When a new website is live, it becomes immediately usable but not accessible unless directly searched. This means you can send customers directly to the website but cannot expect them to find your products/services through the search engines automatically.
You need to submit your website to a search engine because it won’t appear in the search results of Google, Yahoo, or Bing. A brand-new website will not rank in the search engines as it will take quite some time for the search engines to understand, organize and index the site’s content.
This article explains how you can submit a website to search engines so that it gets listed in the search results.
Why Do You Need to Submit Website to Search Engine?
You need to submit your websites to the search engines primarily to help them get discovered fast.
Search engines like Google do not rely on manual submissions. Their primary way of discovering new websites and pages is crawling. That is why computer programs continuously re-check the known websites to locate new links to new content. Whenever there is valuable content, it gets indexed.
A self-evident reason to submit websites is to let the search engines find them and be updated about the changes to your content. Website submission to Google and Bing also gives you access to free tools that help improve your website.
How to Submit a Website to a Search Engine?
Submitting your website to a search engine involves three basic steps and a few sub–steps as follows:
Step 1: Creating an XML Sitemap
With over half a million sites going live daily, the big three search engines (Google, Yahoo, and Bing) have little idea when a new website is launched.
Many leave it up to the search engines to locate and discover the content, notwithstanding that it can take months if the website has very few inbound links.
To get listed quickly, site owners must submit a sitemap. Sitemaps give the search engines an easy-to-crawl blueprint. This outlines the structure and content of the web pages. After submission, the crawler starts working on the site.
Remember that search engines use scripts to search the internet. These scripts or crawlers scan the web and review everything they see. They use links to move between the pages and sites, hopping from one to another.
The web crawler also has the power to scan and index huge numbers of websites and build a vast amount of searchable information along the way. This is also how terms are identified, and the most accurate results are delivered when a search query is typed.
You need to generate a sitemap for every new website, redesign, or upgrade. This is to equip the search engines with the latest information. When all the pages are accurately mapped and indexed, the site appears in the search engine rankings.
Fixing a website's SEO often lies in reviewing and re-submitting the sitemap.
The common types of sitemaps include HTML and XML sitemaps. XML sitemaps are usually more recommended by SEO experts.
Step 2: Submitting the Sitemap to the Search Engines
This is an easy step to take. Once the XML sitemap is ready after being converted from the website navigation and the URL pages indexed, it is ready to use.
You need to click over to the web page that hosts the XML sitemap and copy the URL
For Google submissions:
Enter the Google Search Console > Select your property > Sitemaps > Paste > Click Submit
For Yahoo and Bing submissions:
Enter Yahoo/Bing Webmaster Tools > Sitemaps > Submit a Sitemap
The site will be expected to rank within a few weeks.
Step 3: Keeping Your Sitemap Updated
Any new website submitted for search engine listing will appear gradually in the search results. The time taken will depend on the site’s SEO strengths, content and website design. You can use the following tips to improve rankings and brand awareness for SEO.
Regular Submission of Sitemap
Following the search engine registration of a mobile-friendly, eCommerce website, business owners will typically need to update the sitemap submissions when significant changes occur.
Resubmitting the modified URLs is a good way of speeding up the process of updating a new page on the search engines. This is especially relevant if the page's importance has altered. Using the URL inspection tool, you can do this in the Google Search Console.
Submitting just once is preferred as multiple submissions will not make indexing faster.
Adding Quality Content Pages
A website must continually be updated with unique, informative and engaging content for the web crawlers to review and rank. The more content on a site, the higher the site’s ranking potential.
Quality content is usually long-form content with more terms to rank and more opportunities for linking and value sharing.
Optimizing the Keywords
New websites should have SEO in their favor. The primary objective at the starting point is to increase the quantity and improve the quality of website visitors.
There can be numerous indexable search terms in a single web page, potentially attracting visitors to the page. Each page must contain well-researched, relevant keywords.
To ensure this, you must use on-page SEO and keyword optimization. This draws the targeted traffic to specific pages. Optimized content with the right keywords boosts the sales of a business.
Listing the Website on Directories
Listing the website in prominent business directories is essential to improving the search engine ranking. Listing is excellent for SEO because the top-ranking sites link to new businesses, passing on traffic and establishing credibility.
Online directories are suitable for generating foot traffic too. They promote the new sites in their listings when people search for local businesses. The result is referral traffic, leading potential customers to the business.
Exchanging Links with Other Sites
In SEM, small businesses profit when they exchange links with the higher-domain authority sites. However, you need to follow the proper techniques for doing so.
For instance, if your website is mobile-friendly, new to the online space, it can be made to trade quality links through guest posting. Guest posts also help in building and growing a community.
If you are choosing a website hosting service, on the other hand, make sure that it keeps your site live at all times. Downtime always leads to lost traffic and lost revenue.
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Daniel James Consulting is a Full-Service Business Consulting Firm based in New York that designs solutions tailored specifically to the needs of your business in order to ensure you achieve continued success by designing, developing and implementing plans, metrics and platforms, be it a one-man operation, non-profit, startup or large organization. Our packaged solutions or a la carte selections include Website Design, Marketing & Advertising, Search Engine Positioning, and Graphic Design. Business Management Solutions are also available for companies of all sizes. For more information please visit: