly does that work?

To understand how Discover generates your feed, it’s essential to recognize the factors influencing its content selection process. According to Google, they use the following data to create the feed:

• Your Google product activity across all platforms (e.g., your search activity, watched YouTube videos, and engagement with Discover results)
• Location History
• Location Settings
• Topics you follow

Your current interests, hobbies, and other relevant information are all reflected in the feed. As you interact with this content by clicking, reading, or spending time on specific articles, Google Discover continually refines its recommendations to provide an increasingly relevant experience.

For instance, let’s say that you’re a big fan of cooking and frequently search for new recipes. Google’s algorithms will note it and show you more cooking-related content in your Discover feed. You might see articles about the latest kitchen gadgets, recipe collections from top chefs, or cooking tips and tricks.

But personalization goes even beyond your search history. Google also considers location, device information, and browsing behavior to create a complete picture of your interests and needs. 

For instance, if you frequently search for bakery shops in your area, Google might show you a list of nearby bakeries in your Discover feed.

By delivering relevant and engaging content, Google Discover keeps you hooked, consequently increasing the chances of having your content discovered by potential site visitors. Thus, creating high-quality, unique, and timely content is imperative for success on this platform.

You can also read the Google Search Help article to customize your Discovery feed further.

The next section is exactly what you’re looking for. We’ve covered the key areas that’ll help you optimize for Google Discover.

3 Optimize For Google Discover: Key Areas to Focus On

Optimizing for Google Discover involves understanding its algorithms, creating high-quality content, and aligning your content with user interests. Let’s dive right into the details of how to optimize for Discover.

3.1 Understand Google Discover

To optimize for Google Discover, it’s important to understand how it works. Google Discover uses machine learning algorithms to analyze a user’s search history, browsing behavior, and interests to display relevant content on the Discover feed.

According to the product announcement, Google Discover uses two primary mechanisms to determine what content is displayed:

• Google News AI/ML to bring various perspectives on the latest news.
• The Topic Layer in the Knowledge Graph to understand user interests and how they progress over time.

3.2 Optimize for Mobile

Google Discover is predominantly accessed on mobile, so optimizing your content for mobile is necessary. Ensure your website and content are mobile-friendly and load quickly on mobile devices.

Optimizing your website for mobile on Google Discover begins with implementing a responsive design that adapts easily to various screen sizes.

This design approach ensures that regardless of the device—a smartphone, tablet, or desktop—your website’s layout and content adjust fluidly, offering a consistent user experience.

Alongside this, optimizing images and videos specifically for mobile use is essential. This involves compressing visual files to reduce load times without sacrificing quality, ensuring that media elements are quick to load and clear and visually engaging on smaller screens.

Moreover, it’s important to structure your content for easy readability and navigation on mobile devices.

This means using larger fonts, clear headings, and sufficient spacing to keep text legible and inviting, even on compact screens.

Menus, buttons, and links should be sized appropriately for touch interactions, minimizing user frustration and reducing accidental clicks. In addition, any images or visuals embedded within your articles must be both readable and accessible.

If an image appears too small or detailed for comfortable viewing, integrating a feature that allows your audience to click on the image to expand and zoom in can significantly enhance the user experience.

3.3 Understand and Enhance E-E-A-T Signals

Understanding and enhancing E-E-A-T signals for Google Discover involves showcasing your experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness through high-quality content, proper attribution of sources, a strong online reputation, and engagement with your audience.

E-E-A-T is a set of criteria that Google uses to evaluate the quality and credibility of content across the web, including the content shown in Google Discover, which, as mentioned before, is a feature that displays personalized content recommendations to you on your mobile devices.

To establish experience, create content that reflects personal insights, case studies, or hands-on knowledge. For instance, a travel blogger writing ‘Best Places to Visit in Japan’ should include first-hand experiences, original photos, and personal recommendations rather than just aggregating information from other sources. This makes the content more authentic and engaging.

To showcase expertise, ensure that your content is created or reviewed by industry professionals. For instance, if you’re publishing a health-related article, having a certified medical expert contribute or fact-check the content adds legitimacy. Similarly, using Structured data (such as author bios and credentials) helps Google and the audience recognize the expertise behind the content.

Building authoritativeness involves gaining recognition within your niche. This can be achieved through high-quality backlinks, social media mentions, and citations from other authoritative sources. If trusted websites or influencers frequently reference your content, it signals to Google that your site is a credible source of information.

Lastly, ensuring trustworthiness is important for ranking well on Google Discover. A secure website (HTTPS), clear privacy policies, and transparent content (fact-checked and sourced) help establish trust. Including real author profiles, avoiding misleading headlines, and providing accurate, well-researched information further strengthen credibility.

3.4 Create High-Quality and Evergreen Content

An important element of Google Discover optimization is content quality. Google has publicly announced that Google Discover will feature a mix of new and evergreen content.

Your content should be well-written, clear, engaging, and compelling. Additionally, it should be unique and innovative and add value for your users. For instance, if you have a food blog, you can create recipe videos that are visually appealing, fast, and easy to follow.

Stay away from duplicate content and potentially spammy, low-quality content. Google Discover prefers solid, trustworthy content that provides a good user experience.

You can use Rank Math’s Content AI to create high-quality SEO-optimized content.

3.5 Focus on User Intent

Focusing on user intent is key to optimizing content for Google Discover, as the platform surfaces articles based on user’s interests and browsing behaviors rather than traditional search queries.

Unlike Google Search, where users actively look for information, Google Discover predicts what content might be relevant to them based on their past interactions. This means your content should align with what users want to see, engage with, and find valuable in their daily lives.

To optimize for user intent, start by understanding your target audience’s preferences, interests, and pain points. For instance, if you run a fitness blog, instead of just writing a generic article on ‘How to Lose Weight,’ create content that aligns with specific user interests, such as ‘10-Minute Fat-Burning Workouts for Busy Professionals’ or ‘How to Lose Weight Without Giving Up Your Favorite Foods.’ These types of content align better with personal preferences and are more likely to be featured in Discover.

Additionally, your content should be timely, engaging, and visually appealing. Google Discover often highlights trending topics, evergreen guides, and visually rich content that engages users.

For instance, if your website is about travel, you can create articles or videos that cater to specific travel interests, such as “8 Things to do in Diu on a Weekend Gateway”.

3.6 Use High-Quality Images and Videos

Visual content that enhances the user experience and provides value can help your content stand out in Google Discover.

Use high-quality images and videos that are relevant to your content. Images must have a pleasing aesthetic, be properly optimized for the web, and have corresponding descriptive alt tags.

Your content must include an image that meets the requirements listed below in order to be displayed in Google Discover:

• It should be a minimum of 1200px wide
• It should be enabled by the max-image-preview:large setting
• It should not be a site logo 

You can also check out our video, which will help you optimize your images further.

Images should be engaging, well-produced, and properly tagged with relevant keywords. For instance, if you have a fashion blog, you can use high-resolution images of various outfits and accessories to make your content visually appealing and shareable.

3.7 Optimize Headlines, Titles, and Meta Description

Since Discover relies on personalized recommendations rather than search queries, your title must be compelling enough to catch a user’s attention at first glance. A well-created headline should be clear, engaging, and curiosity-driven while accurately reflecting the content.

To ensure Google understands your content’s topic, use clear, precise language and relevant keywords.

Your meta description should also be optimized for a concise yet enticing content preview. Since Discover doesn’t always display traditional meta descriptions, the first few lines of your article often serve as a preview. Therefore, start your content with an engaging hook or key takeaway that immediately signals value. Rank Math’s Title and Meta Description features will help you optimize the titles of all your posts, no matter how big your website is!

You can also use the SEO Meta AI tool to generate SEO Meta tags using Content AI.

A poor user experience and decreased engagement might come from clickbait or deceptive headlines, so shrew them away.

So, say no to clickbait and yes to engaging content that wins over Google and your audience.

3.8 Support Your Entity With Structured Data

An effective way to increase your website’s visibility and interaction on Google Discover is Structured Data.

Using Schema markup is one of the best approaches for implementing Structured Data for Discover. It allows you to provide comprehensive information about your organization, including the name, logo, description, contact information, and much more.

For instance, if you have a website that offers recipes, you can use the recipe schema markup to provide structured data about the recipe’s name, ingredients, cooking time, and ratings. This information can be displayed in Google Discover as a rich snippet, including an eye-catching image, which can further entice your users to click on your content.

3.9 Refresh Your Evergreen Content Periodically

Google values fresh and evergreen content, and regularly updating your content can positively impact your search rankings. When you provide reliable and up-to-date content, it establishes you as an expert in your niche and also builds trust with your audience.

Even though evergreen content is designed to stay relevant over time, information can become outdated, examples may lose relevance, and new trends or updates may emerge that enhance the value of the content.

To keep your content fresh, periodically review and update key sections with the latest statistics, industry trends, or best practices. Additionally, revising outdated references, replacing broken links, and improving readability with better formatting and visuals can enhance user experience and engagement.

Beyond text updates, consider refreshing multimedia elements to align with current trends. Updating old images, embedding new videos, or adding interactive elements like infographics can improve user engagement.

Not only this, but it also helps you to earn Discover clicks!

With that said, it’s also important to follow Google Discover’s content policies. Violating these policies can result in your content being removed from Google Discover.

3.10 Try Google Web Stories

Google announced that they support Web Stories in the Discover feed.

One of the biggest advantages of using Google Web Stories is their potential to reach a massive audience through Google Discover. Google Web Stories for Discover offers a fun, engaging, and visually stunning way to captivate your audience and expand your reach.

Their mobile-first approach, interactive elements, and potential to reach millions of users through Google Discover can be game changers for your online presence.

So why wait?

Dive into the world of Google Web Stories and unlock a whole new realm of creating possibilities for your website.

4 Track Your Discover Performance in Google Search Console

Google algorithms are constantly evolving, and staying informed about your content’s performance in Google Discover can help you adapt your strategy accordingly.

By tracking your performance in Google Search Console, you can gain valuable insights into your content’s performance and optimize it for better visibility and engagement with your target audience. It’s like counting how many new friends you make each day so you can see if you’re popular or not.

You can track your Performance report for Discover in the Search Console. You can keep a check on metrics such as impressions, clicks, CTR, and average position, which provide a clear picture of how often your content is displayed, how many users are clicking on it, and how it ranks compared to other content.

It is also important to note that not all types of content perform well with Discover. Discover might not recommend content like job applications, petitions, forms, code repositories, or satirical content without any context.

Also, the traffic from Google is short-lived, and you shouldn’t rely on Google Discover for consistent traffic like search results.

Google’s John Mueller responded to a hangout question during business hours regarding the potential causes of a sharp drop in Discover traffic. His response includes techniques for identifying on-page problems and Google Discover-specific content guideline breaches. (Watch at the 47:05 Minute Mark)

5 Frequently Asked Questions

6 Google Discover Optimization: A Game-Changer for Your Brand!

Google Discover is a wonderful tool that can revolutionize how you browse the internet.

Finding content that truly resonates with your interests can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. That’s where Google Discover comes in to save the day and bring content bliss right to your fingertips!

Optimizing your content for Google Discover can be a game-changer for your website traffic and brand exposure. By following the tips we’ve discussed and continuously monitoring your performance, you can tap into its potential and boost your online presence.

So dive into the world of content discovery with Google Discover, and let your game-changing journey begin! You never know what amazing content you may find! If you like this post, let us know by Tweeting @rankmathseo.