How to Add IndexNow in WordPress to Speed Up SEO Results
March 22. 2022
If you’re running a successful WordPress website, you probably know that there is never a lack of new features and updates that will help you improve all aspects of your website. One of the latest ones in IndexNow. It’s actually a new search engine marketing initiative started by Microsoft. The main goal of this initiative is to assist your website get listed quicker in various search engines. However, there is much more to it. In this article, we’ll explain in detail what this initiative is and why you should take advantage of it. Also, we’ll let you know how can you add IndexNow in WordPress and speed up SEO results. In case you want to focus on improving other parts of your business, you can always reach out to professionals and have them take care of your WordPress website. Now let’s cut to the chase and find out what IndexNow is all about.
What is it and why should you add IndexNow in WordPress?
Did you know that it can take a couple of days for search engines to discover new content and updates on your website? This happens because currently, all search engines use XML sitemaps to look for updated content and visit your website at random intervals. On top of being inefficient, search engine bots leave a massive carbon footprint. Namely, whenever a search engine bot visits your sitemap, it attempts to visit every single link it finds. This includes all links that are inside every page on your website. This can be quite a time-consuming and resource-intensive process.
That’s why Microsoft came up with IndexNow. This is basicaly an automatic ping that lets search engines know about changes you made on your website. Whether you’ve added, updated, or deleted content, you won’t have to potentially wait a couple of days for search engines to find out. To put it in simple words, IndexNow provides you with instant indexing!
Why add IndexNow?
At the moment, Microsoft Bing and Yandex support IndexNow while a Google spokesperson confirmed that they’ll be testing this feature mainly because of its focus on environmental sustainability. Also, other companies such as Cloudflare, Duda, and similar have all added IndexNow integrations in recent months. No matter if you’re running a big or small website, this initiative will help you speed up SEO results and for many SEO professionals, this is a dream becoming a reality.
So, instead of having search bots randomly scan every single page on your website, if you add IndexNow in WordPress you’ll allow your website to simply ping the search engine and notify them about the changes you’ve made. This will also help you speed up and boost SEO on your website. All of that while helping the environment at the same time! However, keep in mind that IndexNow will not replace sitemaps. It should be used alongside them in order to gain a competitive advantage.
How to add IndexNow in WordPress?
Now that you know what IndexNow is and how adding it to your website is beneficial for you, search engines, and the environment, it’s time to learn how to add it in WordPress. Further in this article, we’ll explain two simple methods you can use.
#1 Add IndexNow in WordPress by using AIOSEO
One of the simplest ways to add IndexNow in WordPress is to use AIOSEO, a plugin that is currently used by over 3 million websites all over the world. It’s also the first WordPress SEO plugin to add IndexNow support for WordPress.
Once you download and install this plugin, go to AIOSEO then click on “Feature Manager” from your WordPress dashboard. This way, you’ll be able to enable the IndexNow feature. The best part is that once you’ve enabled it, you won’t have to do anything as IndexNow is automatically configured.
One of the biggest advantages of this plugin is that they’ve partnered with Microsoft to build this integration. By working together, they were able to make it beginner-friendly. What happens is that they automatically generate an IndexNow API key for your website and configure it for you without the need to do anything on your end.
If you want to verify this, you can simply go to AIOSEO, find “General Settings” and click on “Webmaster Tools”. There you’ll see the IndexNow icon and by clicking on it, you’ll find your API key. They couldn’t have made it simpler!
#2 Add IndexNow in WordPress by using the IndexNow plugin
Even though some WordPress SEO plugins have IndexNow support, most of them, unfortunately, don’t have it yet. So if you don’t want to use AIOSEO instead of your current SEO plugin, there is a different option to include IndexNow into your website.
To do this, you need to install and activate the IndexNow utility plugin. After you’ve successfully activated it, go to your WordPress dashboard, click on “Settings” and then on “IndexNow”. The next step is to simply click on the “Get Started Now” button. This will automatically generate your API key and configure everything without you having to do anything else. After everything is set, you’ll be able to see a screed with relevant IndexNow stats. For example, successful URL submissions and similar.
The bottom line
We hope our article helped you understand why you should add IndexNow in WordPress. As you can see, both methods we’ve explained are pretty simple. But why bother when an experienced team from wpfullcare.com can take care of everything for you? Whether you need to focus your attention on another aspect of your business or you simply want some time to sit back and relax, you can do so assured your WordPress website is in great hands.