When we create a website, one of the most common problems we have to solve is how to list the website in search engines like Google.
Whenever I talk to newbies who don’t understand how search engines work, they think they need to pay Google or other search engines to list their website.
This is certainly not true.
You can get your site listed in Google searches for free . All you have to do is help Google find your blog.
This is easy to do with the help of Sitemap files. All you need to do is generate a Sitemap file for your website and submit it to Google.
Google Search Console (formerly known as Google Webmaster Tools) is a free tool that allows you to control your website from a search engine perspective. I will not go into detail about GWT as I have already covered it in a previous post. In case you missed it, here is the first post to get you started:
First, we need to understand what a sitemap is and why it is important to submit a sitemap to search engines.
What is a sitemap?
A sitemap is an XML file that contains the URLs within your blog. This file helps crawlers find all the URLs of your blog.
Crawlers track many aspects of your website, such as the size of your sitemap and the number of URLs in your sitemap. In short, a sitemap is a complete index of your blog that you want search engine bots to see.
Here's an example of SidelinePlay's XML sitemap - you can also view that file here .
This wiki article about sitemaps will give you more technical and historical details.
In simple terms, a sitemap file contains all the URLs of your blog, and you submit this file to search engines to let them know about all the pages of your blog. Search engine bots follow the sitemap file to crawl and index your website.
For regular websites, we use online sitemap generators to create sitemap files and submit them to the webmaster tools provided by Google and Bing. For WordPress blogs, we use plugins to automatically update sitemap files when new posts are published. This way, you don't need to resubmit a new sitemap after publishing a new article.
It is a good practice to place the sitemap file link in the footer of your website so that search engine bots can quickly discover and follow the sitemap file and crawl your blog more efficiently.
Now that we know what a sitemap is, let’s move to the next stage.
How to Generate a Sitemap for Your WordPress Website:
Depending on the platform your website is using, a sitemap can be generated in different ways. For example, a WordPress sitemap can be easily generated using a popular SEO plugin called Yoast SEO.
Read this tutorial to learn more.
For other platforms, such as static site platforms, there are many online tools and offline software that can help generate a sitemap. For the purpose of this article, I will assume that you know how to generate a sitemap, and now we will learn how to submit that sitemap to Google.
How to submit a sitemap to Google Search Console:
Here are the steps you need to follow:
- Sign in to Google Search Console
- Select Your Site
- Click "Sitemap" in the left sidebar
- Add your sitemap URL (eg: sitemap_index.xml)
- Click Submit
Here is a detailed explanation:
Go to Google Search Console and select your website. If you have never submitted your website to Google before, read this tutorial to add and verify it.
Well, that's it. Once you click on the Submit button, Google will fetch your sitemap file and start crawling and indexing all the links listed in the submitted sitemap file.
If you're using an older version of Google Search Console, follow the steps outlined below.
On the right side of your Google Webmaster Tools dashboard, you’ll see an option called “Sitemaps.” Click “More” to view all submitted sitemaps, or you can submit a new sitemap from there.
Click Add/Test Sitemap to submit your sitemap file. On the same page, you can see which sitemaps Google has found, or which sitemap files you or someone on your team has previously submitted.
Depending on the type of sitemap you generated, you can submit it from here. If you are running a website with a lot of images, I recommend creating an image sitemap, as we discussed in Image SEO Optimization . You can also create a video sitemap for your website. For WordPress blogs, you can create an image sitemap using this WordPress plugin.
If you are submitting a sitemap for a new blog, it may take some time to see the index status. The index status on the same page will let you see how many URLs you submitted via the sitemap and how many links Google has indexed.
If you have submitted separate sitemaps for images and videos, you will see the status of those links as well. Here is an example of the index status for the ShoutMeLoud blog:
Once you are done submitting your blog sitemap to Google search engine, I recommend you read this guide and then repeat the process using Bing Webmaster Tools.
Here is a detailed guide to submitting a sitemap to Bing Webmaster Tools .
Let us know if you have submitted a sitemap for your website.
What other SEO-related things do you do to speed up indexing of your blog?
Remember to share this article with anyone who might benefit from this information, including your Facebook friends, Twitter followers, and members of your Google+ Groups!
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