We’ve rebuilt and reimagined our News SEO plugin and taken it to the next level. Today we’re proud to release News SEO version 2.0, which allows you to easily optimize your site for Google News.
It had been, unfortunately, almost 2 years since we last updated the plugin which meant it didn’t work anymore for 95% of people and lacked many features. We’ve decided to make it a premium product, much like our Local SEO and Video SEO plugins, so we can actually afford to spend time on it. As always, our core WordPress SEO plugin (to which this News SEO plugin is an addon) is and will remain free of charge. Of course this plugin can also be used with our Premium WordPress SEO plugin.
What does our News SEO plugin do?
The News SEO plugin allows you to optimize your site for Google News. It creates XML News Sitemaps, editors picks RSS feeds and allows for use of the standout tag and the meta news_keywords tag as well as helping you optimize some of the more advanced XML News sitemap options like stock tickers.
Of course, you have to be in Google News first to be able to optimize for it, which is why I’ve taken the time to write a page outlining the Google News submission process. Not all sites qualify for Google News, but for those that do, it can be a very powerful source of traffic.
Universal Search
One of the most important reasons that Google News can lead to so much traffic is because it’s included in Google’s Universal Search results. A search for [mh370] in Google, for instance, will currently show something like this:
Those first 3 results are taken directly from Google News, as is the image. As you can imagine, this can drive quite a bit of traffic on current affairs as well as celebrity names, sports clubs etc.
If your site is included in Google News and you run our WordPress SEO plugin, buying this extension should be a no-brainer. If you’re in Google News, your site runs on WordPress and you’re not using our WordPress SEO plugin… Well, shame on you :)
Now, you can go buy the News SEO plugin right, or read some more first.
1 year upgrades & support:
This post first appeared on Yoast. Whoopity Doo!