Google News for organic link development

I have a few news sites accepted into Google News - they’re genuine news sites, and to be perfectly honest they’ve always been built as news sites as news sites with no ulterior purpose - not even SEO. :)

However, it’s been very interesting to note how having a news site can be good for organic link development for SEO purposes.

For example, once accepted into Google News, you can find your news links being republished - often on a “most recent story” story basis - from other news sites in your niche.

While these links can be fleeting, and some even redirect or apply javascript, they can be pretty decent in themselves at actually sending traffic in.

A more robust method is to try and cover unique stories - or else current stories from a more unique angle.

Recently on Platinax I covered the launch of the new Firefox 2.0.

However, rather than post the same “hoo-ray” message everyone else was doing, I waited a day, noticed the privacy concerns raised at Threadwatch, then published that story on Platinax.

Not only did it bring in significant traffic, the story went frontpage on at least 1 x PR8 and 2 x PR7 sites.

Now, I’m not arguing the PR value is relevant here, other than it being illustrative of the level of coverage the story got.

Point being, by holding off and posting a more unique angle on a very common story, not only did it bring in the traffic, but it also developed some pretty decent links from respectable sites.

Now, I’ll be clear - the news item on Firefox privacy concerns was a genuine article, not intended to be link bait - when I purposefully try link bait, no one picks it up. :)

But the message that is underlined is that trying to post original news can get attention - so a site properly groomed and developed for inclusion in Google News can not only provide traffic, but also links.