Loyal Readers Can Now Favorite Your Content on Google

To encourage your audience to add your website as a Preferred Source, Google’s Publisher Center offers two solutions:

1. Adding the deep link to your social posts or promotions – For example: “https://google.com/preferences/source?q=<your website URL>”
2. Downloading Google’s official CTA button – You can add this to your website and/or blog posts, making it simple for visitors to add you as a Preferred Source. You can download the button from the Publisher Center post linked above.

When selecting your business as a Preferred Source, your audience will likely go through the following steps:

1. Search for a news-related query (e.g., “AI updates”)
2. Scroll down to the “Top Stories” search snippet
3. Click on the “star” icon
4. Select the websites they want to add as their Preferred Source
5. Reload the page

Once the user has chosen your website as a Preferred Source, your blog posts should appear more often in the Top Stories search snippet when a user searches for a relevant query. Additionally, your content may appear in the “From your sources” section that also appears on search results pages.

Even if a significant portion of your audience adds your website as a Preferred Source, this won’t matter in the long run if you’re not producing timely content that they’re interested in. In fact, they may stop clicking on your blog posts altogether if they’re not relevant to their needs.

Assess your content marketing strategy, target audience, and KPIs regularly to ensure that you’re covering the right stories. Additionally, audit your live content and see what’s performing the best. You can use these insights to shape your future ideas. If you’re creating content that resonates, your audience will naturally want to see more from you and keep clicking on your fresh posts under Top Stories.

💡 Unsure if creating a blog is worthwhile it in 2025? Read our write-up that explains if Google cares about your blog.