Will google discovery feeds turn out to be Next BIG Thing?

It was Google Now. Then, Google Feed and then becomes Google Discover as a bunch of informative, entertaining cards inside the Google app gets another rebranding. The action comes as an intention of Google to reflect Google’s refreshed mission of helping users with better and more exciting content and keep you up to date with the things you care about.

Since launching, Google made its goal very clear to help uncover fresh and exciting content about things you are interested in. Thus they’ve given the feed a name that reflects this mission: Discover. With this new name comes a fresh design that makes exploring your interests more accessible than ever.

Fundamentals of Google Discover

While the fundamentals of Google Discover remain the same, there may be new features as well. It can have a redesigned interface, which will make things easier to interact with. Google has integrated feeds inside the Google App on most android phones while on Pixel phones, it can be discovered by swiping to the left-most screen, and the same is the feature available on Android One phones & most Sony devices. This feature will soon be made available on Google.com and can be viewed from a mobile browser.

Discover will also start to display new content with more images & videos and stories from the not so recent past.

How is that important to you?

Say you're planning a trek to the Himalayas, Google will show you tour & travel guides, essential lists, and stories that are usually based on what you've searched for about your upcoming trip. Similar cards are displayed when you search for a new hobby or activity for a long time.

Google will allow its users to manage how often they might want to see a particular subject on Discover. The content is shown in multiple languages, meaning you’ll get to twist sharply which type of content you’ll get to read in one language while reading the rest of Discover in some other language.

Above is the example as I searched the last day for off-page SEO, and thus it started showing me relevant content to Off-Page SEO. With a very highlighted line that “in case you missed it”

Optimize and Win Google Discover?

Companies and brands are required to concentrate more on quality content they generate as well as their audience engagement.

 Google Discover feed gives users information before they even search for it. This is how the AI (artificial intelligence) works, and thus you get your desired result without even typing.

Around 800 million users, the feed has proved to be a hit. Below is one example of reporting related to Google discover in Search Console. Clearly seen 42% of the traffic is coming from this new platform which proves to be a great hit

There are updates regarding Google Discover, which is discussed below.

Updates to the Discover feed include:

New look: The design has been wholly retouched, with an emphasis on visual content. Each post may come with a clickable topic header and image, which is clickable and takes you to the complete page.

More content: Earlier, it was more of a NEWS, which was seen in the feed, but with rebranding Feeds as DISCOVER, along with NEWS, there is much more you can see. Based on your search patterns and history contents, it will show content with specific subjects of your interests. Discover shows content that might not be new but may be new to you, so the experience is better.

More control: With more added features comes more power, and if you do not like any of the cards, simply you can select to see it more or less. The option comes at the bottom of each card.

Google is now showing these discover feeds on the chrome browser as a new update.

 4 Steps to win:-

Create quality, engaging content

Creating quality is what we have been focusing on SEO since day 1. That is what recommended to practice in this field as well. A focus on creating high-quality content that takes care of the needs of your readers is significant in Discover. But in addition to quality, you’ll need to focus on gathering engagement for your content.

Images and Videos rank better in Google Discover

Statistically, videos and images have proven to be more engaging than any other type of content. These are more attractive and grab the user’s attention very quickly. Since the day to day life is swift, people do not have time to read a whole lot of pieces. Instead, they will prefer to listen to what you want to convey and see the visuals you want to tell. This concludes to the fact that high-quality images and high-quality, relevant videos to show up on the discover feeds.

The mix of New and Evergreen Content

To get pulled into user’s Discover feeds, you have to focus on the creation of a combination of content. As Google said, they’ll be focusing on both fresher, newsworthy content as well as evergreen content.

Multiple languages

Google has made itself very much available to everyone. Thus there is no language barrier as well. People are using Google in different styles. Thus it becomes crucial that content must be available in different languages to accommodate every single user.

Google Discover Feeds Advertisements

There is an immense growth in Google discover feeds and very positive feedback from the users. Users also reported that their website traffic has increased to up to 200% from Discover feeds by Google.

Thus seeing the potential of Discover feed, Google has started testing the ads on Google Discover. Google has already begun its ad testing.

With an approximate reach of up to 800000 monthly mobile users as reported by Google, it announced to run ads on this new platform to increase the opportunity for the advertisers and brands.

Well, it will be an early call to know if the company, which saw Facebook’s Newsfeed ads skyrocket, whereas google+ failed miserably, will win this time in the mobile feed competition. But the best part is the advertisers who are running and have been testing this new feature are very much impressed with the initial results.

Being the beta tester of discovering feed ads, their website traffic has recorded a boost of about 150% from this new platform.

Mr. Kumar ( Founder Of NIDM- National Institute of Digital Marketing)

However, it is not completely clear up to what extent the feed is driving that satisfaction.

Users may not have even seen ads in their own Discover feed yet. The discovery feed ads are much less run and still are in closed beta testing. The ads are always challenging to find more than a year after its initial testing (since at least October 2018) and even after the official introduction of Discovery campaigns at Google Marketing Live (GML) in May.

The major drawback which I feel is that the advertisers have no way to target ads to the feed separately distinctly. Discovery feed campaigns are Google’s machine-powered campaign types that show advertisements on many properties. 

In addition to this, Discovery ads run in Gmail and also on YouTube.

Conclusion:

For now, to run an ad, you still have to get into the beta, which can be tricky if you don’t have a Google account manager. But once you are in, you are good to go. Start small — let’s say ₹100 a day —and scale from there.

There are still some cons in the process (and is still in beta), and “the fact that your assets don’t get saved somewhere for you to use in the future means you’re re-uploading some assets months later.”

The overall response is high, which means a good sign for the future, and thus betting n this new feature will turn out to be a jackpot.

Additional References:

Will the Discover feed be Google's next cash cow?  https://searchengineland.com/will-the-discover-feed-be-googles-next-cash-cow-what-advertisers-are-saying-about-discovery-campaigns-327815

How do you optimize for Google Discover? | Good To SEO. https://www.goodtoseo.com/how-do-you-optimize-for-google-discover/