How to Submit Your Blog to Search Engines

Getting your blog noticed, and drawing in a few of those elusive visitors, is much easier if you are being indexed by the main search engines. Here's how to submit your blog to search engines.

Google

Google is by far the most popular search engine, and the most important place to have your blog listed. In order to submit your blog to Google, you will need to have a Google account; you can set up a free Google account and email address, which you can then use to access their extensive set of webmaster tools. To submit your site, log in to the Google webmaster tools and select the option to 'Add a site'. Follow the instructions and add the URL of your blog. Google will ask you to verify that you are the owner of the site by adding a small file or Meta tag to your blog. Once you have done this, follow the steps to verify that your blog has been recognised. Next, click on the 'Add sitemap' option. If you wish, you can use one of the many free tools available online to create a sitemap of your blog, but an easier way to create a sitemap is to simply paste the URL of your RSS feed as the sitemap location.

Yahoo

Yahoo allows you to sign in to their webmaster tools with your Google account, if you don't already have a Yahoo account. In much the same way as Google, Yahoo allows you to submit the URL of your blog, and asks you to verify ownership by placing a file or small piece of code on your blog. You can then add your sitemap, or RSS feed, through the sidebar menu.

Bing

Bing is Microsoft's own search engine, and you can sign in to their webmaster tools using your Microsoft, Hotmail, or Live account. If you don't already have an account, you can set one up for free. Submit your site in the same way as you would for Google or Yahoo, and verify ownership by placing the code on your blog. Choose the 'Crawl' menu to submit your sitemap.

Aside from the largest search engines, also consider submitting to these growing search sites: DuckDuckGo.com, Ask.com, and Teoma.com. If you do not have time to complete submissions yourself, consider outsourcing the work to a search engine optimization company, or using a submission software; however, manual submission is always preferable to insure acceptance of your blog.