Your WordPress website won’t be visible in Google search results until it’s properly indexed. Website Indexing is a process where Google crawls, analyzes, and records your site’s content in its vast database. Once indexed, your site can appear when users search for relevant terms.
This guide will walk you through the steps to ensure your WordPress site is indexed, while providing troubleshooting tips to fix any issues that arise, and best practices for optimization to improve your chances of being indexed quickly and effectively.
Note: Don’t you know what WordPress (WP) is 🤔? Visit the official website and find out!
Understanding the basics of indexing (for SEO)
Before diving into the specific steps, it’s essential to understand the basics of how Google indexing works. Google follows a three-step process (simplified):
- Crawling: Googlebot, Google’s web crawler, automatically searches the internet by following links between websites. As it navigates through these links, it discovers new websites, including yours.
- Indexing: Once Googlebot discovers your site, Google will evaluate its content to decide if it’s worth indexing. During this process, Google inspects your site’s text, images, videos, and meta information. Pages that offer valuable, relevant content are added to Google’s index, which acts as a database of all the websites Google has deemed worthy to display in its search results.
- Ranking: When a user performs a search query, Google scours its index to find the most relevant results. Your website’s ranking depends on how valuable your content is in comparison to competitors. Factors such as keyword optimization, meta information, and overall content quality play significant roles in where your site ranks.
Creating an XML Sitemap for your WordPress website
A sitemap is a critical tool for helping Google understand the structure of your website. It’s an XML file that lists all of the pages you want search engines to index. Essentially, it gives Google a clear roadmap of your website, making it easier for the search engine to find and index your content efficiently.
To create an XML sitemap, you have a couple of options:
Manually Creating a Sitemap: This is a more advanced option and typically requires technical knowledge to write the XML file yourself. It allows for deep customization but can be more difficult if you are unfamiliar with coding.
Using SEO Plugins to Create a Sitemap: For most users, the easiest option is to use a SEO plugin like Yoast SEO. Here’s how you can automatically generate a sitemap using this popular WordPress plugin:
- In your WordPress dashboard, navigate to the Plugins section and click Add New.
- Search for “Yoast SEO” in the search bar, click Install Now, and then activate the plugin.
- Once activated, go to the new SEO option in the dashboard and select Settings.
- In the APIs section, turn on the XML sitemaps feature.
- Your sitemap will be automatically generated.
Alternatively, you can use other popular SEO plugins like Rank Math or All in One SEO. The process of creating a sitemap with either of these plugins is very similar.
If you prefer a different approach, there are various online sitemap generators available. Most require you to paste your website’s URL, and they will create the sitemap for you. For example, XML-sitemaps.com.
Submitting your sitemap to Google Search Console
Once you have generated a sitemap, the next step is submitting it to Google Search Console. This tool allows you to manage how Google indexes your site and provides insights into your search performance.
Verifying your domain ownership
Before submitting your sitemap, you must first verify that you own your WordPress website. Here’s how:
- Go to Google Search Console and log in with your Google account.
- Select URL prefix as the property type and enter your website’s full URL.
- You will be presented with a few verification options. Choose HTML tag.
- Copy the meta tag provided.
- In WordPress, go to SEO > Settings and under Site connections, paste the HTML tag in the Google verification code field.
- Click Save Changes in WordPress, then go back to Google Search Console and click Verify.
Submitting your sitemap to GSC
After verifying your ownership, you can now submit your sitemap:
- In Google Search Console, go to the Index > Sitemaps section.
- Enter the URL of your sitemap, which will typically look like this: https://yourwebsite.com/sitemap_index.xml.
- Click Submit.
Once submitted, Google will begin to crawl and index your site’s pages.
Optimizing your WordPress for indexing
Even if you follow the steps to create and submit your sitemap, Google may not index your site immediately... Various factors affect how quickly and thoroughly your site gets indexed, and optimizing these can improve your chances.
Keyword research
Search engines rely heavily on keywords to understand the content of your site. When users search for something, they use specific words and phrases (keywords) to find information. Optimizing your site around relevant keywords can greatly increase your chances of being indexed.
Here’s how to conduct effective keyword research:
- Use tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, or Google Keyword Planner to identify popular search terms in your niche.
- Understand the intent behind each keyword. Is the user looking for information, a product, or a service? Tailor your content to meet that intent.
Incorporate (strategically) these keywords into your site’s content, focusing on titles, headings, meta descriptions, and body text. Plugins like Yoast SEO and Rank Math can help you optimize your keywords further by analyzing your content and suggesting improvements.
More on this | How to do a Keyword Research (Ahrefs)
Meta information
Meta information includes elements such as title tags, meta descriptions, and header tags. These give search engines a better understanding of what your content is about and how it might relate to a user’s search query. Well-optimized meta information can significantly improve your indexing and ranking prospects.
Here are some best practices for optimizing your meta information:
- Title Tags: Keep them between 50-60 characters and ensure they include your target keywords.
- Meta Descriptions: Write concise descriptions (about 155-160 characters) that summarize your content while incorporating keywords naturally.
Content quality
Google doesn’t index just any webpage. It looks at the quality of the content and determines if it’s worth adding to its index. To increase your chances of being indexed, ensure that your content:
- Provides value to the user by answering their search queries.
- Is complete, well-written, and easy to read.
- Contains accurate, up-to-date, and unique information.
WordPress SEO plugins can assist you in checking content readability, keyword density, and internal linking.
Monitoring and troubleshooting WP indexing issues
After submitting your sitemap, Google may still miss or skip some pages. Fortunately, Google Search Console offers several tools to help you troubleshoot indexing issues.
Using the URL Inspection Tool
You can verify whether a particular page has been indexed using the URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console:
- In Search Console, enter the URL of the page you want to check in the URL Inspection search bar.
- If the status shows "URL is on Google," your page has been indexed. If it says "URL is not on Google," review the reasons provided and address the issues.
- After fixing the issues, you can click Request indexing to prompt Google to re-crawl the page.
Checking search engine visibility settings
If your site isn’t appearing in search results, check your WordPress settings to ensure search engines can index it:
- In the WordPress dashboard, go to Settings > Reading.
- Under Search Engine Visibility, make sure the option to “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” is not checked.
Reviewing the robots.txt File
The robots.txt file can restrict crawlers from indexing specific pages. If you find that important pages are missing from Google’s index, it may be because they’re being blocked by this file. Check your robots.txt to ensure Googlebot is allowed to crawl all necessary pages.
If changes are needed, you can request a site recrawl in Google Search Console by selecting your robots.txt file and clicking Request a recrawl.
Get your Wordpress website indexed in (less than) 48 hours
The process of getting your WordPress site indexed involves ensuring that Google can crawl and understand your site’s content. While creating and submitting a sitemap is a critical step, ongoing optimization efforts around keyword use, meta information, and content quality will ensure that your site is indexed and ranked effectively.
Related | How to Index Your Webflow Website on Google
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