Digital marketing and SEO experts may obsess over Google from time to time, but there is a good reason for it. Google offers plenty of tools for marketing on desktop, mobile, and even audio and video streaming platforms. Google is among the top three most dominant forces on the web. Enter the Google Discover tool.
Google Discover is an exciting tool for reaching targeted audiences on their mobile devices. It serves up content Google believes is of interest based on user activity. The company isn’t open about the signals it uses to determine what appears in a Discover feed, but they do say that content that already meets its standards for quality and originality is eligible to appear in the Discover feed.
Targeting Mobile Users Where They Are
Digital marketing experts achieve the best results when they can fine-tune their messaging to those audiences most likely to buy a client’s products or services. Google knows this. The search engine giant also knows that consumers appreciate effective marketing when it is capable of pointing them to the products and services that they want without forcing them to jump through hoops.
Google Discover does exactly that in the mobile environment. The Discover feed is available to mobile device users through apps and the Google mobile website as long as they are logged into their Google accounts. Discover will serve up a constant feed of relevant posts, videos, etc. based on individual interests and habits.
Utilizing Discover as a Digital Marketing Tool
Google will not reveal exactly how Discover works. But again, they recommend focusing on content that meets their established guidelines for quality and originality. The originality part speaks for itself. Just don’t copy someone else’s content and you won’t have a problem. As for quality, Google measures everything from content helpfulness to mobile friendliness and page load times.
Maximizing Discover exposure lies in creating content mobile users would find interesting. So ask yourself this: What portion of my target audience is most likely to find my content on a mobile device? Once you have that answer, generate a certain amount of your content specifically for that audience.
Here at Webtek, digital marketing, and SEO are our specialties. Millennial business owners and executives are more likely to depend heavily on mobile compared to their Gen X and baby boomer counterparts. So it’s in our best interests to create a certain amount of content aimed at the millennial audience.
Discover Is Organic
Google’s Martin Spitt recently described Discover as “an organic feature that goes with the demand and habits of users” during the July 2023 Office Hours session. What might seem like an innocent comment is anything but.
Organic is where it’s at for both SEO and Discover. Marketers are far more likely to get good results from organic searches compared to paid ads. This is not to say that PPC advertising or services are no longer appropriate. They are. But if marketers want to maximize Discover exposure, they need to continue to concentrate on organic.
In short, this means knowing your audience. It means knowing the types of messages that resonate with them. It means designing content around those messages in a way that appeals to mobile users. And remember, Google Discover is for the mobile audience; it is not for the desktop.
Unfortunately, we cannot offer a black-and-white strategy for maximizing Discover as a marketing tool. Figuring it out is pretty much a trial-and-error exercise. But we can offer this advice: concentrate on high-quality content that will appeal to mobile users. Successfully target that group and Discover should work for you.
