Increasing traffic via Google Discover: what should you do about it?

Many of our clients are noticing the growing impact of Google Discover on their website traffic. As a data analytics company, the question we’re obviously asking is: how do you increase your visibility in this feed?

Nice question, even if we do say so ourselves. Natalia Zaba, teaching fellow at the Google News Initiative, affirmed some of our findings during the first webinar of the year. You’ll find some of her insights quoted in this blog.

What is Google Discover?

Let’s take a step back: what exactly is Google Discover? It’s essentially a personalised news feed embedded in various Google Search products. On Android devices, you can access it by swiping right from the home screen. It’s also visible when you open the Google app on phones and tablets (including iPhones and iPads), as well as in the Chrome browser on mobile devices. However, Discover is not available on desktops.

Google curates the feed using an algorithm and personalises it based on users’ behaviour across the web and apps. It features current content indexed by Google in accordance with their content policies. Traffic via Google Discover to news websites is growing in the last couple of years, a data study of smartocto shows:

Measuring the impact of Google Discover

So if Google Discover is not working for you, there are some practical steps you can take to give yourself a hand. Let’s start with what we, smartocto, can already offer:

1. We can accurately track how much traffic is coming to your site via Google Discover, even at the article level. This is not as straightforward as it sounds, since Google doesn’t provide a clear referral, unlike social media platforms.
2. We can also analyse and report on what these visitors do once they land on your site, like how many pages they visit or the average read depth that this specific audience has. You can see which topic/section gets the most pageviews, attention time, which author’s stories get the most traffic from Discover as well as how loyal Discover readers are compared to readers that come from other sources.

There’s more! Actionable insights, dashboards and notifications on Google Discover

These findings help generate the actionable insights smartocto has become famous for - and this is where the opportunity to consolidate and grow your loyal reader base really lies. You will be prompted to encourage readers to subscribe to your newsletter, explore related articles, or watch videos on the same topic. All of these things offer value and build loyalty - and the suggestions appear as notifications, making it simple and easy to optimise potential.

While this advice applies to all content, it’s not possible for every article to receive equal attention from the editing team. Our alerts can help you focus on the articles that matter most, so you might get a notification that says: “This story is the best at attracting an audience and capturing their attention.”

Our clients are also able to get dedicated Google Discover dashboards. These are some examples from an anonymised client:

“As you can see in the graph, for this particular brand Google Discover has a much bigger impact than all search traffic” says Miloš Stanić, smartocto’s strategy manager. “This kind of report might prompt the newsroom to perhaps update certain articles or enrich them, while spending less time on search engine optimisation. Good performance on Google Discover could also be an indication that these articles should feature in a newsletter or could be posted on Facebook.”

The challenge of optimising for Google Discover

Using data tools like smartocto, you are able to get insights into optimising your content, but it’s important to remain realistic. There are almost no tricks in the book to be more visible on Google Discover. During the webinar (5 things you shouldn’t ignore in 2025), Natalia Zaba shared a sobering truth:

Zaba compared the success of some articles on Discover to how content occasionally goes viral on the internet: “You’d never ask a content creator how to write a viral article. Virality is driven by a combination of factors that even the creators themselves can’t fully explain. The same applies to Discover. It’s the nature of the internet—we can’t predict what will happen tomorrow.”

She also highlighted another factor: mathematics.

“Each day, 15% of global searches are entirely new. Google first has to interpret these queries. What do users mean? Since we can’t predict what people will need, it’s impossible to foresee what will trend next.”

Key takeaways from Natalia Zaba about Google Discover

1. Use page titles that capture the essence of the content, but in a non-clickbait fashion
2. Avoid using tactics that exploit shock value, sensationalism, or outrage to manipulate interest
3. Provide content that’s timely for current interests, tells a story well, or provides unique insights

At the end of the webinar, the pressing question arose:

What can publishers do to be more visible on Google Discover?

Natalia Zaba’s answer was straightforward:

“Be user-friendly. Avoid shocking people, steer clear of clickbait, be timely, and focus on quality journalism. These are the things users miss online. Understand your audience, that’s crucial. Treat Google Discover as a nice-to-have, but build a long-term strategy. That’s what truly matters today.”

This philosophy aligns perfectly with the user needs approach we passionately advocate for here at smartocto:

• Define a clear mission for your journalism
• Ensure a balanced approach to user needs
• Stay true to your brand and audience

Google can’t overlook quality content. The more you focus on optimising towards Google Discover, the more distance will appear between you and your true self and the less opportunities will be there to be more visible.

Focus on great journalism, and Google Discover may just find you.