A few years back, towards the end of 2012, Google did news websites a solid favor and created a specific meta keywords tag specifically for news articles. I know what you’re thinking, meta keywords tag? Wasn’t that a black hat tactic? Yes, yes it was. But this is different.

News_keywords were implemented to help Google better classify your content. Even though this has been out for quite some time, It is extremely overlooked by the smaller news sites. By using these news_keywords you can specify the most relevant keywords related to your article. For example say you are writing about Sundar Pichai, Google’s Senior Vice President of Android, speaking at Google I/O 2014, you would add the following code to help Google better understand the content:

A new change

<meta name=”news_keywords” content=”Sundar Pichai, Senior Vice President of Android , Google I/O 2014”>

This would cover the basics of what your article is covering, but you can get more specific. These keywords can help you fine-tune the search for specific terms. Sundar Pichai spoke about Android L and ChromeOS at this years Google I/O, in order to pin point one versus the other you would simply add to the string:

<meta name=”news_keywords” content=”Sundar Pichai, Senior Vice President of Android , Google I/O 2014, Android L”>

Limited to 10 keywords separated by a comma, each keyword is given equal value. The first or the last is no more important than the ones in the middle. This simple overlooked string of code can certainly help you rank better for your information, but keep in mind it is jut a piece to the puzzle.