How to Optimize for Google Discover [Tips, Examples, & Data]

Google Discover is a fantastic source of qualified traffic for many publishers and blogs.

Discover uses a searchless interface that automatically surfaces relevant articles matching a user’s interests in a personalized content feed.

Articles ranking in Google Discover have a huge visibility advantage since they’re targeted to the ideal audience.

We regularly see noticeable bumps in clicks and impressions every time one of our articles makes it into Discover.

In this post, I’ll share best practices for optimizing for Google Discover with real examples of our top-performing content.

Top Highlights - Optimizing for Google Discover

• Target trending and timely topics with niche alignment
• Use large, original, compelling images (≥1200px, 16:9 ratio)
• Write curiosity-driven but accurate headlines (40–59 characters)
• Demonstrate E-E-A-T with bios, insights, and original reporting
• Improve page speed for mobile and desktop
• Monitor Discover performance biweekly and double down on winning formats

Optimizing for Google Discover vs Traditional SEO

The main difference between Google Discover optimization and traditional SEO is how content is surfaced:

• Discover handpicks content to display to a user based on their interests. It favors fresh, engaging content with strong visuals.
• SEO is keyword-driven and retrieves articles best matching a query for the user’s search intent. It’s based on page and off page ranking signals.

Aspect	Google Discover	Traditional SEO
Content Discovery	Content is suggested to users	Users search with queries
Ranking Factors	User interest profiles, content quality, freshness	Content quality, keywords and semantics, backlinks, page structure
Traffic Source	Google app and Chrome mobile homepage	Google Search results pages
Content Type Focus	News, trends, visually engaging and timely content	Informational, evergreen, and keyword-targeted
Optimization Tactics	Click-worthy headlines, high-quality images, E-E-A-T, recency	Keyword targeting, E-E-A-T, on-page SEO, site structure
Performance Tracking	Google Search Console → Discover report	Google Search Console → Search Performance report

That said, Discover and Search share many features as well.

Discover essentially uses the same content quality signals to determine which articles to show in the content feed.

Google confirms this in its documentation:

So, writing helpful content designed to inform and solve real problems is just as important for Discover visibility as it is for search.

But even though the fundamentals are the same, I want to discuss a few observations about content that tends to perform well on Discover.

1. Pick Trending Topics

Google Discover prioritizes trending topics that match a user’s interests.

You’ll have a good chance of appearing in Discover if you produce high-quality content on a trending topic.

But it’s not enough to pick just about any popular topic. You need to choose something that fits your website niche and audience.

One of our most successful Discover topics is our deep dive into vibe coding trends.

This worked for us because:

1. Niche relevance: We’ve been serving audiences looking for industry trends
2. Topic popularity: Vibe coding is a hot topic, with searches up by 6700% in the past 3 months

Vibe coding searches are up by 6700% 

These characteristics made this article the perfect candidate for getting picked by Discover and also driving decent traffic from it.

What’s the best way to find trending topic ideas for my niche?

Exploding Topics is perfect for discovering emerging trends in your niche. It lets you search for trends by any one of the many categories in its trend database.

You can find these topic ideas by going to the “Trends Database” section.

After that, you can select a category, and Exploding Topics will show you a variety of trending topics related to a niche.

For example, let’s select “travel” to see what comes up.

You’ll immediately see a bunch of great ideas that you can produce fresh, intriguing content for.

When you find something that makes sense as a topic for your blog, click on it to learn more about the trend. For example, the tool will display additional related trends.

These are great for brainstorming content ideas and fleshing out your main topic by expanding its coverage.

When you have a list of potential topics to choose from, make sure to ask yourself:

• Does this trend align with your niche?
• Can you offer a unique perspective?

If your answer is “no” to any one of these questions, you’ll struggle to find success in Discover.

You can also discover trends using free tools like:

• Google Trends
• Twitter/X (trending tab)
• Reddit

Does Google Discover exclusively show fresh and trending content?

No, Google Discover doesn’t exclusively show content on trending topics.

It’s true that Google favors trending topics more. This agrees with the observations of other experts as well as mine.

That said, Discover usually mixes evergreen content in a feed that’s predominantly about trending stories.

For example, our guide on free SEO tool use cases spent a few days on Discover, despite its evergreen nature.

In short, trending news and stories give you the best chance of landing a Discover spot. But evergreen content definitely has a place in Discover as well.

So it’s important to strike a balance when you’re optimizing for Google Discover.

2. Use Original Images

Images take a big chunk of the space dedicated to each content piece appearing in the Discover feed.

An engaging image can draw more attention and attract clicks. This makes the use of original, large, and high-quality images even more important in Discover than traditional search results with the blue links.

In fact, Google’s guidelines specifically emphasize using large and high-quality images as one of the necessary conditions for your content to appear in Discover:

Based on Google’s guidelines and my experience, here are a few best practices for optimizing your images for Discover:

• Use large images (1200 px wide with 16:9 aspect ratio), especially for featured images
• Original images stand out more than stock photos
• Avoid using generic images that don’t convey any meaning or emotion, like site logos
• Add descriptive alt text to every image
• Enable the max-image-preview:large setting in your meta tags

How should I enable the max-image-preview:large meta tag for my site?

First, you should check if your website is already using this meta tag to allow Google to display full-sized images.

To do that, open one of your representative articles and right-click anywhere on the page. Select “View Page Source” from the context menu.

In the Page Source window, click Ctrl+F (or Cmd + F on Mac) to open the search box and copy-paste this string: max-image-preview.

If you see a Robots meta tag with this setting, then it means your website is already configured for Google to show large image previews.

The tag might look something like this:

<meta name="robots" content="max-image-preview:large">

But if the search fails to find any tags including the image preview setting, you’ll need to add the tag.

As I mentioned, installing a plugin like Yoast SEO or Rank Math is the easiest way to enable large image previews in WordPress. These plugins will inject the necessary tags automatically.

If you have a custom HTML site or are using a CMS that doesn’t automatically add this meta tag, you can add the tag as manual code inside the <head> section.

3. Write Relevant, Intriguing Headlines

Along with images, your headline plays the biggest role in grabbing attention and getting clicks.

Making it into Google Discover is only half the battle.

To get the most out of your Discover presence, you also need to compel your audience to act and engage with your content with compelling headlines.

Google recommends using page titles that accurately describe your content without being sensational or clickbaity:

I analyzed page titles and CTRs of Exploding Topics articles that made it into Discover to see if there are any clear patterns.

Here are some observations:

• Longer titles draw high CTR: Headlines with the highest average CTR are 40-59 characters long (specifically, the 40-49 character bucket has the highest average CTR of 3.15%). Titles having fewer than 40 characters have the lowest average CTR.
• Year/month in title signals freshness: Some of the best-performing articles in terms of CTR have an explicit year or month mentioned in the title. This is one way to indicate freshness.
• Two-part titles perform better: Titles that use some kind of separator (colon, pipe symbol etc.) to add clarifying context drive slightly higher than average CTR (e.g. “Future of SEO: 5 Key SEO Trends (2025 & 2026)”)

4. Illustrate E-E-A-T and Helpfulness

Google wants to reward helpful content that’s clearly written to solve real problems by real experts on a given topic.

This is true for traditional Google Search, and it’s also true for Google Discover.

You can demonstrate your expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness by:

• Adding clear author bios revealing your credentials and areas of focus
• Demonstrating in-depth subject knowledge by drawing on expertise to share original insights
• Citing your sources clearly and explaining your methods for original reporting
• Supplying visual evidence of hands-on experience with original images and videos.

With AI tools enhancing the ease with which low-effort content can be produced, you need to put more effort than ever into creating content that stands out to your audience, relying on your human experiences.

What types of content performs best on Google Discover?

Research suggests that news stories and content around current trends perform the best on Discover.

This also agrees with the patterns I’ve seen for well-performing Exploding Topics content: news, trending topics, and statistics top the list, followed by listicles.

5. PageSpeed and UX Optimization

Google Discover started as a content discovery platform for mobile. Fast loading pages and responsive design are imperative for extracting the full potential of your Discover traffic on mobile.

Once Discover is available on desktop, you’ll also need to make sure your website has the technical setup to perform well on all kinds of devices.

The best place to start your speed optimization is with Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool.

In the majority of cases, unoptimized images and JavaScript are some of the more impactful factors dragging down site speed.

The Time to First Byte (TTFB) metric is of particular importance. TTFB is the delay between a resource request and the arrival of the first byte in response.

You can also complement PageSpeed Insights with performance reports from the Semrush Site Audit tool.

This will give you additional intel, such as the pie chart illustrating your page load speed distribution:

Regardless of the platform, content quality, engaging headlines, and high-quality images will remain the biggest drivers of Discover performance.

For mobile optimization, it’s also a good idea to implement AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages).

Mobile vs Desktop Optimization for Google Discover

Optimization Factor	Mobile (Primary)	Desktop (Emerging)
Content Layout	Prioritize vertical scrolling, finger-friendly UI	Wider layout support, multi-column/grid view may emerge
Image Optimization	Large, high-resolution images (min. 1200px width) required	Same image requirements
Headline Style	Tap-worthy, curiosity-driven, emotionally resonant	Same headline structures likely to succeed
Speed & CWV	Mobile Core Web Vitals highly influential (LCP, CLS, INP)	Desktop CWV may now start impacting visibility too
Design Responsiveness	Must render flawlessly on all mobile devices	Ensure layout adapts well to widescreens, no broken containers
Engagement Behavior	Taps, swipes, short-form engagement	Clicks, longer reading sessions, potential for multitasking

Can I use structured data to improve my visibility in Google Discover?

Yes, structured data can improve your visibility in Discover, especially for your existing audience.

Discover allows users to “Follow” a publication, which you can implement by using RSS feeds. You can further help Google associate your content and feed with your brand by using structured data.

When you’re followed by users, Google will show future articles from your website more frequently in their feeds.

This is great for repeat visibility of your content and turning Discover into a regular traffic stream consisting of your ideal audience.

6. Monitor Topics that Work and Repeat

Keep an eye on your Discover performance in Google Search Console and look for any patterns that stand out.

Chances are, you might notice certain kinds of content formats or topics work better for you than others.

You can log into Google Search Console and go to the “Discover” tab under “Performance”.

It’s helpful to spend a few minutes analyzing impressions, clicks, and CTRs for your content.

Repeat what works and try to diagnose the reasons behind why certain content might be underperforming.

And when you repeat what works, it’s still important to strive for originality. Otherwise, you might lose audience interest if you become too monotonous.

Review your Discover data every 2 weeks to spot recurring patterns

Like Google Search, Discover isn’t an isolated system. Driving traffic consisting of engaged sessions from different channel sources helps Google associate you with engaging content.

As a result, Discover will want to feature your content more frequently to satisfy your growing audience base.

Establish Your Google Discover Presence

Google Discover is an important traffic source for many publishers. Once Discover arrives on desktop along with mobile, the visibility potential will increase tremendously.

Considering the effect of AI features on Google SERPs in reducing visibility and clicks for top-ranking results, Discover provides an opportunity to cover some of that lost traffic.

That’s why it’s the perfect time to start optimizing your content for Discover using the strategies I’ve outlined above.

Remember that Discover still requires strong foundational SEO. We’ve been relying on the Semrush SEO toolkit along with the Exploding Topics app to win Discover visibility.

You can try out the Semrush free trial to give yourself the best chance of appearing in Discover and establishing it as an important traffic source for your business.