Table of Contents
The Ultimate Step-by-Step Guide to Indexing Your WordPress Website on Google
Introduction:
Increasing organic search traffic is a goal for every website owner. Organic search drives 64% of total website traffic, making indexing by search engines essential. In this comprehensive guide, we will walk you through the process of indexing your WordPress website on major search engines like Google. By following these steps, you can boost your online visibility, drive organic traffic, and improve your search engine rankings.
What is indexing of a website?
Indexing is referred to search engine recording your web pages and showing it up every time a user look for the information similar to your web pages. Mostly, when a bot of search engine arrives at your website, it starts crawling. Based on ‘noindex’ or ‘index’ meta tags, the bot adds pages in the search engines with index tags.
How do you get your website indexed by all major search engines?
There are two ways to do that. One is to create a WordPress website and sit back and relax, while indexing happens naturally (which will take a long time) and the other one is putting some efforts and make it happen. If you’re ready to implement the second method, then continue reading.
1. Understand How Search Engines Work:
To effectively index your website, it’s crucial to understand how search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing operate. Search engines rely on spiders or bots that use algorithms to crawl and index web pages. Gone are the days of keyword stuffing for better rankings. Instead, focus on quality content, social signals, valid codes, and authoritative incoming links. Spiders note new documents and changes, processing and adding them to the search engine’s index.
In earlier days, you could force a bot to index and rank your webpages based on how many times a particular search keyword is used. But today, doing this will get you penalized. It doesn’t mean that keywords no longer helps a website getting indexed on the search engines but with that, you have to take care of few other things like social signals, valid codes, quality incoming links and much more. All of this won’t matter until spiders tell the search engines where to begin and that’s when indexing comes in.
Imp: Spiders will note down every time a new document and changes added to a webpage, and it’ll process it and note down the location. When a user searches for the information associated with the similar keywords, Spiders get to the work and find the links on pages and add them to the list of crawled pages.
So, it’s always important to check a recently published article to know that Google has already found it. You can use a site:domain.com to search the same and ensure your page is easy to find.
2. Publish High-Quality Articles and Blogs:
Regularly publishing in-depth, high-quality blog posts offers several benefits. Retailers report a high percentage of customers coming from blog posts, and recommendations from bloggers influence over 60% of purchase decisions. Create blog posts about your products or services, incorporating high-resolution images and relevant links. This practice helps search engine bots crawl and index your product pages effectively.
3. Create Quality Content and Build Backlinks
To enhance your website’s visibility in search results, focus on creating high-quality and valuable content for your audience. Regularly publish relevant articles, blog posts, or other forms of content that provide insightful information. Promote your content on social media platforms and try to earn backlinks from reputable websites within your niche. These backlinks act as a signal to Google that your website is trustworthy and authoritative, improving your chances of ranking higher in search results.
Developing a robust content marketing strategy further enhances your website’s indexing and visibility. Consider guest posting on niche-related sites, publishing press releases on reputable platforms, and utilizing article directories. Additionally, creating videos hosted on major platforms like YouTube or Vimeo can drive engagement and improve indexing. Avoid spammy sites and focus on providing valuable content to reputable sources. Simply:
- Write GPs (Guest posts) and submit it the sites similar to your niche
- Create PRs (Press releases) and publish them on PR sites.
- Blogs on article directories.
- Prepare videos and host on major platforms like Youtube or Vimeo.
Note: Don’t try shortcuts by posting your content on spammy sites as Google will then consider your site as spammy too.
4. Utilize Google Analytics:
Google Analytics is an essential tool for understanding your website’s performance. Setting up Google Analytics signals to Google that your website is active, potentially triggering the indexing and crawling process. This tool provides valuable insights into user visits, page duration, pageviews, and more. Additionally, it offers advanced features like conversion tracking and goal setting for comprehensive website analysis.
Also, you can use it for advanced tricks like tracking conversions and setting goals.
5. Submit Your Website to Google Search Console (GSC):
Google Search Console (GSC) is a powerful tool that allows you to monitor and control your website’s indexing on Google. It provides insights into visibility, errors, keyword rankings, and more. Use GSC to improve indexing and crawling, ensure indexability by bots, fix HTML issues, and submit your website’s sitemap to Google.
Helps bloggers:
- To monitor visibility on search engines and ‘404 not found’ errors.
- To know the keywords, their sites are ranking for.
- In Improving the sire indexing and crawling
- To monitor if a website is indexable by bots
- Issues that need fixing like HTML improvements
- Submitting the sitemap to Google
6. Submit Your Website’s URL to Search Engines:
Submitting your website’s URL directly to search engines like Google and Bing helps expedite the indexing process. In Google, log in to your account, navigate to Webmaster Tools, and submit your URL using the “submit URL” option. Similarly, submitting your URL to Bing will automatically include it in Yahoo’s search results.
7. Optimize Your Sitemap
Create and optimize an XML sitemap that lists all your website’s pages. This helps search engines quickly identify changes and updates to your website. Follow Google’s instructions to add an HTML file or utilize a plugin to generate and submit your sitemap. Update your sitemap whenever you make changes to your content or add new pages.
There is no restriction on how many times you can submit the sitemap to Google but just ensure that every time you are updating the content or images, add a sitemap.
8. Verify Indexing Status:
Once you have submitted your XML sitemap, you need to wait for Google to process it and index your website. This process may take a few hours to a few days. To check the indexing status, go to the Google search engine and type “site:yourdomain.com” (replace “yourdomain.com” with your actual domain). If Google has indexed your website, you should see a list of pages from your site in the search results.
9. Leverage Social Media:
Harness the power of social media platforms to generate traffic and improve the indexing of your website. Establish a presence on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Create engaging posts that include links pointing back to your website. Sharing your content on social media not only increases its visibility but also encourages social signals and interactions, which search engines take into account when determining the relevance and popularity of your website. Additionally, engage with your audience, participate in relevant communities and discussions, and encourage social sharing of your content to further amplify its reach and impact.
10. Install and Configure an SEO Plugin (Optional):
While not mandatory, installing an SEO plugin can further optimize your WordPress website for search engines. Popular plugins like Rank Math, Yoast SEO, All in One SEO Pack, and Rank Math provide features to improve your website’s SEO. Install your preferred SEO plugin from the WordPress Plugin Directory and configure the settings according to the provided documentation. Ensure that your XML sitemap is generated and submitted to Google using the SEO plugin.
Bonus:
Perhaps, you know that if you submit a URL to a blog directory, it’ll help your site indexed by not and will easily be found by potential users, and if you know the right way to do it, it’ll make indexing quicker than usual. Submit your URLs to only best authority and industry blogs if you need to get in the top search results of search engines. Not only it will open up your content to new traffic but also helps you with incoming links that are easy to crawl and index by search engines. Isn’t that you need?
Now, you have seven efficient methods for getting your website indexed by search engines to drive more and more traffic.
It isn’t an exhaustive list as there are techniques like bookmarking, commenting on various forums and much more. The point is there are various techniques and methodologies arises on the daily basis when it comes to search engine ranking. So, stay updated and use everything you can for better ranking of your website.
Conclusion:
Indexing your WordPress website on search engines is vital for increasing organic traffic and improving your search engine rankings. By understanding search engine algorithms, consistently publishing high-quality content, utilizing tools like Google Analytics and Search Console, and optimizing your sitemap, you can ensure effective indexing and better visibility in search results. Stay updated with the latest techniques and methodologies to continually improve your website’s ranking.
