As demand for credible information about COVID-19 continues to rise, Google has stepped up efforts to help those using it’s search engine connect more quickly to relevant health information.
Google recently provided guidance to health organizations on best practices to make COVID-19 information more accessible on the Google Search platform, the world’s dominant search engine. In addition to a best practices article, Google created a new technical support group for health organizations. In this blog post, we breakdown exactly what the best practices article and technical support are and how health organizations can use both.
Get More Search Visibility With Google’s Best Practices Article
When searching on Google, the algorithm attempts to show you the most relevant information. As a content or website owner, you can optimize your content to ensure that Google understands it.
In the COVID-19 best practice article, Google guides health organizations through various ways of optimizing content and pages so that the algorithm recognizes it. The article includes essential best practices specifically for health information sites, including the following information:
- Helping users access your content
- Creating good page content and titles
- Ways to check if and how your website appearing for COVID-19 queries
- How to analyze the top COVID-19 related user queries
- How to add FAQ content
Technical Support Group For Health Organisations
Google’s new technical support group for health organizations focuses on aiding health organizations who publish COVID-19 information optimize for Google Search inquiries. Google plans to continue the dedicated technical team until COVID-19 is no longer considered a Public Health Emergency by WHO.
Google grants access to the tech support group on a case-by-case basis. The support group is available only to national health ministries and US state-level agencies, but the company is hoping to expand this to others.
You need to have one of the following to access the support group:
- You can register using an email under national health ministries and US state-level agencies domains — for example, name@health.gov
- You can also use the support group if you have access to a Search Console account.
If you don’t have one of the above, you need to fill in this form to request access to the COVID-19 Google Search group.
The public currently needs accurate, helpful, and useful information, and Google Search is a significant way of getting this information. The best practice article and support group offers those with the information — health organizations — with the guidance and support to get out to the public during these unprecedented times.
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