Submit Your Sitemap to Google Search Console in 4 Easy Steps
If you’re employing digital marketing strategies for your business, you've undoubtedly recognised how effective it is in scaling your business. By now, you know too well that visibility and reach can make or break your success. One of your hardest marketing tools in this journey is your website. To gain more clarity on the data that your website gains, a Google Search Console is an amazing tool to get to your arsenal.
If you’ve gotten behind setting up your Google Search Console, a detail you shouldn’t miss is submitting your website’s sitemap. Here, we'll guide you through 5 essential steps to add your sitemap to Google Search Console and shed light on why this process is a pivotal stride towards enhancing your business's online performance.
What is a Sitemap?
Your sitemap is the file that provides a structured and organised list of all the pages, posts, and other content on your website. It serves as the roadmap for search engines to easily navigate and understand your website's structure, ensuring that all important pages are indexed and included in search results. By submitting a sitemap to Google Search Console, your website gets the chance to enhance its visibility in search engine rankings and improve the overall search engine optimisation (SEO) of their online presence.
How to Setup a Sitemap on Google Search Console
Step 1. Access Google Search Console.
Log-in to Google Search Console. Then, add your property, this is essentially your website's domain.
Step 2. Find the “Sitemaps” Report
Find “Sitemaps” report in the “Indexing Section”. Click it once you find it. There are two sections here. One is “Add a new sitemap” and the other is “Submitted Sitemaps”. Click “Add a new sitemap”.
Step 3. Generate and Upload Sitemap
Create a sitemap for your website using Google XML Sitemaps. This XML file acts as a blueprint, outlining your website's structure and providing valuable metadata about each page.
Step 4. Add Your Sitemap
Once generated, submit the sitemap in your Google Search Console account to ensure accurate indexing. A pop-up message will confirm that your sitemap has been successfully submitted.
There is no set number of days that Google takes in indexing your sitemap. This is why it’s a good time to start submitting your sitemap before you find that you’ll need to make use of Google Search Console already.
We suggest you wait a few days before checking on it. You’ll see that your sitemap is enlisted in “Submitted sitemaps”. This is where you will find information on when your sitemap was last submitted, when it was last read and how many pages have been discovered by Google.
When your sitemap doesn’t encounter any issues, a green “Success” status will appear on the Status column.
In case you see a “Couldn’t fetch” or “Has errors” status, follow the report’s suggestions to fix the issues recorded.
Incorporating your website's sitemap into Google Search Console isn't just a technical task; it's a strategic move that can significantly impact your business's growth trajectory. This small step in setting up your Google Search Console will help lay the groundwork for more accurate insights that directly impact online visibility, targeted traffic, and enhanced brand authority.
By adding your sitemap, you unlock increased potential to your Google Search Console account. But, you don’t have to do this alone. If this isn’t something that’s part of your zone of genius, schedule a consultation with our team so we can help you not only get your Google Search Console started, but also take your business to new levels of success and visibility.
