So you’ve built your new website and it’s ready to take over the world. You type the website or business name into Google search, but it’s nowhere to be found. What gives?!?!
Well, hopefully the following information clears things up for you. A website isn’t listed in Google automatically, you need to make your website interesting and search engine friendly so Google wants to list it. We’ve found it takes on average 4-6 weeks for Google to find and index your website.
WordPress is very search engine friendly out of the box, but here’s some handy tips to help get listed faster:
- Make sure your WordPress installation is set to “Public”
Go to “Settings” -> “Reading” and make sure “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” is not ticked. - Submit your website to Google
The best way for Google to know that your website exists is to tell them about it. Submit your URL to Google here – http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/submit-url. You will need to have a Google account to be able to do this. - List your website on free and paid directories
There are thousands of free directories online where you can submit free business listings. Do a Google search for free directories or even industry specific directories. If your oposition are listed, then chances are you’ll want to be there also.
Try to avoid directories with popups, spammy links or adult related advertising. - Optimise your pages and posts for keywords
When you’re writing content, try to include search keywords or phrases you think your visitors would search for. You can research search trends here – https://adwords.google.com/o/KeywordTool - Create interesting and specific content
Google loves indexing sites with relevant information for it’s users, so try creating content which is interesting and relevant to what your website is about. - Install SEO plugins which assist with page titles, keywords, XML sitemaps, robots.txt, etc…
There are dozens of great plugins available which can help make your WordPress website even more search friendly. We recommend the following plugin – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-seo/
Please note: There are other search engines out there and most of these points will relate to those also, however 99% of the time we’re asked about Google specifically.