Launching a WordPress website is just the beginning. If you want your site to be discoverable in search results, you need to ensure that search engines like Google and Bing know your site exists.
Contrary to popular belief, search engines won't always find your site automatically, especially if it's brand new or lacks backlinks. That's why one of the first steps in your WordPress SEO Checklist should be manually submitting your website to search engines. This ensures your site gets crawled and indexed faster, which is essential for visibility.
In this guide, we'll walk you through the complete process of submitting your WordPress site to search engines and ensuring your content is indexed correctly. Following this process will help set a strong SEO foundation and improve your chances of ranking for relevant keywords.
Why Submitting Your Site Is Important
Search engines use crawlers (bots) to scan the web and index pages. If your site hasn't been indexed, it won't appear in search results, no matter how good your content is.
Submitting your site manually helps:
- Speed up the indexing process
- Monitor crawl and indexing issues
- Gain insights into your site's performance in search results
- Ensure sitemaps and structured data are recognized correctly
Step 1: Generate an XML Sitemap
An XML sitemap is a file that lists all the essential pages of your website. It tells search engines how your site is structured and what to crawl.
Most SEO plugins in WordPress automatically generate a sitemap. Popular options:
- All in One SEO (AIOSEO)
- Sitemap URL: yoursite.com/sitemap.xml
- Yoast SEO
- Sitemap URL: yoursite.com/sitemap_index.xml
- Rank Math
- Sitemap URL: yoursite.com/sitemap_index.xml
If you're not sure where your sitemap is, check your plugin settings or type /sitemap.xml after your domain name in the browser.
Step 2: Submit Your Site to Google via Search Console
Google Search Console (GSC) is a free tool that helps you monitor your site’s presence in Google Search results.
How to submit:
- Go to Google Search Console
- Sign in with your Google account
- Click “Add Property” and enter your domain (use the Domain option for full tracking)
- Verify ownership (DNS method is recommended for domain-level verification)
- Once verified, go to the “Sitemaps” tab
- Enter your sitemap URL (example: sitemap_index.xml)
- Click Submit
Google will begin crawling your site. It may take a few hours to several days to see indexing activity.
Bonus Tip:
Use the "URL Inspection" tool in GSC to manually request indexing for individual pages (especially new blog posts or updates).
Step 3: Submit Your Site to Bing via Bing Webmaster Tools
Bing may not drive as much traffic as Google, but it still accounts for a decent share, especially from Microsoft Edge users, desktops, and older demographics.
Steps:
- Visit Bing Webmaster Tools
- Sign in using a Microsoft, Google, or Facebook account
- Click "Add a Site" and enter your website URL
- You can import settings directly from Google Search Console to save time
- Submit your sitemap (same URL you used for Google)
You'll gain access to features like keyword reports, crawl stats, and page indexing data.
Step 4: Check Your Robots.txt File
Your robots.txt file tells search engines which parts of your site to crawl or ignore.
Visit:
yoursite.com/robots.txt
A good default robots.txt should look like this:
pgsql
CopyEdit
User-agent: *
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Allow: /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php
Sitemap: https://yoursite.com/sitemap_index.xml
Make sure it's not blocking essential sections of your site, such as /wp-content/uploads/ or your blog pages.
Step 5: Install Google Site Kit for Monitoring
Once your site is indexed, it's essential to track how it's performing in search.
Install the Google Site Kit plugin, which allows you to connect:
- Google Search Console
- Google Analytics
- Google PageSpeed Insights
- Google Tag Manager
This plugin shows all your data directly inside the WordPress dashboard, so you can monitor impressions, clicks, traffic sources, and indexing status.
Step 6: Share and Build External Links
While manual submission gets your site noticed, backlinks help boost its authority and trust in Google's eyes.
Ways to speed up crawling:
- Share your site on social media platforms
- Submit your site to business directories or niche-specific forums
- Guest post on other blogs and link back to your content
- Create Web 2.0 profiles and link to inner pages
Each external mention increases the chances that bots will revisit your site and index more pages.
Step 7: Monitor Indexing Progress
After submitting your site, monitor how it's being indexed over time.
In Google Search Console:
- Go to Pages > Indexed Pages
- Review the list of pages indexed and any excluded URLs
- Fix crawl errors such as:
- "Crawled - currently not indexed"
- "Discovered - not currently indexed"
- "Blocked by robots.txt"
In Bing Webmaster Tools:
- Check your sitemap submission status
- View indexed URL reports.
- Monitor crawl frequency and errors.
Address any technical issues that could be preventing proper indexing.
Step 8: Keep Your Sitemap Updated Automatically
As you publish new content, your sitemap should automatically update. SEO plugins like AIOSEO, Yoast, and Rank Math do this by default.
However, double-check that:
- New pages and posts are included
- No important content is marked as "noindex."
- Categories or tags are not unnecessarily bloating the sitemap.
You can manually resubmit the sitemap after a major site update to trigger a fresh crawl.
Final Thoughts
Submitting your WordPress site to search engines is a simple but essential step for SEO success. It ensures your content is discoverable, crawled, and eligible to appear in search results.
By combining manual submission with good technical SEO practices, you not only improve your site's visibility but you also lay the foundation for long-term organic growth.
Now that you've submitted your site, your next goal should be to focus on content creation, link building, and performance optimization to build authority and climb the search rankings.