One of the most frequent questions I get from new bloggers is “how to index your WordPress website on Google faster”. It is not a surprise that when you start a blog, Google has no idea whether your site exists or maybe you want to start a website/blog and then let Google know your existence.

So what does that mean?

Google doesn’t necessarily know that a new website has been created. You need to tell Google that your site exists so that it can be crawled and indexed into Google’s database.

Crawling and indexing (see more on FAQ) are two technical terms that basically mean the same thing: they’re both the processes of finding out what pages exist on your site and storing them in Google’s database.

In order to index your new WordPress website, there are a few steps to follow like creating a sitemap and submitting it to Google Search Console. All this will be discussed in this blog.

Let us take a step back for those who want to start a blog or a WordPress website. You can start by buying a domain name and web hosting.

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What is Website Indexing?

Indexing your website means letting Google know about its existence. If you don’t index your website, then it won’t show up in Google search results. That’s why letting Google know about your website is the first step toward getting traffic from search engines.

However, simply telling Google about your website is not enough. You also need to optimize your site so that it can be easily crawled, indexed, and shown in search results.

How can you know if you have been indexed? The easiest way is to type “site:example.com” into Google and hit enter (replace “example.com” with your own domain name). If you see results, then your site has been indexed by Google.

If that doesn’t work and you’re impatient like me, here are some steps you can take to speed up the process.

1. Creating An XML Sitemap

An XML sitemap lists all of your pages, posts, and other content in an easy-to-understand format that makes it easier for search engines to find and index.

One of the best WordPress plugins for creating an XML sitemap is Yoast SEO (which also comes with a ton of other great features). It’s free, very easy to use, and will only take you a minute or two to install and configure. Follow the steps below:

The first step is to log in to your WordPress website using this link. Use this format: https://yourwebsite.com/wp-admin

The second step is to install Yoast SEO Plugin, by going to Plugin>Add New then activate the plugin.

The next step is to visit the Yoast SEO settings page. Go to the installed plugin and look for it. Press settings and you will be redirected to the Yoast SEO setting.

Press Features and scroll down until you see the XML sitemap as shown in the image below

Click the “question tag” on the “XML sitemaps“ as seen in the above image, then “click the link” as seen in the above image and Your XML sitemaps are generated. The page should look like this 👇

2. Submitting Your Sitemap to Google Search Console

Initially, Google Search Console was known as Google Webmaster Tools before the name was changed in January of 2018. That aside.

Once you have created an XML sitemap, you can submit it to Google Search Console. To submit your sitemap to Google Search Console, follow these instructions:

Note!!! Creating a new account and adding/verifying a property is for those who haven’t done it before. If you have, click here to skip them and proceed to the next part of submitting the XML sitemap or scroll to step 2.

Step 1: Verifying Your Website

Sign in to Google Search Console (use this link). If you don’t yet have a Google account, you will need to create one for free. and Press “Start Now”

Click on “Add a Property” if you haven’t already added your site. Use the “URL prefix” option as shown below, Fill your domain name as shown on the image or caption of the image then click continue

This page shown below should appear. Minimize the first option “HTML file” and expand the second option “HTML tag” which I recommend and copy it.

Note!!! Don’t Press Verify yet…first complete the steps below!

Go back to your WordPress dashboard >Yoast SEO plugin (as accessed in No 1) >Webmaster Tools … paste the “HTML tag” on the third option “Google verification code” then save changes.

Go back to Search Console and press verify. Your WordPress site is now verified by Google and the next step is to share all your pages with Google so they can show them in search results (SERPS).

Alternatively, the simplest method is pressing the search Google Search Console link (see the above image), on option 3 “Google Verification Code”. Press/click the link. The link will take you directly to a page as shown below. Open the “HTML tag” option and copy the code. Paste as shown above in our last step, save changes and then go back and press verify. That is it.

Note!!! The alternative method might also require you to create an account if you have not. Either way, your website is verified.

Step 2: Submitting XML Sitemap

After verifying your website, you will be redirected to your Google Search Console dashboard. On the left sidebar menu, click/select “Sitemaps.” Or use this link, then press start. You will be redirected to your Search Console homepage anyway!

The image below shows more.

Once you’re in the sitemap dashboard, you need to “add a new sitemap”. Remember in No 1, we created a sitemap. Go back to that page and on the URL prefix, copy only information as shown below

On your Search Console “sitemap dashboard” again and paste the XML sitemap as shown below and submit.

Refresh the page and you should see a “Success” on the status, as seen in one of my sitemaps on the image above. (If not, wait for a few minutes then check again)

Note!!!

The next time Googlebot crawls your site, it will detect the presence of your sitemap and start processing it. This can take some time, but once it’s done, you’ll see an overview of how many URLs were submitted and the status of those requests.

Other Methods to Speed -up Google Crawling & Indexing your Site

There are a lot of ways to index your new WordPress website quickly. Here are some other ways:

3. Internal Linking

Internal linking is the process of linking one page on your website with another page. This is done within the website. For example, you have a blog post about “How to Make Money Online”, and you want to link this post with another blog post about “Best Ways to Make Money Online”. In that case, you will link your first page with the other page by using keywords like “Make Money Online” or “Ways to Make Money Online” etc.

Internal linking helps in two ways: It helps the visitor navigate through your site easily and it helps crawlers know about the important pages on your site. So, use internal linking for a better user experience and for better indexing of your blog posts.

Alternatively is external links “hat we refer to as link building or backlinks” but getting these types of links can be difficult. A popular strategy is to write guest posts for other blogs and add a link back to your site. This strategy is particularly effective because you’re creating useful content that other people will want to share anyway.

4. Social Sharing Your Content

Social sharing has become an important part of SEO now. The more social shares you get, the better it is for your website. Social media signals tell search engines that people like your content and they are interested in reading it, so they are more likely to give preference to your results over others.

So make sure you share every new blog post on social media once it is published on your site. Social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, etc.

By sharing your content on social platforms like Facebook or Twitter, you’re helping other people find and link back to your pages. This helps Google find and crawl your pages too.

5. Creating Unique & Relevant Content

There is no doubt in saying that the content of your website is the backbone of your website. Good content makes it easy for search engines to crawl and index your site. When you are able to create original, unique, and relevant content for your site then there will be more chances for search engine crawlers to stay longer on your site. The search engine crawlers come back again and again to crawl new content.

The presence of duplicate or irrelevant content can lead you to face a penalty from the search engine. A penalty on one of the pages or posts can affect the whole website’s ranking and traffic. This is why it is important to create unique and relevant content on your site.

If you want a higher ranking in search results then you need to write fresh, accurate, enticing, informative, and high-quality content for your audience as well as for Google crawlers. When Google sees that there are users engaging with your website then it will index the pages faster.

Note!!!

There are some factors that can slow down the crawling and indexing process of your website. It is important that you have a good understanding of these factors so that you can avoid them on your website.

Conclusion

In order for you to successfully rank and index your new WordPress website on Google, you need to make sure that you have submitted the XML sitemap to Google and create the best possible content. The only way to do this beyond writing a ton of great posts is to ensure that they are indexed by search engines quickly.

At a low crawl rate, you can make your site index faster by creating the best new WordPress website possible. If you’ve got a higher crawl rate issue, then the only way to increase that is to hire a search engine optimization (SEO) company to administer your site and keep it in good shape.

By following some of the steps above, you should be able to do that as fast as possible. Good luck!

Suggested Blog? How to Optimize Images for Your WordPress Site: The Basics of Image Optimization

FAQ

Why Indexing New WordPress Website Matter?

When someone searches for something on Google, their search algorithm looks through billions of websites and ranks them based on relevancy and quality of content. This process takes time as they need to crawl through every page of a website before they can add it to their search index.

How Long Does It Take To Get Your Site Indexed?

t’s not always quick. It can take anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks for your site to be indexed by Google (depending on their queue).

How can you know if you have been indexed?

The easiest way is to type “site:example.com” into Google and hit enter (replace “example.com” with your own domain name). If you see results, then your site has been indexed by Google.

What Does Website indexing Mean?

Website indexing is the process of adding a web page to the database of a search engine. This process can take time depending on several factors, but it’s important for your SEO because it gives search engines easy access to your content when they are crawling the internet.

What is an XML Sitemap?

A sitemap is a file that lists the URLs of all the content on your site. It also specifies the date when each page was last updated so that search engines are aware of changes to existing pages as well as new ones.

What are crawling and indexing?

Crawling is the process by which Googlebot discovers new and updated pages to be added to the Google index. We use a huge set of computers to fetch (or “crawl”) billions of pages on the web. The program that does the fetching is called Googlebot (also known as a robot, bot, or spider).

Googlebot uses an algorithmic process: computer programs determine which sites to crawl, how often, and how many pages to fetch from each site.

Google’s crawl process begins with a list of web page URLs, generated from previous crawl processes, and augmented with Sitemap data provided by webmasters. As Googlebot visits each of these websites it detects links on each page and adds them to its list of pages to crawl. New sites, changes to existing sites, and dead links are noted and used to update the Google index.

How do I speed up Google crawling and indexing my site?

When your site first launches, it’s not uncommon for it to take a while before you see any traffic from organic searches. This can be frustrating! After all, you’ve put a lot of work into your new website. You want to see results right away.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much we can do as marketers to speed up Google crawling and indexing your site. It’s simply out of our hands. Google has its own algorithms in place governing how quickly (or slowly) they crawl and index your website.

What we can do is optimize for search engines once we’re indexed in order to improve our ranking positions so that we drive more traffic from organic search.

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Thanks for reading.

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