How long does Google take to find your webpage? With around 1 billion websites registered across the world, you may wonder how Google ever manages to discover your webpages and how long it takes for them to appear in their rankings.

If you’re adding news about a new product or latest sale, you want it to appear in search results as quickly as possible so it can be seen and purchased by new or current customers.

The amount of time it takes to index your new page can vary; it can take up to a month, a week, a day or even just a few hours, but there are a few things you can be doing to ensure they’re found and indexed as quickly as possible.

Have an XML sitemap

Think of a sitemap as a roadmap or sat nav for Google; it provides the search engine with a list of your new pages and makes it easier for them to find what they’re looking for.   A sitemap will usually provide information on when content was created (allowing Google to quickly identify new content), how important the content is, and how often content is likely to be uploaded (enabling it to anticipate when you may have something new to say!).

If your site doesn’t currently have one, we suggest you get one!

Add content regularly to your site

If Google visits your site and the content is never updated, it won’t want to return as often – imagine you visited a clothing store and it stocked the same items at the same prices each month, would you want to go back?

The likelihood is probably not as often, which is the same for Google.

So, by updating your content regularly, Google will want to return to the site more frequently and your pages will be indexed quicker.

If you’re not currently generating enough content this is our nudge to say that you need to do more!

Share your content more on social media

Social media is now central to the way in which the internet works, and Google understands this.  If you’re regularly sharing content through social channels such as Facebook and Twitter, Google will quickly find these.

This is known as creating ‘social signals’ to your site.  In real terms what you’re doing is creating links back from these social media sites.  Think of each of these links as a signpost to your website; ever tried to find someone’s house without any signage? It’s a lot more difficult!

We want to make life easy for Google; sharing content on to Twitter and Facebook will help you do that.

If you’re not currently sharing your new content through social media where have you been! It’s time to get going!

For more information on how we can help your search engine performance give us a call on 01566 232323 or email hello@mihidigital.co.uk