You’ve seen them. You’re scrolling through your phone at 7:00 AM, half-awake, and Google Discover serves you a "card"—that perfect little snippet of an article that feels like it was written specifically for your weird obsession with vintage mechanical keyboards or 90s indie rock. It feels like magic. But for creators, figuring out how to make card content that actually triggers that recommendation engine is more like trying to solve a Rubik’s cube in the dark. It’s frustrating.
Google Discover isn't search.
When you search for something, you have intent. You want an answer. Discover is different; it's "query-less." It’s a push platform, meaning Google decides what you want before you even know you want it. If you want your content to show up there—and stay there—you have to stop thinking like a librarian and start thinking like a curator.
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The Anatomy of a High-Performing Discover Card
Honestly, most people fail because they focus on the wrong things. They obsess over keyword density when Discover doesn't even care about keywords in the traditional sense. It cares about entities. It cares about whether your "card" looks like something a human would actually want to click.
The visual is your first hurdle. If your featured image is a boring stock photo of two people shaking hands in a generic office, you’ve already lost. Google’s own documentation is surprisingly blunt about this: use large, high-quality images that are at least 1,200 pixels wide. But beyond the technical specs, the image needs to tell a story. It needs "pop."
Think about the "card" as a physical object. It has a title, an image, and a brand name.
Why Your Titles are Probably Killing Your Reach
We’ve all been taught to write SEO titles like "Best Pizza New York 2026." That is death for Discover. Discover titles need to be evocative without being clickbait. There is a very thin line here. If you cross into "You won't believe what happened next!" territory, Google’s manual reviewers or automated filters will nukes your visibility.
Instead, try to spark curiosity. Use a title that promises a specific insight. "The Real Reason Your Sourdough Keeps Collapsing" is infinitely better than "How to Make Sourdough Bread." The first one is a story; the second is a manual. People click stories.
Technical Prerequisites You Can't Ignore
Look, I know technical SEO is a snooze-fest, but if your site takes four seconds to load on a 4G connection, you aren't getting into Discover. Period. Google leans heavily on Core Web Vitals. They want a smooth, "app-like" experience for the user.
- Max Image Preview: You need to set your
max-image-previewrobots meta tag tolarge. If you don't do this, Google might only show a tiny thumbnail, and your click-through rate (CTR) will tank. - Mobile Responsiveness: It sounds obvious in 2026, but if your menu covers half the screen on an iPhone 15, you’re out.
- HTTPS: Don't even try without a secure connection.
Schema markup is another big one. While not an official "requirement" for Discover, using Article or NewsArticle schema helps Google understand the "entities" in your post. If you're writing about a specific person, place, or thing, the schema acts as a digital fingerprint that tells Google exactly what the "card" is about.
E-E-A-T is Not Just a Buzzword Anymore
Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. You've heard it a million times. But in the context of Discover, it's about "Who wrote this and why should I care?"
Google is getting scarily good at identifying AI-generated fluff. If your article sounds like a robot wrote it, it probably won't surface. Why? Because Discover thrives on fresh perspectives. It wants the "Experience" part of E-E-A-T. If you’re writing about how to make card layouts for a website, talk about the time you messed up a CSS grid and your whole site broke. That human element—the "I was there" factor—is what the algorithm is hunting for.
Lily Ray, a well-known SEO expert, has often pointed out that sites with a strong brand identity and clear authorship tend to dominate Discover. This means you need a real author bio. You need links to your social profiles. You need to prove you’re a real person with a real pulse.
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The "Freshness" Fallacy
A lot of people think Discover is only for news. That’s just not true. While "Freshness" is a huge signal, "Evergreen" content pops up all the time. I recently saw a Discover card for an article written in 2022 about how to season a cast-iron skillet.
Why did it surface now?
Because the topic became relevant again. Maybe there was a spike in people searching for "cast iron," or maybe the user just bought a kitchen gadget. Google matches the "card" to the user's current interests. So, while you should definitely try to hook into trending topics (check Google Trends religiously), don't ignore your old content. Updating an old post with new images and a better lead can often give it a second life in the Discover feed.
Engagement Signals: The Secret Sauce
Google watches how people interact with your card. If 1,000 people see it and only 2 people click, Google will stop showing it. It’s a brutal meritocracy.
But it goes deeper than just the click. "Dwell time" matters. If a user clicks your card, spends three seconds on your site, and then bounces back to the feed, that’s a signal that your content was "clickbait." You promised a solution and didn't deliver. To prevent this, your first two paragraphs need to be incredible. No long-winded introductions about the "history of cards" or "in the modern digital age." Just get to the point.
Formatting for the Scroller
People reading on Discover are usually on the move. They are killing time in line at a coffee shop.
Use short sentences. Use bold text to highlight key points so they can skim. Break up long walls of text with subheaders that actually mean something. If your subheader is just "Section 1," you're doing it wrong. Use something descriptive like "The Secret CSS Property for Perfect Borders."
Distribution and Social Signals
Discover doesn't exist in a vacuum. There is a strong correlation between "social buzz" and Discover appearances. If an article is getting shared a lot on X (formerly Twitter) or Reddit, Google takes notice. It’s a signal that this content is "hot" right now.
I’ve found that sending out a newsletter to a dedicated subscriber base can often "prime the pump" for Discover. The sudden influx of traffic and engagement tells Google, "Hey, people like this!" and the algorithm might start testing it in the Discover feed for a broader audience.
Avoid These Common Pitfalls
- No Over-Optimization: If you repeat your keyword 50 times, you'll get flagged for spam. Just talk like a human.
- Transparent Advertising: If your content is just a giant ad for a product, it won't work. Discover users want information or entertainment, not a sales pitch.
- Poor Image Ratios: Google prefers a 16:9 aspect ratio for that large featured image. Anything else might get awkwardly cropped, making your "card" look broken.
Actionable Steps to Get Started
To actually make this happen, you need a workflow. It isn't enough to just write and hope.
- Audit your images. Go back to your top five most important pages. Are the featured images 1,200px wide? Are they compelling? If not, change them today. This is the lowest-hanging fruit in the Discover world.
- Rewrite your H1s. Look at your titles. Are they "SEO-robotic" or "Human-curious"? Aim for the latter. Try to answer a specific "Why" or "How" that isn't being addressed by the top three results on Page 1.
- Check your "About" page. Does it look like a real company or a faceless blog? Add photos of your team. Link to your LinkedIn. Build that trust.
- Monitor the Search Console. There is a specific "Discover" report in Google Search Console. It only appears once you've reached a certain threshold of traffic, but once it’s there, it’s a goldmine. Look at which pages are performing and try to replicate that "vibe" in your future posts.
- Speed things up. Use a tool like PageSpeed Insights. Focus specifically on "Largest Contentful Paint" (LCP). If your image (the most important part of the card) takes forever to load, the user will leave before they even see your brilliant writing.
Making a card that sticks is about balancing technical precision with raw, human storytelling. It's about being the most interesting thing in someone's feed for thirty seconds. It’s hard, but when you see that spike in the "Discover" tab of your analytics, it’s worth every second of effort.