The ranking factors of Google News have been covered with mystery for a long time. However, recent studies aim to infiltrate that cover. Based on such studies, you can learn a lot of important things about Google News and their ranking factors. The most basic findings from these studies conclude that the factors that really matter are reputation in content category, the right keywords in the title, proper headline, quality of content, timing of release, optimization for social sharing and link building. Here is a more comprehensive explanation of the important factors that you need to work on for high Google News rankings:

Keywords in headlines, page titles and meta descriptions

Keyword research is the most important first step you need to take. There are many tools online to help you determine the best keywords that you should use.
For headlines, it should be short about a maximum of 10 words. You should also
use synonyms in these areas and the main body of your content.

Optimizing content for social sharing

Studies indicate that the volume and velocity of social shares have a great impact on rankings with Google News. This is why it should social sharing should be easy. A good tip is to place sharing buttons on a noticeable place of the webpage.

Releasing the story first

The timing of your release is very important to get high rankings with Google News. You don’t have to be first but you have to release it ahead of your competitors. This is why you should always be updated on the latest news and release relevant news to your site as soon as possible. Some practitioners even have a release as soon as possible and revise later on policy. Of course, it would be better if your contents are carefully created and optimized before releasing.

Quality of content

This is probably one of the most important factors for high rankings with Google News. Even the smallest typos and such errors can devastate your site in terms of rankings. Also, copied content from other sites usually result to heavy penalty from Google News. Your content should be unique, informative and interesting so that users will likely share with other people which will also help with your ranking. Google News’ editorial evaluators will usually just blacklist your site if they think the quality of your content is low.

Use standard SEO practices

Of course, you also have to apply the usual optimization practices such as good page load time, video and image optimization, ad-to-content ratio and length of content. As a general rule of thumb, news articles should be around 200-800 words.