Use Best WordPress SEO Plugin And Sitemaps To Add Your Site To Google Search Console

The primary reasons for most of the people opting for WordPress is that it is highly SEO friendly and there is almost a plugin for everything in this platform. In fact, you will get thousands of WordPress SEO plugins which will make it easier for you to gain a better SEO, provided that you choose the best one for your purpose and use it strategically.

What is even more promising is the fact that almost all of these plugins are 100% free and easy to use. The best approach is to find one that will do everything that is necessary for a better SEO rather than you having to install separate plugins for each individual SEO tasks.

However, if you are a beginner, it may be a little overwhelming for you to choose the best WordPress SEO plugin. The best thing you can do is narrow down your choices to the two of the most popular solutions: 

  • Yoast SEO and 
  • All in One SEO Pack.

Booth these are highly effective and useful solutions but make sure that you consider and weigh the pros and cons of each and compare before you choose one for your purpose. 

Add XML Sitemaps 

Another good SEO practice in WordPress is to add XML sitemapsin WordPress. Typically, adding an XML sitemap to your site will significantly boost the search rankings of your site if it is low currently. This is because, it will help the search engines to find the relevant pages quickly and start to rank them. If you do not know what actually is an XML sitemap then here it is:

  • An XML Sitemap is ideally a file that is specially formatted. 
  • It lists every single page of your site making it much easier for the search engines to find all of your contents in the entire website.

If you want such an XML sitemap created automatically for you in WordPress, it is better that you use the Yoast SEO plugin. All you will need to do is submit the XML sitemap to Google. If you want to find the sitemap, simply go to the URL: http://domainname/sitemap_index.xml. 

Adding to Google Search Console

You will also increase the SEO standings of your site if you add it to Google Search Console. What is it? Well, read on.

  • The Google Search Console, also known as Webmaster Tools, is actually a set of tools that is offered by Google.
  • This gives the website owners with a chance to look at how your content is viewed by the search engine.
  • It will provide you with reports and data that will enable you to understand exactly how your site appears in the search results. 
  • You will also get to see the actual search results in terms of people using it to find your site and how often the pages are clicked.

With all these facts and data in hand, it will be easier for you to understand what is working well for your site and what is not. This will help you to make a better plan and improve your content strategy accordingly. 

Experts like Tayloright NYCand others consider this feature to be very useful as it also provides alerts when there is something wrong with your website. Therefore, when you use the Google Search Console you will know when the search crawlers are not being able to access your site, restricted resources and find duplicate content.

Steps to add sitemap Google Search Console

There may be a little difference n the steps to follow to add Google Search Console to your WordPress site depending on the type of SEO you are using, Yoast or any other. You will be provided with intuitive videos to know about the steps. However, the basic steps to follow to add your XML sitemap to it after you have added your site to Google Search Console will include:

  • Clicking on the Crawl menu
  • Selecting Sitemaps
  • Getting to the crawl section in Google Search Console
  • Clicking on the Add Sitemap button to add your WordPress XML sitemap in Google webmaster tools.

Since your key sitemap is sitemap_index.xml, go ahead and submit that.

When you have completed adding your sitemap successfully, the same will appear as pending. This is because Google will take some time to crawl the website. It will take a couple of hours before you can see the stats about your sitemap. Once you are able to see that, you will be able to see:

  • The number of links it has found in the sitemap
  • The number of those links that has got indexed and 
  • A ratio of images and web pages.

It is highly recommended that you check the Google Search Console at least once on a monthly basis. This will help you to gather lots of insights about the SEO and at the same time see the progress of your site. 

Optimize your blog posts

Last but not least, you should also optimize your blog posts for a better SEO. This is an additional thing to do even if you have installed and activated a WordPress SEO plugin. Since SEO is an ongoing process, such a move will help you to keep up with the changes that will eventually result in maximizing the outcome and optimizing the SEO.

Once again, depending on the type of SEO you are using, Yoast or other, you will be able to:

  • Add a title and description to your blog posts to get maximum clicks
  • Focus on the use of proper keywords to every blog post and page
  • See the preview of what the users will see when the look at your website.

It is highly recommended that you optimize the title and description when writing your blog post to maximize the number of clicks and take the full advantage of it. Remember, choosing a focus keyword, a good title, and a good meta description are the most crucial element that will optimize your WordPress SEO. It will take a little effort and time but will produce huge boost to your SEO.

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