If you are new to blogging, then it’s important you know how to get your website set up and indexed quickly. I know when I started out, I created a website and thought that was the only thing I needed to do to build momentum but I was completely wrong. Google Webmaster Tools has been very supportive in getting my websites indexed quickly because they essentially guide you through the entire process. They outline what’s important and how to make sure certain elements are present within your backend to ensure proper crawling. There are many factors that will help with indexing but let’s look at “3” that I find are the MOST important.
Let’s get started…
Sitemaps
These are very important because it allows Google to index your site quickly in an organized fashion. A sitemap can be created using an online tool or through a simple WordPress plug-in. Both are readily available so you shouldn’t have any problem creating a sitemap. However, I’m surprised by the amount of people who still forget to create a sitemap and I believe the importance hasn’t been addressed. Bloggers are so quick to incorporate keywords in their title, description, and content, but forget the importance of creating sitemaps. When your pages and posts are displayed on a sitemap, they are organized in a way that spiders can jump from link-to-link, understanding the structure of your site quicker.
Google Webmaster Tools is one of the best ways to be alerted of a sitemap missing and when there is an error. It shows you how to create one and tests it when it has been uploaded. Here are two things you can do right now:
First, set up a Google Webmaster tools account and secondly, follow the steps to ensure you have a sitemap in place.
Create and/or Update Content
The internet is the largest information resource and search engines have thrived by providing it in an organized manner. This is why it’s important to continue creating content and adding value. Google and others make sure to index websites more quickly when they are updated more often with content. Why? This allows people to get new and updated information more quickly, which is important to increase the user experience and engagement. As you create more content, your sitemap tends to be updated more quickly so you’re benefitting in two ways.
Over the last several months, Google introduced a series of updates focusing on the following and incorporating them will definitely help your site get indexed.
- Write high quality, fresh content frequently, making sure it’s in-depth and better than your competition
- Update older content so it provides the latest information
- Never republish content because this simply floods internet with duplicate content. This also hurts your rankings and the value of your website.
Access and Speed
Both play a crucial role in your site being indexed more quickly. First, you have to make sure the spiders or crawlers can access your website. This means to ensure your robots.txt doesn’t have any access blocked for spiders, etc. Without access to your sitemap and other pages, Google can’t access your website and crawl the pages you have worked so hard to create. Next,
Site speed has long been considered a ranking factor and that’s because a slow loading site restricts the user experience. A site that loads slowly will means spiders take longer to crawl it and this means they won’t finish a complete crawl. You can head over to Google’s site speed check or even this one: http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/. The point is, you need to know where your website stands and what you can do to improve overall loading. This is very important for many reasons other than indexing. For example,
- Better user experience when page loads faster
- Higher conversions
- Higher profits
- Faster indexing
- Increased rankings
Going forward, ensure your site can be accessed and every time you post content and/or images, check site speed because the slightest changes can increase load time.
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