Google Search Console helps you to manage Google's indexing of your site. Yola has made it possible for you to take advantage of Google's website optimization tools. In this tutorial, we will give you step-by-step instructions on verifying your site and submitting a Sitemap to Google Tools.
Step 1: Getting the verification tag
If your site is not yet published on the web, you will have to do so first because you will need the URL (web address) during the verification process. If you have not published your site yet, please follow the steps in this tutorial: Publishing your Yola website.
Note: If you plan on purchasing a custom domain to publish before getting found on Google, now would be the perfect opportunity.
Once published, copy and save the URL of your site and proceed with these steps:
- Head on over to Google Search Console to get started. If you do not have a Google account, you will have to create one, otherwise, sign in with your Google login details.
-
In the URL prefix field, enter the address of your website with the HTTPS part and click Continue.
-
Verify ownership window will open. Choose the HTML tag as the verification method and click Copy.
Note: Keep the Google Search Console window open for now. You will need to come back to it in Step 3.
Step 2. Adding the tag to your site
Now that you have the verification code, you need to add it to your Yola site. Here is how to do it:
- In Sitebuilder+, click the Main menu button in the top left corner of the screen.
- Click Settings on the Sidebar.
-
In Website settings, click the Integrations tab and click the Connect button next to the Google Search Console sign.
-
In the next window, paste the HTML tag you copied from the Google Search Console page into the code field and click Submit.
- Click Publish in the Sitebuilder to make the changes live.
Step 3. Verifying the site in Google Search Console
Once you have added your code to your website and republished it, go back to the Google Search Console page. Click the Verify button at the bottom of the page.
If you have verified your site correctly, you will see the Ownership verified message like the one below.
Submitting a Sitemap to Google Search Console Tools
When you publish your site, Yola generates a sitemap for the site. You will not notice this when your site is published because it happens behind the scenes. You can submit your sitemap to Google using Google Search Console Tools. This will give Google more information about your site. If you want to learn more about sitemaps and why these are useful to Google, see About Sitemaps.
The sitemap for your published site is the site's URL (web address), followed by /sitemap.xml.
To submit your sitemap to Google Search Console Tools, follow these steps:
- Log into your Google Search Console Tools account.
- If you have multiple sites, make sure you are on the right site’s dashboard page.
-
Click Sitemaps on the sidebar to open the Sitemaps settings.
-
Type in sitemap.xml into the Add a new sitemap field and click Submit.
- You will see a Sitemap submitted successfully message.
Now, when Google crawls your site, you will be able to log into your Google Search Console account to see data that will help you optimize your site for search engines.
Google Search Console FAQ
Where do I get more information on how Google Search Console works?
Google Console Help page is packed with information.
Help! Google Search Console gives me errors, and I don't know what they mean!
You can find detailed information on what those errors mean and how to fix them via these links: Crawl Errors and HTTP Status Codes.