A lot of business’s marketing efforts will revolve around search engine optimisation, which ensures your website earns a good ranking in the result pages. But did you know there’s a way to submit your website to Google and speed things along?
Google scans the web through a web crawler, which brings backlinks for indexing. When a user types in a search query, Google then provides them with search results that match search terms and intents.
Your site can be indexed by the sheer fact that it’s up and running, so technically you do not have to submit your website to Google in order for it to find it. However, manually submitting it can help prevent indexing errors and support your wider SEO efforts.
Here are a few ways to help Google to index your site faster.
How to Submit a Sitemap
Sitemaps are files that contain additional information about your webpages and other elements on them. Users can also rely on the sitemap to navigate your site easily, while search engines use it to scan your site faster and figure out the hierarchy of the page.
You can log into your Google Search Console account (previously known as Google Webmasters), and submit a sitemap following these steps:
- Choose the site you want – depending on your account, you may have multiple websites you own, so the first step is to choose the site you want to add a sitemap file to;
- View your sitemaps report – in the Google Search Console, click ‘Sitemaps’ in the Index heading to load the report. This will show you your submitted sitemaps, and additional details such as the number of URLs found;
- Submit a new sitemap – you can upload multiple sitemap files by simply pasting the URL of your sitemap. Additionally, you have other options regarding the format, such as an XML sitemap, but the most accessible format is the URL.
And that’s it. Google won’t crawl and index your site right away, so you’ll need to wait a few days to review the sitemap. The Report will show you if the new sitemap was crawled or not, and you can review the data to see if it was crawled correctly.
How to Request a Crawl
Another option you have to submit your URLs is to request indexing with these 3 steps:
1. Go to Google Search Console
Again, go to your account and select the website you want Google to crawl and index.
2. Inspect Your URLs
Then, use the URL inspection tool (previously ‘Fetch as Google’) to generate a report to see the current state of your site’s indexing. Here, you have two options. You can either submit your entire site to Google to crawl (meaning the domain) or just individual URLs if you have some new pages you want the search engine to focus on.
If your site is too new, the report will only say your URL is not on Google, but for older websites, you can get a bit more data regarding the site.
3. Request URL Indexing
After you receive your report, test your page with the Test Live URL option first to ensure the pages on your site are ready for crawling, and then hit the ‘Request Indexing’ option.
Like with a sitemap, Google will need a few days to complete the process, sometimes even longer.
Submitted a link, But the URL Rank Didn’t Improve?
When you submit a page to Google or an entire site, it doesn’t necessarily mean your website will get a better rank.
In some cases, indexing errors can lead to a poor rank, and submitting a URL fixes it, but there are also a lot of other criteria Google takes into account when deciding how to rank websites:
- Mobile-friendliness
- Site speed
- Navigation
- User experience
- Content quality
- Relevancy, etc.
Submitting a URL to Google only helps remove the possibility of indexing errors, and makes sure Google can scan all the pages of your site, especially new ones that could be overlooked. But you still need SEO to get to the number 1 spot in the search results.
Can We Help?
If your Sydney business needs some assistance to improve its search result ranks, Australian Internet Advertising is the Google Partner who can make that happen. We can create a unique SEO strategy based on the needs of your business, and help you reach your SEO goals.
Reach out to us online or call us at 1300 304 640 to find out more about us.
