bing webmaster tools | The Blog Pros

January 11, 2023

How to Easily Create a Multilingual Sitemap in WordPress

Are you looking to improve the search engine rankings of your site’s multilingual pages?

Creating a multilingual sitemap helps Google, Bing, and other search engines easily find your content and index it. You can get more international search traffic simply by giving search engines an easy way to find multilingual content on your WordPress site.

In this article, we’ll show you how to create a multilingual sitemap for WordPress.

How to create a multilingual sitemap in WordPress

Why Create a Multilingual Sitemap in WordPress?

A sitemap is a file that contains all the important content on your WordPress website. It is in the XML format and is targeted toward search engines instead of people.

Creating an XML sitemap for your multilingual website helps search engines find and index your content faster. For instance, if you have different domains or subdomains translated into multiple languages, then you’ll need to create a sitemap for each website.

Note: If you’re looking for an easy way to set up a website in different languages, then follow our step-by-step guide on how to easily create a multilingual WordPress site.

A sitemap is extremely important for your WordPress SEO. Let’s say you just created a new multilingual website. Your new site won’t have many backlinks, and it can be hard for search engines to discover your new articles and pages.

The sitemap provides a way for search engines to learn about your new content in another language. This way, your multilingual pages will start to get indexed and appear in search results.

That being said, let’s take a look at how you can create a multilingual sitemap in WordPress.

Creating a Multilingual Sitemap in WordPress

By default, WordPress automatically creates an XML sitemap for new websites. You can add wp-sitemap.xml at the end of the domain, and WordPress will display the default XML sitemap.

However, this feature is fairly limited and not very flexible. You can’t control which content to add or remove from the sitemap.

The best way to create an XML sitemap in WordPress is by using the All in One SEO (AIOSEO) plugin. It is the best WordPress SEO plugin and helps you optimize your site for search engines.

It also automatically creates a sitemap for a multilingual site and gives you more control over which pages and website sections you want to show in the sitemap.

The sitemap feature is available in the AIOSEO Lite version for free. However, if you’re looking for more features like video sitemaps, news sitemaps, redirections manager, and link assistant, then we recommend using the AIOSEO Pro version.

First, you’ll need to install and activate the AIOSEO plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Click let's get started AIOSEO setup wizard

Upon activation, you’ll see the AIOSEO setup wizard. Simply click the ‘Let’s Get Started’ button and follow the onscreen instructions. For more details, you can visit our guide on how to set up All in One SEO plugin for WordPress.

After that, you’ll need to go to All in One SEO » Sitemaps from your WordPress dashboard and ensure that the ‘Enable Sitemap’ option is enabled.

AIOSEO will automatically create a sitemap for your multilingual website.

You can click the ‘Open Sitemap’ button to preview it or simply add ‘sitemap.xml’ to your website URL.

Please note that if you’re using WPML to create multilingual sites, then AIOSEO will automatically serve sitemaps across different languages.

For instance, your sitemap URL will be something like /nl/sitemap.xml, /de/sitemap.xml, or /fr/sitemap.xml.

If you’re using TranslatePress to create your WordPress multilingual site, then you will need to install their SEO pack addon which is fully compatible with AIOSEO.

Configuring Additional Multilingual Sitemap Settings

To further customize your multilingual sitemaps, you can scroll down in AIOSEO Sitemaps settings to view more options.

By default, the plugin lets you include all post types and taxonomies in the sitemap. It also gives the option to include date archives and author sitemaps.

However, you can uncheck the ‘Post Types’ and ‘Taxonomies’ options and view more options.

For example, let’s say you have translated content as a custom post type. You can simply check that option to include in the sitemap and exclude other post types.

Besides that, you can also add more pages from your multilingual website to the sitemap.

For example, let’s say you’ve translated a pillar article or an evergreen content into another language. You can add the page URL to the sitemap using AIOSEO and help search engines easily find your content.

Simply scroll down and click the ‘Additional Page’ toggle to enable the option. After that, you can add the page URL, and choose the priority and the frequency.

AIOSEO lets you exclude posts, pages, and specific terms from your WordPress sitemaps.

For instance, you can add different multilingual posts and pages that you don’t to include in the sitemap. These can be contact us page, or terms of service pages translated in another language.

First, you’ll need to enable the ‘Advanced Settings’ option. Then enter the URLs in the ‘Exclude Posts / Posts’ field and the terms in the ‘Exclude Terms’ field.

Submitting Your Multilingual Sitemap to Search Engines

Now that you’ve created a multilingual sitemap, the next step is to submit it to different search engines. This way, Google, Bing, and other search engines can easily find new content.

Submit Multilingual Sitemap to Google

Google Search Console is a free tool by Google that you can use to monitor your site’s performance on search results. It helps you see which keywords people use to find your website and resolve any errors that might prevent you from appearing on Google.

Submitting your multilingual sitemap to the Search Console helps Google quickly discover new content.

You can simply log in to your account and head to the ‘Sitemaps’ option from the menu on your left. Next, enter your multilingual sitemap URL under the ‘Add a new sitemap’ option and click the ‘Submit’ button.

For more details, please see our guide on how to submit your website to search engines.

Submit Multilingual Sitemap to Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo

Similarly, you can submit the sitemap to Bing using the Webmaster Tools. The best part is that, when you submit your site to Bing, it’s also automatically submitted to the Yahoo and DuckDuckGo search engines.

You can see our step-by-step tutorial on how to add your website to Bing Webmaster Tools for more details.

We hope that this article helped you learn how to create a multilingual sitemap in WordPress. You may also want to see our expert SEO tips to optimize your blog posts, and our expert pick of the best keyword research tools to improve your SEO rankings.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Easily Create a Multilingual Sitemap in WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.

September 14, 2022

How to Add Your Website to Bing Webmaster Tools

Do you want to submit your WordPress site to Bing Webmaster Tools?

Bing is among the top search engines in the world. Submitting your site to its webmaster tool helps you monitor your site’s performance and keyword rankings and fix indexing issues.

In this article, we’ll show you how to add your websites to Bing Webmaster Tools.

How to add your website to Bing Webmaster Tools

What is Bing Webmaster Tools?

Bing Webmaster Tools is a free service by Microsoft that allows you to add your website to Bing search engine results.

This free tool helps your WordPress SEO by optimizing your site for Bing, so you can get more traffic.

The webmaster tools help you monitor and track your site’s performance in Bing. You can find out which keywords people use to find your site, so you can optimize those search terms in the content and get more traffic.

You can also see how Bing crawls and indexes your content. This helps to uncover and resolve indexing issues that might be preventing a blog post from appearing in Bing search results.

Aside from that, Bing Webmaster Tools shows your site’s backlinks and which websites you are linking to. It also helps remove content that you don’t want to display on Bing search results and scan for potential malware or spam issues that can threaten your WordPress website security.

That said, let’s see how you can add a website to Bing Webmaster Tools using the All in One SEO (AIOSEO) and WPCode plugin. We’ll also show how you can use the webmaster tool and import your site from Google Search Console.

You can use the links below to jump to the method you want to use.

Method 1: Add Website to Bing Webmaster Tools Using AIOSEO
Method 2: Add Website to Bing Webmaster Tools Using WPCode
Import Your Website from Google Search Console
Bonus: How to Use Bing Webmaster Tools

Method 1: Add Website to Bing Webmaster Tools Using AIOSEO

The best way to add a website to Bing Webmaster Tools is using All in One SEO (AIOSEO).

It is the best SEO plugin for WordPress and helps you optimize your site search engines without technical knowledge or the need to hire an expert.

Note that we’ll use the AIOSEO Lite version for this tutorial because it is free and includes the ‘Webmaster Tools Verification’ feature. There is also an AIOSEO Pro version which includes more advanced features like link assistant, redirections, video sitemaps, and more.

Next, you’ll need to install and activate the AIOSEO plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you can go to All in One SEO » General Settings from your WordPress dashboard. Next, head to the ‘Webmaster Tools’ tab and select the ‘Bing Webmaster Tools’ option.

Next, you’ll need to enter the Bing Verification Code. Let’s see how you can access the code in the webmaster tool.

How to Get Verification Code in Bing Webmaster Tools

First, you’ll need to visit the Bing Webmaster Tools website and click the ‘Get started’ button.

We suggest opening the Bing Webmaster Tools website in a new browser window or tab because you’ll need to switch back to your WordPress admin dashboard to complete the verification process.

After that, you’ll need to sign in to your account.

You can use Microsoft, Google, or Facebook accounts to log in. Simply click on any options and choose your email address to sign in to the webmaster tool.

Next, Bing Webmaster Tools will show you 2 options to add your website.

You can import your sites from Google Search Console or manually add your website.

We’ll use the manual method to get the verification code.

Go ahead and enter your website address under the ‘Add your site manually’ section and then click the ‘Add’ button.

When adding your WordPress website, make sure to enter the URL used by WordPress. That’s because Bing will see HTTP and HTTPS as different sites. It will also consider your domain’s WWW and non-WWW versions as two separate websites.

To check which URL is used by WordPress, simply login to your WordPress admin area and head to Settings » General. Then look for the link in the ‘Site Address (URL)’ field.

Once you add this website URL in Bing Webmaster Tools, a window will slide in from the right.

Here you will see different methods for verifying your website, including an XML file, HTML meta tag, and adding CNAME records to DNS.

For this tutorial, we’ll use the HTML Meta Tag method. When you click the ‘HTML Meta Tag’ option, Bing gives you a validation code you need to install on your website.

Go ahead and click the ‘Copy’ button to copy this line of code.

Different methods for verifying your site

Next, you’ll need to add the code to your WordPress website.

Add Verification Code & Verify Your Site in Bing Webmaster Tools

You can now head back to the WordPress admin browser window or tab.

After that, simply go to All in One SEO » General Settings from your WordPress dashboard.

Now, head to the ‘Webmaster Tools’ tab and enter the HTML Meta Tag you copied earlier in the ‘Bing Verification Code’ field.

When you do that, don’t forget to click the ‘Save Change’ button at the top.

After adding the HTML meta tag to your website, go back to the Bing Webmaster Tools tab or window and click the ‘Verify’ button.

Verify your site after entering meta tag

Next, you’ll see a message in Bing Webmaster Tools that your verification was successful.

You can then close the message and view your Bing Webmaster Tools dashboard.

Method 2. Add Website to Bing Webmaster Tools Using WPCode

Another method of adding your website to Bing Webmaster Tools is using WPCode. It is the best WordPress code snippet plugin and helps you manage your website’s scripts. You can easily use WPCode to add the Bing Webmaster Tools HTML code to your website.

First, you’ll need to install and activate the free WPCode plugin. For more details, please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you can go to Code Snippets » Header & Footer from your WordPress admin panel. Here, you’ll need to add the HMTL code provided by Bing Webmaster Tools.

Paste code into the header box in WPCode

Access HTML Meta Tag & Verify Your Website

You can find the HTML code by going to the Bing Webmaster Tools website and logging into your account.

Once signed in, simply add your website URL under the ‘Add your site manually’ field and click the ‘Add’ button.

On the next screen, Bing will show you multiple methods for verifying your website in the webmaster tool.

Go ahead and select the ‘HTML Meta Tag’ option and copy the code.

After copying the code, you can head to your WordPress admin panel and go to the Code Snippets » Header & Footer page.

Next, you’ll need to paste the HTML meta tag into the ‘Header’ section.

Don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button.

Now that you’ve added the HTML meta tag to your site, simply go back to the Bing Webmaster Tools tab or window and click the ‘Verify’ button.

Bing Webmaster Tools will now show a message that your verification was successful.

Simply close the message to view the webmaster tool dashboard.

Import Your Website from Google Search Console

You can also add your WordPress site to Bing Webmaster Tools by importing it from Google Search Console.

If you use this method, then you don’t have to worry about verifying your website by adding an HTML code. However, Bing will need access to your Google account, which could be a security risk if either your Webmaster Tools or Google account gets compromised.

To start, you can log in to Bing using your Microsoft, Bing, or Facebook account.

Next, go ahead and click the ‘Import’ button under the Import your site from the GSC section.

After that, you’ll see a message showing you what data will be imported from the Google Search Console account and how Bing will use it.

Simply click the ‘Continue’ button to move ahead.

Next, you’ll need to select your Google account to sign in.

Go ahead and select the account that you use for logging into Google Search Console.

On the next screen, Bing will request access to your Google account.

Simply click the ‘Allow’ button to continue.

Next, you will see websites that are connected to Google Search Console.

Go ahead and select any websites you’d like to import into Bing Webmaster Tools and click the ‘Import’ button.

You’ll now see a message that your website has been successfully imported.

You can click the ‘Done’ button to close the window and view the Bing Webmaster Tools dashboard.

Bonus: How to Use Bing Webmaster Tools

In the Webmaster Tools dashboard, you have access to many different tools and options. Do note that Bing will take up to 48 hours to reflect data in its webmaster tools reports after setting it up on your WordPress site.

For example, you can view your site’s search performance by going to the Search Performance tab. You can then use this data to see which search terms people use to find your website and perform keyword research to develop new content ideas.

Similarly, the tool also lets you inspect a specific URL to see if there are any crawling issues. You can simply enter the post or page link in the URL Inspection tab and view the errors.

With Bing Webmaster Tools, you can submit your website sitemap in the Bing Webmaster Tools to help the search engine to discover new content quickly.

For more details, please see our guide on how to submit your site to search engines.

Plus, you can scan for any errors that could be preventing your content from appearing in Bing search results.

If a blog post or landing page isn’t appearing in the search results, then you can go to the ‘URL Submission’ tab and manually submit your content for indexing.

We hope this article helped you learn how to add your website to Bing Webmaster Tools. You can also see our guide on WooCommerce SEO made easy, and our expert pick of the best WordPress SEO plugins and tools to grow your website.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Add Your Website to Bing Webmaster Tools first appeared on WPBeginner.

March 1, 2022

How to Add IndexNow in WordPress to Speed Up SEO Results

Are you wondering what is IndexNow, and whether you should add IndexNow in WordPress?

IndexNow is a new SEO initiative created by Microsoft to help your website get indexed faster in search engines. This boosts new content discoverability and speed up your SEO results.

In this article, we will share how to add IndexNow in WordPress to speed up SEO results.

What is IndexNow?

IndexNow is an automatic ping that lets search engines know when a post or page (URL) on your website has been added, updated, or deleted. This allows search engines to quickly update their search results speeding up overall SEO results. Simply put, it’s instant indexing!

This is a new initiative started by Microsoft, and it’s currently supported by both Microsoft Bing and Yandex. A Google spokeperson has also confirmed that they will be testing the IndexNow protocol due to environmental sustainability.

Currently, all search engines use XML sitemaps to discover new content and updates. The challenge is that it can sometimes take days to weeks for search engines to discover new content updates because they visit your website at random intervals.

Search engine bots are inefficient due to their legacy design, and they have a high carbon footprint.

When a search engine bot visits your sitemap, it attempts to visit every single link that it finds on the sitemap as well as every single link that’s inside of each page. This is a resource intensive process, and IndexNow protocol aims to solve that.

Instead of having search engine bots randomly scan every single page on your site to see what’s been updated, IndexNow allows your website to simply ping the search engine to let them know when you publish a new post or update an existing piece of content.

This way they can quickly update their search results while helping the environment.

IndexNow is a win for website owners, win for search engines, and a win for the world.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to add IndexNow in WordPress to speed up your SEO results.

Method 1. How to Add IndexNow in WordPress using AIOSEO

AIOSEO is the best WordPress SEO plugin used by over 3 million websites. We use AIOSEO on WPBeginner to improve our SEO rankings.

In their recent update, AIOSEO became the first WordPress SEO plugin to add IndexNow support for WordPress.

First you need to install and activate the AIOSEO plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

For this tutorial, we will be using the premium version of AIOSEO because it includes IndexNow and other powerful SEO features. There is also a free version of AIOSEO that you can use to try it out.

Once activated, you need to go AIOSEO » Feature Manager from your WordPress dashboard to enable the IndexNow feature.

Once enabled, IndexNow is automatically configured and ready to go – no action is needed on your part.

AIOSEO partnered with Microsoft to build this integration, and they made the process beginner friendly. They automatically generate an IndexNow API key for your website and configure it for you, so you don’t have to do anything.

You can verify this by going to AIOSEO » General Settings and click on the Webmaster Tools tab. There you will see the IndexNow icon, and if you click it you’ll see that your website’s IndexNow API key is already pre-configured.

AIOSEO comes with many other powerful features to help you improve your WordPress SEO rankings including Link Assistant, redirection manager, and more.

We have a step by step guide on how to properly setup All in One SEO which also includes instructions how you can switch from Yoast, RankMath, and others to AIOSEO.

Method 2. How to Add IndexNow in WordPress using the IndexNow plugin

While other WordPress SEO plugins have begun to add IndexNow support, most don’t have it yet. If you don’t want to switch to AIOSEO, then you can use this option instead.

First you need to install and activate the IndexNow utility plugin. For more details, see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to go Settings » IndexNow in your WordPress dashboard. You will need to click on the Get Started now button, and it will automatically generate your API key and get everything configured.

After that, you will see a screen with IndexNow stats like successful URL submissions and more.

That’s all, you have successfully added IndexNow to WordPress.

Final Thoughts on IndexNow and Future of SEO

IndexNow is a new initiative and it has already been adapted by Microsoft Bing and Yandex. Google is said to be testing support for this, and we really hope they adapt it as well.

We believe that all popular website builder platforms will add IndexNow integrations with AIOSEO leading the way for WordPress, but other companies like Duda, Cloudflare, etc have all added IndexNow integrations in the recent months.

IndexNow is a great solution for both small and large sites, and it’s a SEO professional’s dream come true since it finally speeds up SEO results with nearly instant indexing.

It’s important to emphasize that IndexNow does NOT replace sitemaps. You still should have XML sitemaps, video sitemap, news sitemap, and other advanced sitemaps to help improve your SEO rankings. You should use IndexNow alongside sitemaps to gain a competitive advantage.

We hope this article helped you learn how to add IndexNow in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to do keyword research and our comparison of best push notification software to grow your traffic.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Add IndexNow in WordPress to Speed Up SEO Results first appeared on WPBeginner.

December 7, 2020

How to Submit Your Website to Search Engines (Beginner’s Guide)

Recently, one of our readers asked us how to submit their WordPress site to search engines like Google?

Search engines are the largest source of traffic for most websites. That’s why it is important to ensure that they can easily find and rank your website pages.

In this article, we’ll show you how to easily submit your website to search engines and start getting traffic to your site.

Since this is a comprehensive guide, please feel free to use the quick links below to jump straight to different sections in this article.

Do You Need to Submit Your Website to Search Engines?
How to Submit Your Website to Google
Creating a WordPress Sitemap with All in One SEO
How to Submit Your Website to Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo
How to Check if Your Website Has Been Indexed
Should You Use a Website Submission Service?
Troubleshooting and FAQs about Submitting Your Website to Search Engines

Do You Need to Submit Your Website to Search Engines?

No, you do not have to submit your website to search engines. Most search engine bots can automatically find your website if it has been mentioned on other sites.

However for WordPress websites, we recommend submitting it manually because it will help you get discovered faster.

Why you should submit your website to search engines?

If you are just starting a new business or a blog, then search engines are the most important source of free website traffic. This means you can grow your business online without a lot of money.

Unlike paid traffic from ads, organic search traffic is free, and you don’t need to pay search engines for that.

More importantly, the submission process is quite simple, free, and gives you access to several tools that will help you grow your business later on.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to submit your WordPress website to search engines.

Submitting Your Website to Google

Google is the largest and most popular search engine on the planet. For most websites, Google is often the biggest source of their traffic.

To submit your website to Google, you need to sign up for Google Search Console. It is a free tool offered by Google to help website owners see how their website is performing in search results.

Signing up is free and easy. Simply go to the Google Search Console website and click on the ‘Start now’ button.

You can use your existing Google account to sign in or create a new account.

Next, Google will prompt you to enter your website domain name. We recommend using the URL prefix option here as it’s easier to verify.

After choosing this option, use the HTML tag method to verify your website and submit it to Google. You simply need to click on the HTML tag option to expand it, and then copy the code by clicking the ‘Copy’ button.

Now there are multiple ways to do add this code to your website. We will show you the two easiest methods, and you can choose one that best suits you.

1. Adding Verification Code in WordPress using All in One SEO

The easiest way to do this is using All in One SEO, which is the best WordPress SEO plugin on the market. It allows you to optimize your website for search engines without learning any SEO jargon.

First, you need to install and activate the All in One SEO plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Next, you need to visit the All in One SEO » General Settings » Webmaster Tools page and click on the Google Search Console option.

After that, you need to paste the content value from your HTML meta tag into the ‘Google Verification Code’ box. The part you want is the long string of numbers and letters.

Don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button at the top of the screen.

2. Adding Verification Code in WordPress using Insert Headers and Footers

If you are not using the All in One SEO plugin, then you can use this method to add Google Search Console verification code to your WordPress site.

First, you need to install and activate the Insert Header and Footers plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, go to the Settings » Insert Headers and Footers page in your WordPress admin. Then, simply paste the whole HTML meta tag into the ‘Scripts in Header’ box.

Then, make sure you click the Save button at the bottom of the page.

After adding the meta tag to your site through either method, go back to Google Search Console and click the ‘Verify’ button for the HTML tag method.

You should now see a success message in Google Search Console to let you know that your site has been verified.

If you need more help, check out our step by step guide on adding your WordPress site to Google Search Console.

Creating an XML Sitemap with All in One SEO

An XML sitemap in WordPress is a list of all the content on your website, including all your posts and pages. It helps search engine bots discover your content faster and start showing it in search results.

In the WordPress 5.5 update, XML sitemaps were added as a built-in feature. However, these sitemaps are very basic and can’t be easily customized.

We recommend using All in One SEO to create your sitemap.

All in One SEO is the complete WordPress SEO toolkit and includes a comprehensive sitemaps generator.

It allows you to customize your XML sitemaps by excluding unnecessary or duplicate content. They also have powerful custom sitemap for WooCommerce, news sitemap, and video sitemaps. This gives you a bonus advantage in SEO as your business grows.

First, you need to install and activate the All in One SEO plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, All in One SEO will automatically create your sitemap.

To view it, simply go to the All in One SEO » Sitemaps page in your WordPress admin. Then, click the ‘Open Sitemap’ button.

You will then see the sitemap index for your site. This links to all the sitemaps that All in One SEO has created.

Note: All in One SEO creates multiple sitemaps because it is best practice to split up large sitemaps. By using different sitemaps for different types of content, your sitemaps will load quickly and be a manageable size even as your website grows.

Please keep this page open or save the page URL as you will need it later in the tutorial.

If you want, you can click on any of the links to see the content listed in each individual sitemap. Here is the sitemap for the pages on our demo website.

Add your XML Sitemap to Google Search Console

Now that you have generated your XML sitemap, the next step is to help Google discover it quickly.

The easiest way to do that is by using the Google Search Console.

Simply login to your Google Search Console account, and then click on the Sitemaps link in the left-hand toolbar:

Google Search Console has already put your website domain here. All you need to do is to type sitemap.xml into the box and click the Submit button.

Search Console should show you a message to let you know the sitemap has been successfully submitted. You will also see your website sitemap in the ‘Submitted sitemaps’ list.

How to Submit Your Website to Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo

Google totally dominates the search engine market with a whopping 92% market share. However, other search engines like Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo can still be a significant source of traffic for your website.

Submitting Your Website to Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo

To submit your website to Bing, you need to sign up for Bing Webmaster Tools.

Just click the Sign In button to get started. Then, sign in using your Microsoft, Google, or Facebook account.

Next, Bing will prompt you to add your site. We recommend using the ‘Add your site manually’ option. It works reliably and doesn’t require you to have verified your site with Google Search Console.

After that, simply enter your website’s domain name (URL) then click the ‘Add’ button.

Next, you will see some verification method options. First, click on the HTML Meta Tag method. This will open up the details. Then, click the ‘Copy’ button to copy the meta tag.

The easiest way to add the meta tag to your site is to use All in One SEO. In your WordPress dashboard, go to All in One SEO » General Settings » Webmaster Tools page.

Then, click on the Bing Webmaster Tools option.

This will open up the box where you can enter the Bing verification code. This is the long string of numbers and letters that forms the content value in the Bing meta tag.

Alternatively, you can install the free Insert Header and Footers plugin for WordPress.

Upon activation, go to the Settings » Insert Headers and Footers page in your WordPress admin. Then, simply paste the whole HTML meta tag into the ‘Scripts in Header’ box.

Don’t forget to click the ‘Save’ button further down the page.

After that, you need to return to Bing Webmaster Tools and click the Verify button. You should see a success message to let you know your site has been added.

Next, click on the Sitemaps tab on the left-hand sidebar. Then, click the ‘Submit sitemap’ button.

You need to paste in the URL of the sitemap index that All in One SEO created for you. This should be your domain name with sitemap.xml at the end.

After that, just click the ‘Submit’ button.

You will now see your sitemap in the sitemap table in Bing Webmaster Tools.

Your Site Will Also Appear in Yahoo and DuckDuckGo’s Search Results

Now that you have submitted your website to Bing, it has also been automatically submitted to Yahoo.

DuckDuckGo also uses Bing’s search results. This means that by submitting your website to Bing, you will also get it indexed on DuckDuckGo as well.

How to Check if Your Website Has Been Indexed

The easiest way to check whether your website has been indexed is to simply go to your chosen search engine’s homepage and type in site:yoursitename.com as the search term.

For WPBeginner website, we would type site:wpbeginner.com into the search engine.

If your site has been indexed, then you should see a list of your content. Your homepage will normally be at the top.

This works for all popular search engines, including Google, Yahoo, Bing, and DuckDuckGo.

Should You Use a Website Submission Service?

No, you should not use a website submission service to submit your WordPress blog or website to search engines.

There is no additional benefit to using a website submission or search engine submission services. They charge you a premium fee to do something that is free, and you can do it yourself.

More importantly, these submission services may submit your website to spammy sources which may harm your website’s SEO.

Troubleshooting and FAQs about Submitting Your Website to Search Engines

Since WPBeginner is the largest free WordPress resource site, we have heard just about every question related to this topic. Here are some common problems and FAQs we hear about submitting your site to search engines.

1. How long will it take for my site to appear in search engines?

It could take several days or several weeks for your website to appear in search engines.

It is up to search engines to index your site. You cannot force Google or any search engine to index your site faster.

However, you should follow our instructions above to help search engines find your site as easily as possible. Getting plenty of backlinks to your site can also help speed up the process.

2. I submitted my website but it isn’t showing up in search engines?

First, check that your site is visible to search engines. In your WordPress admin, go to the Settings » Reading page and make sure that the box ‘Discourage search engines from indexing this site’ is not checked.

If the box is checked, then it is stopping search engines from crawling your WordPress site. Simply uncheck it then click the ‘Save Changes’ button.

If this setting is correct, then you simply need to be patient. It can take a day or so for Google Search Console to process your sitemap.

3. My site is listed on search engines but I am not getting any traffic?

If you are not getting traffic to your site, then that could be because it is ranking very low in search engine results. You should use All in One SEO to get detailed recommendations about your site’s SEO (search engine optimization).

In particular, it’s important to use keywords appropriately in your site’s content.

You can also use these keyword research tools to write more SEO optimized content, and implement our 27 proven tips to increase your website traffic.

4. How can I submit my website to search engines for free?

All the methods we have covered above are free. We recommend that you do not pay to have your site submitted to search engines.

It is free to create accounts with Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. Neither of these charges any money.

5. How do search engines find my site?

Search engines use automated software to constantly look through the web for new web pages. This software is often called: search bots, web crawler, or spider. The process of looking for new pages is called ‘crawling’.

The web crawler goes through links to find new pages. This is why an XML sitemap is so important. It has links to all the content on your site and information about them that the web crawler can understand.

6. Is there a submissions site list I can use?

You don’t need to worry about submitting to lots of search engines. The most important one is Google.

Once you have submitted your site to Google, it’s a good idea to also submit it to Bing. This helps Yahoo and DuckDuckGo find your site too.

The other search engines you should consider submitting to are local ones. For instance, you could submit your website to Yandex if you want to get more visitors from Russia.

7. How do I track website traffic coming from Search Engines?

The easiest way to track search engine traffic is by using MonsterInsights. It is the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress and allows you to see where your users are coming from, what pages they are viewing, and what they do while on your website.

For detailed instructions, follow our step by step guide on how to install Google Analytics in WordPress.

We hope this article helped you learn how to submit your website to search engines. You may also want to see our guide on the best email marketing services to connect with your visitors after they leave your site, and our expert list of the best WordPress plugins for all websites.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Submit Your Website to Search Engines (Beginner’s Guide) appeared first on WPBeginner.