How to Boost Your Site’s Crawlability and Indexability: Your 12 Step Guide

Question: When you think of the first visitors to your website, do you imagine them to be people from all walks of life interested in your product or service?

Trust us, you aren’t alone in thinking that they are potential customers – the reality is the first visitors to your site are actually search engine bots.

This is where many people get lost in comprehending an SEO strategy. One of the most fundamental aspects of search engine optimisation is often overlooked compared to reviewing title tags, meta descriptions, and URL structures. What is this essential element? It’s the ease at which search engines can locate and understand your site.

Indexing and crawling are not just technical terms. They are the lifelines of your website’s visibility in search results. If your site can’t be analysed, it cannot be indexed. And without being indexed, it won’t rank or appear in search engine result pages. The consequences of not being indexed are genuine, and as a business owner or marketer, you will want to address them immediately!

Below, we’ll uncover the essence of crawlability and indexing in SEO and provide the steps needed to make your website accessible for search engine bots.

What is Crawlability?

Crawlability is how easily search engine bots, like Google can discover and access your website’s pages.

It’s like providing a roadmap for search engine crawlers to explore your site efficiently. Good crawlability ensures your content can be found and indexed by search engines, improving the likelihood of ranking higher in SERPs.

There are 5 steps that your website will go through during this process and before ranking.

They include…

1. Locating
2. Crawling
3. Analysing
4. Indexing
5. Ranking

These steps ensure that the website pages crawled are bumped into the Google Index and are made discoverable for online users. It’s from this point onwards that you can begin to apply digital marketing strategies.

It’s important to note that the 5-step process only applies if your website’s robots.txt file, a file that tells search engine bots which pages to crawl and which not to, returns with no errors (we’ll get to this shortly).

What Is Indexability?

Indexability is a webpage’s ability to be located and added to search engine indexes. When steps 1, 2, and 3, as mentioned above, are completed, they will be integrated into the Google index. Only indexed pages can appear in organic search results.

How do I Know if my Website has been Crawled?

You can check this in Google Search Console if you have a verified domain. There are also a host of helpful tools which you can access on your website, including Ahrefs, Sitechecker, and the

Crawling report via Semrush’s Site Audit, which delivers an excellent analysis that includes page loading speed, crawl waste and budget, click depth (or crawl depth) and all crawled pages.

Pro tip: When it comes to the robots.txt file, do not prohibit CSS and JavaScript, as Google won’t be able to read your content as efficiently, which could lead to Google tagging your site pages as not mobile-friendly. Why should this matter? A mobile-friendly website is key to repeat visits, as per a report by Forbes, ‘Top Website Statistics For 2024,‘ which states that 74% of online users are likely to return.

How do I Know if my Website has been Indexed?

Pages indexed will rank in search results. In some instances, this process doesn’t happen automatically. From time to time, check in on your website indexing. Old web pages should still be searchable, while new site pages should be added to the index.

When your website grows, so should the number of indexed pages.

Remember that Google can ignore webpages for several reasons, some being…

• Copies of webpages
• WebP formatted images
• Pages that are not mobile-friendly.

Pro tip: Use the Google Search Console inspection tool to review each webpage.

12 Steps to Get Your Website Ranking

Now for the fun part of this blog – the steps you need to take to get your website crawled and indexed.

There are heaps of online guides, tutorials, and tips to explore more ways to optimise your website; while these digital strategies will not deliver identical results for every business, they are worth implementing.

1. Robots.txt

A robots.txt file is a website’s guide for search engine crawlers, telling them which pages to visit and which to avoid. It helps manage website traffic and stops search engines from indexing unwanted content, such as login pages and shopping carts.

Common issues to the robots.txt file can be…

• No Sitemap URL
• Blocked images
• Blocked stylesheets
• Blocked scripts
• Noindex present in robots.txt
• Robots.txt is not present in the root directory

Pro tip: Want to see the robots.txt file of any website? Use the following: site.com/robots.txt, for example: yourwebsitehere.com/robots.txt

2. Page Loading Speed

Did you know 83% of online users expect websites to load in 3 seconds or less? [WebFX] That means that loading speed is one of the make-or-break factors for keeping customers engaged and returning to your website and is vital to crawlability.

Improve your page loading speed by…

• Deleting unnecessary third-party plugins
• Upgrade your server or hosting plan
• Reduce redirects and remove unnecessary ones
• Improve website speed by storing frequently used files directly on users’ devices through browser caching
• Compress your CSS, JavaScript, and HTML files to speed up page load times
• Enhance image load times by compressing images and choosing the correct format (JPEG for photos, PNG for graphics with transparency)

3. Structured Data

Structured data is a code language that helps search engines understand your website content better, potentially boosting your search visibility through rich snippets and improved indexing.

Here are the most common forms of structured data…

• Microdata embeds structured data directly into your HTML code.
• JSON-LD is a coding method that adds structured data directly to a webpage.
• Schema.org is a joint venture by Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Yandex!, which provides a shared vocabulary for marking up your website’s content, making it easier for search engines to understand.

How Do I Implement Structured Data on my Website?

1. Determine the type of content on your webpage (event, blog, product, etc.) and choose the best schema for it.
2. Use the chosen schema’s vocabulary to highlight key details in your content, including all necessary properties in the correct format.
3. Utilise tools like Google’s Rich Results Test or Schema.org’s Validator to ensure your code works flawlessly.
4. Monitor Google Search Console’s Rich Results report to see if your pages are eligible for rich snippets and pinpoint any issues with your implementation.

Pro tip: Content such as articles, blogs, products, events, recipes, profiles, and reviews can all show improvements with structured data.

4. Core Web Vitals

Review your Core Web Vitals by checking the 3 most significant components.

1. LCP (largest content paint) measures the time it takes for the largest content element above the fold to become visible, which should happen within 2.5 seconds of the webpage loading.
2. INP (interactive to next paint) measures the responsiveness of a page after it becomes interactive. Aim for an INP of below 200 milliseconds.
3. CLS (cumulative layout shift) measures the visual stability of a page, quantifying unexpected layout shifts. The ideal CLS score is less than 0.1.

Pro tip: Bring to the attention of your developer or SEO agency if you spot any errors. Use Lighthouse or Google’s Page Speed Insights to stay updated regarding the quality of your website and provide you with suggestions on how to improve it.

5. Redirects

Redirects are a common outcome of websites that continue to grow, guiding online users to updated pages. However, improper use can hurt your indexing.

A common issue is redirect chains, where multiple redirects happen before reaching the final destination. Google is not a fan of these or redirect loops, where pages ping-pong back and forth endlessly.

Pro tip: Use Semrush Site Audit to find all redirects; a report will suggest how to fix these issues; alternatively, use Screaming Frog Crawler.

6. Internal Links

By strategically linking related content, you improve website navigation, distribute link equity, and help search engines uncover new pages.

Poor internal linking can create orphan pages (a page on your website with no internal links pointing to it), restricting search engine discovery. Build a streamlined website structure with logical connections between pages.

Pro tip: Use descriptive anchor text for links and maintain a balanced link count on each page. Always use ‘follow‘ links for internal connections.

7. Broken Links

Broken links negatively impact both search engine crawling and user experience. Check your website for broken links using tools like Google Analytics, Broken Link Checker or Dead Link Checker. Manage these issues by redirecting, updating, or removing the broken links (404 errors) to maintain a healthy website.

8. Sitemap Submission

A sitemap is a file that lists all the pages on a website and is part of a root directory.

Google generally crawls your website, but you’ll lose valuable time implementing SEO practices, including relevant keywords, alt text, meta descriptions, etc. So, we highly recommend submitting your sitemap to Google. This is even more important if you’ve included new pricing, services, products, or a blog and want Google to recognise it ASAP. It is also advantageous for indexability, allowing Google to analyse several pages simultaneously. Bots may have to crawl a number of pages or links to unearth deep web pages. By submitting an XML sitemap, bots can source all your site pages with a single check-in with your sitemap file.

Pro tip: If you use a CMS (content management system) for your website, try All-In-One SEO plugin or Yoast SEO to develop or update your sitemap. If you have a sitemap, you can see it by utilising the following link: site.com/sitemap.xml, for example, yourwebsitehere.com/sitemap.xml.

9. Canonical Tags

Canonical tags help search engines understand which version of a page is most important. Establishing a preferred URL stops duplicate content issues and improves your site’s visibility.

Canonical tags can be misapplied. Outdated or incorrect tags can confuse search engines, leading to poor rankings. Regularly audit your site for rogue canonical tags to sustain website performance.

Inspect your URLs using an inspection tool such as SEOptimer or SEO Site Checkup.

Pro tip: For businesses that aim to attract traffic worldwide, it is crucial to implement language-specific canonical tags. This means that search engines deliver the correct content to online users based on their location and their language preferences.

10. IndexNow

IndexNow is an innovative tool that enables website owners to rapidly update search engines about content changes. By instantly notifying search engines of new, updated, or removed pages, IndexNow speeds up the indexing process.

Maximise its benefits by focusing on substantial content updates that add value to your website. These could be product launches, pricing structures, breaking news, or data changes.

Want to see optimal results? Integrate IndexNow into your CMS. If manual submission is necessary, prioritise high-quality updates and ensure content is published online before making any submissions.

11. Crawl Budget

Google has a limited ability to crawl websites, which is known as a crawl budget. To guarantee your most important pages are prioritised, optimise your website’s structure, remove duplicate content, and use tools like robots.txt and canonicalisation effectively. Keep an eye on your stats in Google Search Console to spot any highs and lows in crawl activity, which may point to possible issues within your website. Lastly, make time to submit your sitemap regularly and ensure that Google always has the latest information regarding your web pages.

Pro tip: If you think there are crawlability issues, you may want to look at your server’s crawl logs. This bit is quite technical, but the data doesn’t lie and provides invaluable insights. To access your log files (access.log), head to your web server through the FTP (file transfer protocol) – FileZilla is helpful. Log files can be sourced from the “/logs/” or “/access_log/” folder, and you can begin pulling data from them. JetOctopus, Oncrawl Log Analyser, and SEMrush Log File Analyser are excellent at transforming log file data into user-friendly reports.

12. Site Audit

If you’ve run through all the steps above and still want a final overview encompassing every aspect of SEO, from on-page to off-page and technical SEO, the next step will be to run an audit. An SEO audit will highlight what is working, what needs fixing, and what may need more attention regarding your website. It helps streamline your marketing efforts and places you in front of online users looking for your product or service.

Building a Strong Foundation for Long-Term Growth

You’ve probably heard the saying: ‘SEO is a marathon, not a sprint to the finish‘. Strategies like these enable you to gain insight into your website’s performance and functionality and pave the way for a robust, streamlined plan of action that you can continue to apply and adjust over time to deliver the best results for your business.

Want a roadmap to SEO success? Discover how Found’s long-term strategies can deliver sustainable results. Contact us today!