How to perform the perfect Google Discover audit - SMX Munich 2024

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How to perform the perfect Google Discover audit

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The speakers Vivienne Goizet Editorial Lead SEO @BILD Jérôme Salomon Senior Technical SEO @Oncrawl

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● Introduction ● Setup ● Audit ● Going further How to perform the perfect Google Discover audit

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Introduction

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What is Discover and how it works?

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● Works more like a social feed ● Interest in article must be provokes ● Only on smartphone and tablet ● Exists since 2018 ● Personalized feed from google ● More magazine than daily news ● Serves an existing search for information Google Search Google Discover

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Why you should target Discover?

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Publishers make between 10k und 3M visits a day from Discover. One article performing well in Discover can reach over 1M visits.

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What content shows up in Discover? give me perspective divert me update me educate me help me keep me engaged connect me inspire me user needs

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Why perform a Discover audit?

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Google Discover is a blackbox… So auditing your data is your only chance!

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What method to audit Discover?

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1) Combine data sources for a data-driven approach: Technical SEO data (SEO crawler) Discover data (Search Console) Verify correlations & answer questions

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Hard Way Create a Looker studio report with custom spreadsheet for your crawl data OR Export all data from your tools and work with a spreadsheet (V-look up)

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Easy Way Import Google Discover data into Oncrawl and run a crawl:

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2) Visualize the data using Segmentation: ● Put your pages into groups ● Compare the metrics

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Hard Way Custom calculated field in Looker Studio:

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Easy Way Built in segmentation tool to group pages on any criteria:

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Easy Way Use our Google Discover dashboard:

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Answer your editors questions about what they can do to perform better in Discover.

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SETUP

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How to gather Discover data?

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What data is available in Discover? ● Title displayed in Discover feed ● Position/ranking ● Indexation ● Clicks : Traffic ● Impressions : Visibility ● CTR : Performance ● URL : Your pages ● Date : Period

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Which date period you should use? If you have enough pages featured in Discover! Avoid data bias: ● Fresh content ● Google updates If you don’t have many pages featured in Discover… Avoid data bias: ● Not enough pages to compare Last 15 days All data available

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Search Console limitations

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How to set up your crawler?

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Custom metrics using scraping Default technical SEO metrics

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Use XPATH to extract a tag in the HTML

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Use REGEX to extract the structured data

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AUDIT

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Are paywall articles featured in Discover?

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Volume of pages featured in Discover

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How well are paywall articles performing?

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Clicks in Discover vs articles published

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Paywall articles perform very well

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What can editors do with their articles to perform better in Discover ?

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Can all types of pages be featured in Discover?

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Article

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Article Video

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Article Video Product detail

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Article Video Product detail Category Listing Pagination

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Article Video Product detail Category Listing Pagination Job detail Probably more..

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Does title length impact Discover?

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Is the perfect title length 86-95 characters?

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Or 24-59 characters?

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No content

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Is a question in a title bad style?

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Titles containing “?” or “!”

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Discover does not mind Questions in titles

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Are Google’s Discover guidelines true?

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Meta robots “max-image-preview:large”

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Image width at least 1200 px

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“Use page titles that capture the essence of the content BUT in a non-clickbait fashion.”

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Clickbait Title contains “diese(r)”

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Tell your tech SEO to stick to Google Discover Guidelines!

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Does authorship influence Discover results?

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Articles with or without author

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Make sure your article has an author for better chances of discover success

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Tell your editors to write their names under their articles.

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Does Search impact Discover?

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Discover vs Search

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Average position in Search vs Discover

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You can be in Discover without ranking in Google. Most of your articles ranking in Google Search will not be in Discover.

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Does content size impact Discover?

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No, content size does not impact discover

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How do categories or topics perform?

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Categories featured in Discover

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BILD Sports and Video content are performing really well in Discover. So I focus my efforts on those who are NOT performing so high BECAUSE they have more potential.

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GOING FURTHER

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What else can you do? ● Use it for troubleshooting ● Look at the impact of Google Updates ● Optimize for better conversions and user experience ○ Make sure your Discover-Hits gets you Leads ○ Keep the visitors on the website ○ Look at ■ ime on site ■ session engagement ■ read through rate ■ bounce rate ● Implement findings in your trainings ● Make your editorials workflows better with the gathered insights