Google News has launched updated features, including an auto-refresh option, and brands may want to tweak their content marketing strategies accordingly. The company announced the new features over the weekend.
The site will now regularly update the news results for a given query to ensure that readers get the most recent headlines. Users can set their personal news to refresh by selecting the “automatically reload the page every fifteen minutes” option under their News Settings (found by clicking the gear icon at the top of the Google News homepage).
For marketers, this means updating site content throughout the day to keep up with the latest industry developments stands to significantly increase brand visibility. Those who practice news content marketing will also benefit from other recent Google News developments that make content more discoverable on the web.
As Brafton reported, Google is now showing linked headlines for news-related general search queries. If this feature is expanded it could help brands offering custom industry news dominate more space on SERPs.
The latest Google News update also helps brands offering blog content. The company is allowing readers to determine how much of their News results are represented by blogs.
Whether offering news articles or blog posts, brands with high-quality content that gain Google News inclusion will likely see traffic growth. Americans increasingly search for trending content on portal sites, according to Pew's Information 2.0 report.
