Learn the essential steps to ensure that Google indexes your webpages effectively.
Understanding the importance of Google indexing
If you want to boost your online presence, understanding the ins and outs of Google indexing is key. By allowing search engines to crawl and index your pages, you're taking the first step towards landing a top spot in search results.
Without giving search engines access to your content, you're essentially hiding it from users seeking valuable information. So, by giving Google the green light to index your pages, you're opening the door to a wider audience and increasing the chances of your content being discovered.
Google indexing isn't just a nice-to-have; it's a must-have for a successful website and on-page SEO.
The process of crawling and indexing by search engines
Search engines have three primary functions: crawling, indexing, and ranking. Crawling involves searching webpages and examining the code and content of each URL. Indexing refers to storing and organising the information found during the crawling process. Ranking allows search engines to provide the most relevant content to users based on their search queries.
Google uses a massive set of computers to crawl billions of pages on the web. The crawler starts with a list of webpage URLs from previous crawls and augments it with the sitemap data provided. This process ensures that Google can find and index your content.
The Googlebot begins its crawling journey with a list of webpage URLs from previous crawls, enhancing them with the provided sitemap data. During this process, it scours for new sites, updates to existing pages, and any broken links. Once the crawling phase wraps up, all findings are fed into Google's index, where new sites or updated content are appropriately cataloged. As Google processes this data, it delves into your page's information like title tags, meta descriptions, alt tags, and more. Picture this as a library, where books are meticulously identified, categorised, and arranged on shelves. In a similar vein, crawlers act as digital librarians, organising internet content to make it easily accessible.
Essential tactics to get Google to notice and index your pages
Are your webpages already in Google's radar? Let's kick things off by figuring out which pages are currently indexed on your site. If your pages are indexed, it means Google can crawl and stash their content. One way to check this is by using an advanced search operator. It may sound a bit fancy, but it's actually pretty simple. Just type "site:yourdomain.com" in the search bar, replacing "yourdomain.com" with your actual domain.
For instance, for Amazon, you'd type "site:amazon.com" into Google. The search results will reveal how many pages Google is currently indexing for that site. While it may not be an exact count, it gives you an idea of the number of indexed pages.
If your site doesn't have any indexed content yet, Google will kindly inform you that no results were found. In such cases, your next move should be creating a sitemap to submit to Google.
What is a sitemap?
Think of a sitemap as your website's GPS, residing on your web server and providing a detailed list of all the important URLs. This digital roadmap is a must-have for search engine web crawlers to navigate your site's structure effectively, helping them evaluate and rank your content. Tailored for search engines like Google, XML sitemaps are essential in ensuring that all pages on your website, no matter how old or buried deep within the site, are easily accessible. For blogs especially, where new articles are constantly added, an XML sitemap is a valuable tool to prevent older content from getting lost in the archives.
Here's an example of what a sitemap file might look like.
An XML sitemap consists of four key elements.
- The URL location indicates the complete webpage address.
- The last modified date indicates when the page was last updated.
- The change frequency can be adjusted to Never, Yearly, Monthly, Weekly, Daily, Hourly, or Always.
- Lastly, the page priority, ranging from zero to one, indicates the relative importance of pages within your website.
How to create a sitemap
Who is involved in creating a sitemap?
Creating a sitemap is like putting together a rockstar band - it requires collaboration from various teams, no matter the size of your crew. Whether you're a lone wolf entrepreneur or part of a powerhouse team, it's crucial to get input from Marketing, Development, IT, and Legal when jamming out your sitemap.
The marketing maestros take the stage first, setting the tone for your site's structure. They decide which pages should harmonise and ensure a smooth groove for site visitors. Whether they rock visual tools like PowerPoint or other methods, their goal is to create a user-friendly experience.
Next up, the developer steps in as the tech guru, crafting an XML sitemap based on the website's structure, making sure all the VIP URLs are on the guest list.
Your IT crew or agency also plays a key role in the mix, especially if they're the ones spinning the servers where the sitemap will live. An IT expert can help get the sitemap set up and ready to party.
Last but not least, the legal eagles ensure there are no copyright faux pas on the site, adding a layer of compliance and protection to the mix.
Creating a navigation structure
Crafting your website's navigation structure is key to boosting your site's SEO performance. It's crucial to map out your top-level navigation with care, considering the depth of your website. The further a page is from your homepage URL, the trickier it can be for SEO. While there's no one-size-fits-all approach to top-level navigation best practices, taking inspiration from successful businesses in your industry can help tailor a structure that suits your site.
Once you've nailed down the navigation structure for your homepage, it's time to dive deeper and map out the pages two or three levels down in your website hierarchy. This could encompass your "About Us" section, team management page, careers page, blog, and more. Depending on the complexity of your site, you might stick to just two levels or go all out to four. As you sketch out these deeper sections, you may realise the need to tweak the top-level navigation – and that's totally cool.
Writing and your XML sitemap
Now that you've nailed down the organisation of your website, it's time to whip up that XML sitemap and send it off to the search engines. Whether you're a tech-savvy solo act or prefer to bring in some backup from a developer or agency, making sure your XML sitemap is in tip-top shape is key for getting that prime real estate in search engine results.
So, it's absolutely essential to submit your sitemap. Whether you're launching a new website or giving your current one a major facelift, it's crucial to have someone on your team submit the sitemap to each search engine. This ensures that they can distinguish your homepage from your "About Us" or team management pages. If your platform doesn't automatically update the sitemap, you'll need to manually make updates and resubmit whenever significant changes occur on your site. Otherwise, you'll have to rely on search engines to stumble upon, crawl, and index your new pages on their own. Therefore, if you've made significant changes to your site's structure, it's a smart move to submit it manually.
Using the HubSpot CMS Hub makes this easier. HubSpot will automatically generate your XML sitemap file when
you publish new pages and make changes to your site.
For those using a different CMS, finding an easy solution to create an XML sitemap might be on your to-do list.
There are several free options available, such as Screaming Frog and XML-Sitemaps.com.
Screaming Frog, a robust web crawler, not only assesses your website's on-page SEO but also provides a tool to generate a custom XML sitemap, boosting your site's SEO performance in the process. To access Screaming Frog's sitemap generator, simply download the company's SEO web crawler - which is free for crawling up to 500 URLs. After running the crawl on your website, you can create an XML sitemap containing pages that received a "200" score in the initial assessment. This thorough process ensures that only the best-performing pages are included in your new XML sitemap.
On the other hand, XML-Sitemaps.com offers a user-friendly experience without the need for registration or initial downloads when creating a sitemap for your site. This tool caters to websites with up to 500 URLs, allowing you to download the sitemap as an XML file or have it sent via email for easy sharing or backup purposes. Additionally, the premium version of XML-Sitemaps.com enables you to crawl up to 1.5 million pages, generate various XML sitemap formats - including news, video, and image sitemaps - and even submit your sitemap directly to a search engine from the generator.
Submitting your sitemap to search engines
To kick things off, hop on over to Google Search Console, your trusty sidekick for testing and submitting those fresh sitemaps to Google. This way, Google can keep up with all the latest happenings on your site.
- Simply punch in your domain in the designated field, which serves as the main hub for all your web pages.
- Hit "continue," verify your ownership, and head on over to your property.
- Next, cruise on down to "sitemaps" under the "index" section on the left-hand side to drop in your sitemap URL.
- Just tack on "sitemap.xml" to the end of your domain to give Google a heads-up on all the action happening on your site.
- For example, if your domain is www.yourcompany.com, your tag would be www.yourcompany.com/sitemap.xml.
- Submit your sitemap, and while Google may take a bit of time to process it, they'll eventually give it the green light.
Bing or Yahoo
Now, let's dive into the process of submitting a sitemap to Bing or Yahoo. Begin by logging into Bing Webmaster Tools.
- Once on the My Sites page, input your company's URL and click on "Add."
- In the designated "Add a sitemap" field, insert http://www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml, replacing "yourdomain" with your company's actual URL.
- Fill out any remaining required fields on the page, and then simply hit "Save." Voila, you're all set to go!
If you're like most website owners, you'll probably want to tweak and add new pages to your site over time - totally normal stuff. But here's the catch: if your site doesn't automatically update the sitemap when you add new content, those new pages might not show up in the sitemap that search engines rely on. While Google does a pretty good job of crawling pages, you might not want to leave it all up to chance. To make sure your latest pages get noticed quickly, it's a smart move to resubmit your sitemap every time you publish something new. Keeping your sitemap up-to-date is key to staying visible in search engines and helping them understand and connect your content with the right audience.
