Mastering SEO: A Step-by-Step Guide to Submitting Your Sitemap to Google Console
So if you have a new website, its full of great content and all the information your perfect customer needs, but why are you still not getting traffic from Google? Well because the internet is SOOO big, it takes Google a long time to index all of the possible websites there could be. Because of this, it can take over 6 months before your website is indexed by Google. However you can submit your website to Google to speed this up, and let Google know that your website is full of good stuff. You do this by submitting a sitemap to Google.
“A sitemap is an XML file that lists all the important pages of your website, ensuring that Google can find and crawl them. ”
Step 1: Creating Your Sitemap:
If you haven’t already created a sitemap, don’t worry, it’s quite straightforward, most content management systems create it for you. This includes Wordpress, Wix, Squarespace and Shopify. Alternatively, there are several free tools available online that can create a sitemap for your site. https://www.xml-sitemaps.com
Step 2: Locating Your Sitemap:
Once your sitemap is created, it’s usually located at the root of your website’s URL. For example, it might be found at ‘www.yourwebsite.com/sitemap.xml’. Make sure to check and confirm the location of your sitemap, as you’ll need this URL for submission to Google Console.
Step 3: Accessing Google Search Console:
Now, head over to Google Search Console. If you haven’t used it before, you’ll need to sign in with your Google account and add your website as a property. Once you’ve added your website, you'll have access to various tools and reports that Google offers for your site for FREE.
Step 4: Submitting Your Sitemap:
In the Google Search Console dashboard, look for the ‘Sitemaps’ section. Here, you’ll find a place to add a new sitemap. Enter the URL of your sitemap and click ‘Submit’. Google will then process the sitemap and eventually use it to better crawl your site, this can take a couple of weeks as they have quite a backlog.
Step 5: Monitoring Your Sitemap:
After submission, keep an eye on the status of your sitemap in Google Console. It will show you if there are any errors or issues you need to address. Regularly check this to ensure that Google can effectively crawl and index your site.
