How To Get Your Content Indexed And Ranked Quickly In Google Search

In this day and age, we all want things right away.

Nobody has the patience to wait for anything and getting traffic to new web pages is no exception.

A question asked by nearly all webmasters is: how long will it take for my site to show up in Google?

Many questions like this in the SEO-world do not have a straightforward answer; it always seems to depend.

Well, unfortunately, this is also one of those “it depends” situations. Luckily, there are some things we can look at to get a rough idea of how long it will take for your web pages to be indexed and ranked by Google.

The Difference Between Indexing and Ranking

To some, these are thought of as the same thing. They definitely are not the same.

The difference between indexing and ranking the two is simple: Indexing is when Google’s bots recognize your web page and scan it.

Ranking is when Google decides your content is worthy enough to be placed in their search engine results pages.

Of course, if your site is on page 20 of the search results, it is technically ranked but it won’t be much use there.

When we talk about how long it takes for a site to be ranked, we generally want to know how long it would take to reach the first page, assuming your content is worthy.

Unless your website is brand new, it is likely that Google has indexed it and it is capable of appearing in the search engine results.

A quick way to check to see if your site is indexed is to open up Google and type site:yourdomain.com.

If Google’s bots have crawled your website, it will appear in the results for this query.

How Long does it Take for Google to Index a Site?

Indexing is the first part of the equation; if a site is not indexed, the content on it can’t be ranked. Luckily, the indexing part is the fastest.

In most cases, it will only take a matter of a few days for Google to index a brand new website. It can even be done within 24 hours. It is not always consistent, though.

Sometimes, my new sites are indexed on the same day. Sometimes, it takes over a week.

The key thing to remember is that if you just started a brand new blog, it doesn’t matter. These early stages should be focused on building. Analyzing the trickles of traffic you might get is unnecessary.

6 Ways To Get Your Blog Content Indexed Faster

There are a few ways you can get your blog content indexed faster in Google Search even if it’s a brand new blog.

Create a Google Search Console Account

Google Search Console (previously known as Google Webmaster Tools) is the main search dashboard that tells you how Google is interacting with your site, how frequently it is indexing. your content, whether there are any crawl errors on your site, and other useful information. 

Whenever you start a new site, make sure you add it to your search console account. This notified Google about your site and increases its chances of getting indexed faster.

Submit an XML Sitemap To Google Search Console

Another important thing to do after signing up for Google Search Console is to submit your site’s XML sitemap. An XML sitemap tells search engines about the structure of your site and all pages in it.

There are dozens of XML sitemap WordPress plugins that you can use to create a sitemap. If you have the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin, you already have a sitemap.

Just go to your Search Console account and submit your sitemap.

In most cases, your sitemap URL is simple yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml.

Manually Request Indexing From Search Console

Instead of waiting for Google to index your content, you can manually request indexing through Google Serch Console.

Just sign in to your Search Console account, enter your URL in the search bar to check its indexing status.

Since your URL is not indexed yet, this is what Google will tell you.

Simply click on Request Indexing to get your URL indexed.

However, wait for at least 24 hours after requesting indexing. Repeatedly requesting this can delay indexing.

Use FAQ Schema Markup On Your Page

This is one of my favorite ways to instantly get my content indexed. Seriously, even if you’ve just published an article on a brand new site, it’ll get indexed in a matter of minutes if you add the Schema markup code to it.

I’ve tried this on multiple sites and it works 99% of the time.

Here’s how to do it.

• Create a list of 5-6 FAQs that are relevant to the content of your page. 
• Enter them in this FAQ schema generator. 
• Copy the HTML script to the header code of your page.
• Publish your page.
• Go to Google Search Console and request indexing the same way I described in the last point.

That’s it.

In 99% of cases, your page will be indexed within minutes.

Share Your Content On Social Media

Sharing your newly published content on different social networks also accelerates the indexing process.

Google Search does keep a close eye on a page’s social signals even though most social networks do not allow do-follow links.

There’s no harm in trying it. 

Add Internal Links From Your High Ranking Pages

This is another proven way to get your content indexed pretty fast.

If you already have a blog, add internal links to your new page from the pages of your site that are already indexed in Google Search.

Build a Few High Quality Backlinks

High quality backlinks pointing to your domain can go a long way when it comes having your website indexed by Google.

When search engines crawl the web, they follow links to discover new pages and websites. Getting backlinks from reputable websites makes it easier for Google to find your website (and to index it faster).

It’s important to mention that not all backlinks are created equal. Backlinks from low quality spammy websites not only do not bring the same value, they might even harm your rankings. If you want a solid SEO foundation for your website, invest in high-quality backlinks from high-authority websites.

How Long Does It Take for a Site to Rank on Google?

This one is where the big “it depends” comes into play. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to give an exact timeframe since there are numerous factors at play and each niche is likely to be very different.

For example, a page is able to rank on Google much more quickly if it is targeting keywords with little to no competition.

On the other hand, an article in a highly competitive niche on a relatively new website is going to take much longer.

In more specific terms, the time your site takes to rank for a keyword in the top 10 depends on

• The domain authority of your site
• The quality of your content
• The quality of your On-Page SEO
• The domain authority of the other sites that are currently ranking for the keyword
• The number of backlinks pointing to the sites currently ranking
• The quality and length of the content that’s currently ranking
• The On-Page SEO quality of the pages currently ranking

To get a better idea of how long it will take you to rank, follow these steps.

• Analyze the Domain Authority of the top 10 ranking pages
• Find the average word count of the top 10 pages by adding the word count of all the pages and dividing them by 10.
• Find the average number of images on the first page results.
• Find the average number of backlinks pointing to each result on the first page (you’ll need to use Ahrefs, Ubersuggest or SEMRush for this)
• Analyze the overall on-page SEO and keyword usage on the top-ranking pages, and identify any potential opportunities where you can optimize better.

How quickly you can rank in the top 10 results would depend on how fast you can create content that is better in every aspect than your competitors.

Look at each point in the list I’ve shared and ask yourself how long you’d take to get ahead of your competitors.

If you are hoping to reach the very top of the search results, you are probably going to have to play the waiting game.

A recent study observed the average age for pages in the top 10 ranking spots is 2+ years old and only 22% of the results in the top 10 were less than a year old.

The study linked above also showed that only 5.7% of pages reach the top 10 in Google’s SERPs within one year and the ones that did, made it there in 2-6 months.

Pages on older, higher-authority domains also seem to rank faster than new domains, which makes sense as older domains are more likely to have a stronger link profile than the new ones.

For new sites, a timeframe that many experts state is 6-8 months.

This seems to be the average amount of time it takes for a new page on a relatively new domain to reach it’s potential in terms of Google rankings and organic traffic.

How to Make a Page Rank Faster on Google

To break into the top 10 results, and get your content ranked as fast as possible, your job is simple.

• Create content that is significantly better than the pages currently ranking in the top 10 both in terms of word count and quality. For example, if the average word count of the top-ranking pages in 1000, you should create a page on the same topic that’s at least 4000 words long.
• Look at the topics your competitors haven’t discussed, but should have, and include them in your page.
• Add more images, screenshots, videos, and multimedia than your competitors.
• Add more internal and external links
• Optimize your content better by using all the best practices of On-Page SEO, using multiple sub-headings with your primary, secondary, and related keywords.
• After that, the biggest factor is the backlinks. You need to get more backlinks than competitors from higher authority sources.

Doing all this takes time, which means you’ll need to be patient and work hard without expecting immediate results.

There are certain black hat methods that could be used to make a page rank more quickly, but they put you at real risk of being hit by penalties so it’s best to avoid them.

While there aren’t a huge number of ways to make Google rank your site more quickly, there are some steps you can take to ensure it is ranked as quickly as it can be:

• Write excellent-quality content
• Improve page speed and user experience
• Target lower competition keywords
• Build good quality links to your website

Out of the above, I would argue that the biggest increase in ranking speed would be likely to come from building a good link profile to your website.

A couple of strong backlinks from some guest posts should provide some signals for Google to bump your site up in their rankings.

Final Thought on Google Indexing and Ranking

Building websites is not for people looking for instant gratification and results; patience is key, especially for new site owners.

You can’t expect to rank above huge, well-known and trusted websites from day one.

All you can do is concentrate on building the best website you can to increase your chances of ranking as fast and high as possible.

In fact, I would suggest using your time to create even more content and doing a bit of link building instead of sitting around and waiting for your current pages to be ranked.