Indexing is the process by which Google adds a web page to its index in order to show it in the search results. In other words, if your page is not indexed, it will not appear in them .
This is fundamental when it comes to having a digital marketing and inbound marketing strategy, as almost 90% of all internet traffic is channelled by Google. Without users visiting your page, no one will see your content and, therefore, lead generation and sales opportunities will decrease.
For these reasons, before we find out how we can quickly index a page in Google, it is necessary to understand how indexing works in this giant search engine.
how does indexing work on Google?
To make it easier to understand, we can divide the process into three stages: crawling, indexing and publishing or positioning.
- The first stage is crawling, in which Google, with its crawler software called Googlebot, navigates the web in search of new pages or updates to existing pages in its index. Googlebot discovers new web pages when it finds them linked to sites it already knows or when webmasters provide it with information via sitemaps.
- Second is indexing. Once Googlebot discovers new pages or updates, Google interprets their content, classifies it and adds it to its index, i.e. indexes it. From that moment on, the web page is in Google's gigantic database available to appear when a user performs a search.
- Finally, the third stage is called publication and positioning. When a user performs a search, Google, through its algorithms, identifies from its index what is the most relevant answer to their query, whether they are websites, images or videos.
5 steps to index pages in Google quickly
After understanding how Google indexes your pages, you need to know what you can do to move from theory to practice correctly, quickly and efficiently. To do this, it is convenient to follow these 5 steps:
- Configure Google Search Console: This free tool will provide you with information on the indexing status of your web pages, as well as showing configuration errors and web analytics data with which you can identify improvements to make to your website.
- Create the sitemap: A sitemap is, as the name suggests, a map of the website that shows interesting information about the pages and contents of a website.
- Create the robots.txt file. The robots.txt file basically tells Googlebot which pages and content to crawl and index and which not to crawl and index. It is used to prevent pages that you don't want to appear as search results.
- Add quality content frequently - when you add new content or update existing content on a regular basis, you show Google that you are constantly making changes to your site, which will force Googlebot to crawl your page frequently.
- Optimise your website's organic ranking. Indexing is the step before ranking, and one would be meaningless without the other. Having a ranked website improves your domain authority and shows Google that your content provides value.
For this reason, in addition to these 5 basic steps to index quickly, following a series of tricks will also benefit your SEO positioning.
Tips to improve SEO ranking
- Squeeze internal and external linking: Internal linking or linkbuilding offers many advantages for positioning new content. The best advice we can give you is to link what you publish to relevant pages within your website, such as those that have generated the most traffic, to your homepage or to your blog.
Backlinks are a determining factor for Google to look at you, i.e. the more links you get to your web pages, the better your ranking can be.
- Ally yourself with multimedia resources. In-depth, quality content is essential to get your new content to rank. Likewise, adding images, videos or podcasts will allow you to reach a wider audience.
- Make the most of social networks. Having a good presence on the Internet through social networks is key to positioning new content. Nowadays, the trend is to gain mentions, get followers, get lots of likes and get our content shared as many times as possible.
- Do a keyword research. Although it may be a bit lazy, doing a keyword research is essential. If you want to index and position your content quickly, this is the best way. It is necessary to find out which keywords are ideal for you, which topics are worthwhile, which words are easier to classify...
Combining your quality content and the use of SEO positioning strategies, your website will increase the number of visits in a short time. Moreover, by following the steps and tricks that we have told you today, the indexing process will be really simple and effective.
