Google offers SEO news advice

15:00 12th February 2009

Tips on how to improve news stories' rankings in listings on Google News have been handed out by the search giant.

Particular attention was paid to the body of an article text, which should not be "broken up by tags, ads, sidebars" and anything else which doesn't lie within a story itself.

Search marketers producing news content were also advised to make the date of the story clear, by taking a number of steps.

Google explained: "You can do this by placing the article date and time in the HTML, between the title and the body. Also, you can remove other dates from the HTML of the article page."

A method involving the use of Google News Sitemaps was also put forward as a good way of gaining better recognition.

Firms can "specify stock ticker symbols for companies mentioned in individual articles".

The Google News Help Forum was highlighted as a good resource, allowing content producers to discuss hints and tips with one another.