Have you come across the term website indexation? How much do you know about it? If your knowledge is next to nothing, then you are not alone. Website indexation is not something you need to do as a contractor who knows very little about it. However, you must at least know what website indexation is – it is a process where search engines like Google carry out new content online you publish.
An indexed website can help your website or webpage appear on the search engine result page – which is usually the first step to ranking and generating web traffic. In this blog post, let’s explore more about website indexing, and we will also share some of the best practices to index your website correctly.
Why is Website Indexation Important?
To put it simply, website indexing is the process that search engines use to understand the function of your website and every page on that website. It helps Google to find your construction website, add it instantly to its index, connect every page with all searched topics, return the website to SERPs, and ultimately drive the right audience to your content.
What you see on search engines is not the Internet. It is the search engine’s index of the Internet. This is vital to note because only some pages you will publish online are assured of getting the attention of the search engine. As a website owner, you have to execute a few things to get it added to the index.
Google will index your website if it has the following key components:
- Easy to navigate on the website’s homepage
- Aligned with the most popular searches
- Not being blocked from web indexation from the use of specific metatags.
- Linked to and from other pages (on and off your website’s domain)
How Long Does It Take for Google to Index Your Website?
Google is, in fact, not highly selective when it comes to indexing websites. It will index any website for as long as it meets the criteria. While it usually varies, it may take anywhere from a couple of days or a few weeks for Google to crawl a particular website. Some factors significantly impact how Google indexes a website, like proper web optimization, the website’s popularity, and the overall structure of the website.
In addition, some common mistakes can impact whether or not Google will index your website. To prepare, make sure to check your website design, be patient, and update the website when it is necessary.
Best Practices for Website Indexation
Below are some of the best practices to index your construction website.
1. Track web pages right after publishing
Generally, the most common reason why Google does not index a website is that it is new. This can be your case, most especially if you covered your bases. So, ensure the web page of your site does not contain any “index” tag and has a clear linking strategy. Ensure that the page will also relate to the other web pages on your website.
2. Ensure you are not blocking indexation
A website with a “no index” tag will block Google’s capacity to index a webpage, and a page may not have this tag if it is only meant to be seen by specific subscribers.
Therefore, Google cannot find or present it as a search result online.
3. Create crawlable pages
One of the many important things you must do for your website is to make it crawlable. Check to determine if your website’s build and structure are blocking search engines’ ability to index. Google provides a checklist regarding how to do that. Some general rules include creating a sitemap, telling Google about duplicate content, and using special tags that Google understands.
4. Track web traffic after website migration
If you have recently migrated your website, that will be why Google is not crawling the new domain. If your website is temporarily unavailable for a particular time, it is possible that Google found crawl errors when indexing your website and cannot complete the process.
To combat issues like this, you must ensure that you adhere to Google’s guidelines so that a new address is indexed properly in the search engine.
5. Add a page to your WordPress sitemap
Know that Google uses a sitemap to identify which pages on your website are significant and which are not. It also provides details on how often the pages should be crawled. While Google must recognize some pages on your site, whether or not they are in your sitemap, including the pages is still a smart idea. A sitemap aids search engines in the overall exploration of your website’s content.
6. Ensure your website has well-designed navigation
Having a website with well-designed navigation can make users navigate smoothly between the subpages of your website. It is particularly important not only for User Experience or UX but also because of the dwell time and bounce rate. Moreover, the user-friendly navigation of your website makes it easier for Google to index your site.
7. Remove no follow links and ensure the pages are not orphaned
Orphan pages do not have any internal links to them. Since Google discovers new information by crawling the web, orphan pages are not discovered this way. Thus, the visitors to the website will not be able to find them either. You need to remove the page from your sitemap and then delete it as if it is irrelevant.
Include it in your construction website’s internal link structure if the pages are significant. This aids in the indexing of your construction website by Google crawlers.
8. Make sure the pages are unique and valuable
The low-quality web page content is most unlikely to get indexed by Google, mainly because it is of little service to the users. If you have ruled out some technical reasons for the lack of indexing, it is possible that the lack of value is to blame.
To further increase the quality of the pages, the best way is to update and evaluate them consistently. Another way to improve overall quality is through strong backlinking.
9. Add powerful internal links
Google can discover new content by crawling to your site. If you happen to neglect to link internally to the page, then Google cannot be able to find it. One solution to this issue is to put internal links to the webpage, and you can do that from any website web page that Google can easily crawl and index.
But, if you want Google to index the page as quickly as possible, pick the most powerful pages on your website. Why? It is because Google will likely re-crawl some pages faster than less important web pages.
10. Remove rogue canonical tags
Canonical tags tell Google which is the ideal version of your page. A lot of the pages either have no canonical tags or what is being referred to as self-referencing canonical tags. This tells Google that the page is the preferred and possibly the only version. In other words, the goal is to index this page.
However, if your page contains a rogue canonical tag, it can tell Google about the preferred version of the page that does not exist.
11. Build high-quality backlinks
Backlinks will tell Google that your webpage is important. In addition, if someone is linking it, it holds real value. These are the exact pages Google wants to index. For full transparency, Google does not only index website pages with no backlinks. But, because Google sees web pages with high-quality backlinks as more important, they are most likely to crawl and re-crawl the pages faster than those without. Overall, this leads to faster indexing.
12. Create social media channels
Finally, the easiest part is creating social media profiles. Do you have one or two for your company? If not, then now is a perfect time. Why? As you may not know, one crucial component of SEO is paying attention to social signals. These signals can prompt search engines to crawl and index your new website. In addition, social signals will help you rank your web pages higher in Google search results.
It is obvious by now that a robust social media marketing plan helps you SEO and index your website. Make sure to create social media profiles now and update them with new content regularly.
Achieve Website Indexing Faster with ConstructionMarketing.io
As you can tell, getting your construction website indexed is crucial. However, we cannot oversell the importance of website indexation for the success of your site. Refrain from wasting your precious time worrying about how to index your website. Instead, focus more on working with a full-service digital marketing agency that can help you get your website rank faster and better.
Here at ConstructionMarketing.io, we have repeatedly proven that a strategic and well-planned SEO campaign can help improve your local ranking on Google. Collaborate with us, and allow us to help you with your campaigns.