How to optimise for search results which are affected by Query Deserves Freshness?

[HaymarketMediaGroupLtd]

I am looking to rank a clients site for certain keywords which have a huge exact local search volume in the 200,000 region. Many of these keywords are celebrity names like Victoria Beckham, Pippa Middleton. etc. 9 times out of 10 these people are in the news and the first page is taken up by new article/news results. My client is a large media publishing company so their site is very relevant.

Does anyone know how to optimise for getting on the first page with these types of queries?

Thanks

Barry

[Cyrus-Shepard]

Hi Barry,

Excellent question - so thanks for asking.

Basically, Google uses its search engine to determine when a "query deserves freshness". This often happens when certain subjects appear often in news articles, or there is a spike in search for a certain phrase, for example.

When Google makes this determination, they want to serve the freshest content available. Often, these aren't the best sites. A bit of a sacrifice is made for speed and freshness over quality, in order to get the latest news.

Some tips for optimizing for these types of queries:

• Keep an updated xml sitemap
• Make sure your timestamps are up to date
• Submit your content to Google news
• Publish your content via RSS
• Publish/Update your content frequently
• Broadcast your content on G+ as broadly as possible

One of the best resources I know of for optimizing for these queries was done my Rand and Mike a few months back:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/googles-freshness-update-whiteboard-friday

Hope this helps! Best of luck with your SEO.