Discover Or Top Stories Which One Drives More Traffic 

We all want our traffic to be in millions. And when it comes to getting a million hits per month our main focus is to get discover ranking or top stories ranking.

But the real question is which one drives more traffic? By directly answering this query, it is the discover feature which gives more traffic in the majority of the cases.  

And yea this answer might vary according to your search queries and wants but mostly google discover drives huge amount of traffic. 

And in this article I will be sharing about the detailed information on how to optimize your blog for discover as well as top stories.

Major differences between Google discover and Top stories

Google Discover

Google discover is basically a personalized feature which varies from user to user. Their is a content variety according to different users and it operates based on the information a user has provided to google via something like, push notification, regular search interest etc.

The results can be personalized by you, by unsubscribing to some blogs or yt channels and all. It basically operates on user interest. 

And the content form also vary as well from blogs to youtube videos to web stories and ads as well. 

Google Top Stories

It is a feature of google news and yea unlike discover it’s not personalized. As a feature of Google news it is just like organic search but it has a different place in the S.E.R.P. known as top stories. Which looks like this

In order to unlock this feature your blog should be a news based blog . With A News Article schema markup. 

And yea the news should be latest inorder to rank in google news. And from google news , Google filters out some news which can be helpful for users and lists them in the top stories section. 

Optimizing Post For Google Discover 

To understand this, first analyze google discover. Majority of the user's attention is focused on the images. It is just like youtube where we click on those videos which are attractive to our eyes.

Similarly For blogs high engaging images are required with high engaging content. Make sure the content will be according to the User-generated content policy for Google Discover. 

Make sure your content is mobile-friendly, write engaging CTR friendly  headlines and update your content often. This helps keep it fresh. Also use simple words. Keep sentences short which will improve readability and SEO ranking.

Also as I mentioned earlier that google discover also includes youtube videos and webstories. Hence focus on making high engaging and trending webstories and long form videos to increase the chances of getting ranked in google discover.

Optimizing Post For Google Top Stories

Optimizing post for top stories is kind of similar to discover optimization. In which creating user generated content with good readability score , high engaging CTR friendly title and high quality image are the key things. But, the thing which makes top stories slightly different from discover is trending things. 

Honestly both discover and top story ranking is achieved by focusing on trending topics but in case of top stories the topics are the fresh topics as it is a part of news. Hence an additional technical seo optimization is required for it. Which is the News Schema. 

This news schema helps google know that the blog is based on a current event and thus helps in indexing it quicker than an average blog post.  

Adding Schema Markup 

Whether it is discover or top stories. Schema markup is needed inorder to help google understand the intention of your article. There are various kinds of schema based on your niche via which you can improve your seo fame.

Now the question is how to add these ? 

There are tons of tutorials available in the web talking about this and hence I will be linking one video for your help

After adding the schema markup do check it whether everything works fine or not by using a tool from google named as rich result test

Discover Vs Top Stories Which One is The Best Source Of Traffic?

As mentioned earlier, in majority of the cases google discover helps in driving more traffic than top stories. But that doesnt mean we should only work for discover and just dedicate our valuable time just for google discover. 

Considering the optimization for discover and top stories are 99% similar, it is better to just create good content. I am saying this cause the main objective is User Generated Content. Make your content user friendly not just to get traffic. Cause you never know when google might list your article in high traffic zones. 

With all your efforts you might not be able to rank in 1st page of search and with minimal effort you might get listed in discover or top stories. 

So the main focus should be on creating good value content and attracting users than just optimizing.

Conclusion

Coming to the end of this article, I would like to advice that, just create good content and use some tips and tricks you think might be helpful. 

Remember one is said to be a good blogger only when that person tries out new techniques and creates some new ones of his/her own. 

Do let me know in the comments about your experience , share it with your fellow bloggers and do have a look at our social pages to contact us about anything needed.