What’s the first thing you do when you upload a new website? If you’ve read anything about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), the first thing you do is to submit your website to the search engines so people can find your site.
(Though that’s controversial. Some people say if you submit to Google, it will actually take longer for them to index your site.)
However, did you know that you should also submit your blog to search engine directories? Just because you submit your website to the directories, doesn’t mean your blog will be included in the indexing.
The rules are a little different for blogs than for webs. Here are a few things you need to do to make sure you are accepted and listed.
Before you submit to Google, put a site map on your site (this goes for both blogs and websites). Then, when Google visits your site, it will index your pages from your sitemap.
For blogs, if you blog using WordPress, you should install a sitemap plugin. The plugin will will update your sitemap automatically and notify Google of changes. There are several plugins to choose from.
After you have this installed the plugin, just submit to Google.
Unfortunately, you can’t submit a blog directly to Google’s blog search. So, make sure you have submitted your site to the blog directories; ping those sites after you blog, and you’ll get there.
Yahoo!, of course, is a little different. You need to submit your site FEED instead of a sitemap. This is easy to do, though, because most web and blog programs automatically create the RSS feed link.
On WordPress, the RSS link is probably located on the bottom of the page, or in a sidebar. And, if you want to get indexed more quickly, add your blog feed to your My Yahoo! page.
Submit to Yahoo! here
Once you have submitted to the directories, make sure you ping the directories each time you blog.
I use Pingoat when I ping manually; you can also use Ping The Empire or Pingomatic (which is the default that was set up on my WordPress Template).
There you have it! All you need to do now is blog and ping!