Submit Website to Search Engine: Why is it Important and How to Do it?

SEO
Submit Website to Search Engine: Why is it Important and How to Do it?
Article by Bisera Stankovska
Last Updated: August 06, 2022

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.

Receive proposals from top SEO agencies. It’s free.
GET PROPOSALS
Agency description goes here
Agency description goes here
Agency description goes here

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.

How to Check if the Website Has Been Indexed?

One of the easiest ways to check if your website is indexed is by simply going to the chosen search engine’s homepage and typing in site: yousitename.com as the search term.

If it is a WPBeginner website, you need to type site: wpbeginner.com into the search engine.

If the site is already indexed, you will be able to see a list of the content, and the homepage will be at the top.

This holds the same for all the major search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo.

You must remember in this respect that it often takes several days or weeks for the website to appear in the search engines. There are ways of making Google or any search engine index your site faster.

However, it is best to use the SEO improvements tricks such as back linking for faster and more effective indexing.

Should You Use a Website Submission Service?

Many businesses question whether it is essential to use a website submission service to submit a WordPress website or blog to search engines.

Well, ideally, you should not use such services. There is no additional benefit to using a search engine submission or website submission service. Most providers charge a premium fee to do something that you can do free of cost with proper knowledge and understanding.

There is also a chance that these submission services will end up submitting your website to spam sources and harm your website’s SEO.

Submit Website to Search Engine Takeaway

Submitting your website to the search engines once it is ready is crucial. Even though most search engines will find your website, you cannot possibly risk not listing them because that will hinder it from reaching potential customers.

Following the right steps and processes, as explained in the article, will make the effort worthwhile. Also, you need to keep re-submitting the web pages as changes or updates are required.

Professional SEO agencies can also help you with this process, so we advise looking for the right agency to partner with for your project.

We’ll find qualified SEO agencies for your project, for free.
GET STARTED
Subscribe to Spotlight Newsletter
Subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest industry news