Fancy getting your website on the first page of Google News? Is it possible for mere mortals to achieve this I ask myself? The short answer YES and I will give it my best shot to explain how. There may be many of you that feel this task is a step too far and for many it may well be. First of all a few facts about Google News, they are one of if not the biggest news sources on the web with over 30 million visits per day and they gather news from over 20,000 sources around the globe. If you want to get onto the Google serps for competitive keywords it’s pretty near impossible unless you have a huge budget, but getting on Google News is entirely more realistic and won’t cost you the earth.Google News is everywhereIf you use any Google page to perform searches then you will be aware of the links at the top left of the page one of which is the Google News link. Even once you’re on your search results page you can drill down further search filters including news stories. As a matter of course news results are almost always mixed in with the rest of the results so it’s everywhere.Starting out: ContentAmongst all the hurdles you have to complete this is the most important one, Quality content is a given for obvious reasons and this content will be your main focus and drive for success. You will need to look seriously at outsourcing your news content especially if you’re not an accomplished writer. You will have to ultimately source excellent writers to write original news worthy content. Your content will have to be highly optimized with the right keyword weight and title tag headings. This is where outsourcing will prove its worth so doing your research to find quality ghost writers will pay dividends.Applying for inclusion to Google news PublishersWhat I will say right off, if you’re a single author then don’t apply to Google news as one, why? Because they rarely accept a single author website, you must have a multi author website to stand any chance of getting into Google News, but there are ways to get round this. To do this you will have to set up a multi author WordPress site, you can achieve this by integrating your outsourced writers through pen names and using a multi author process, so you will have to set up separate author accounts. There are plenty of Multi author WordPress plugins that can ease the process.Template for success Choosing the right ThemeOn the premise that you are using WordPress, Drupal or Joomla as your CMS then picking out the right theme is vital. You will have to get a suitable news template or theme which you can do for free but I think it is worth investing in a custom/premium theme. It shouldn’t take you long to find a suitable news theme but make sure its robust and well coded with plenty of support if things go wrong.HostingIf you’re serious about delivering a reliable news service then you will have to consider using a dedicated server or at least a virtual server. The sheer amount of traffic will overwhelm a shared hosting account and could ultimately get you booted out of Google News inclusion.CostsThe cost and investment not to mention the time involved in setting up your Google News site can be considerable, although you can cut corners. You will need at least three news articles per day which is going to cost you around $25.00 to $40.00 each although you should be able to do package or bundle deals that will rein back the writing cost. These costs are my own assumptions and you will no doubt find cheaper deals by searching the web. If you want to have professional news sites that Google will pick up on then costs are inevitable.