How to Submit an XML Sitemap to Google Search Console
What is the most important reason your business has a website?
It seems like a dumb question but we all know the answer: It is so that people will buy your products and services.
Now, if they can’t find your website, they can’t buy your products or services. This makes the elements of any strong website important: keyword phrases, search engine optimization, high-resolution images, alt tags, easy navigation, and mobile-readiness.
You then need to submit an XML sitemap to Google when changes have been made to a large number of website pages, such as when metatags have been updated in a comprehensive SEO improvement process. The XML Sitemap acts as a road map to your small business website.
As Yoast explains:
You want Google to crawl every important page of your website, but sometimes pages end up without any internal links pointing to them, making them hard to find. An XML sitemap lists a website’s important pages, making sure Google can find and crawl them all, and helping it understand your website structure.
Here is how you do it using Loebig Ink blogs as an example:
- First, log into Google Search Console
- Then, go to Sitemaps on the left side menu.
- Next, click on Sitemaps where it says “Add a new sitemap”
4. Once you have clicked it on, then type in “sitemap.xml” in the form and hit “submit”:
5. Once it has been submitted, you will get this report:
These steps show you how to submit the sitemap to Google Search Console. In WordPress, the blog is automatically added to the sitemap in the back end of the website. So, your website pages will be found by the search engines!
Google’s XML sitemap is crucial in helping search engines find your website content and also detecting any issues that could make your website unreachable. Now, your pages are indexed and can be found much easier by search engines which will point the visitor to the link. Once they have clicked on the link, they will now be on your website! Thus, you have increased traffic to your website, educated and engaged the visitor and sold your products and services.
If you would like for your small business website pages to be search engine optimized, contact Loebig Ink, LLC. We have search engine optimization specialists who can submit the XML Sitemap for your blogs every month. For more information, contact us at (301) 244-TECH or brian@loebigink.com.
