If you’re building a website, getting it discovered by search engines is one of those things that’s easy to overlook.
I recently went through the process of setting up a website for Bing and wanted to document what I learned.
One thing worth clearing up first:
Getting indexed isn’t the same as ranking.
Indexing means Bing has discovered and included a page in its search index. Ranking is where that page appears for a particular search query. So before worrying about ranking, I first want to make sure Bing can actually discover, crawl and understand my website.
- Set up Bing Webmaster Tools
The first thing I’d do is add and verify the website in Bing Webmaster Tools.
This gives you access to information about how Bing interacts with your website and tools for checking indexing and technical SEO issues.
Once the site is verified, I can start checking how Bing sees the website.
- Submit the sitemap
Next, I’d submit the website’s XML sitemap.
A sitemap gives search engines a list of URLs that I want them to discover. It doesn’t guarantee that every URL will be indexed or ranked, but it gives Bing another way to discover the important pages on the website.
For many websites, the sitemap will be available at:
/sitemap.xml
- Inspect important URLs
After submitting the sitemap, I’d take some of the pages I actually care about and inspect them individually.
This helps answer questions like:
- Can Bing access the URL?
- Has Bing indexed it?
- Are there crawl or SEO issues?
- Is anything preventing the page from being properly understood?
This is important because there’s no point spending hours trying to improve the ranking of a page that search engines can’t properly access or index.
- Check the technical SEO
I’d then run a technical scan of the website and look for issues that could affect crawling or the overall quality of the site.
Things like broken links, missing metadata and other technical problems are worth investigating.
I wouldn’t blindly fix every warning, though. I’d look at what the issue actually means and whether it affects an important page.
- Make the page useful
This is where SEO becomes much more than submitting a sitemap.
If I want a particular page to rank for a search, I need to understand what someone searching that query actually wants.
I’d make sure the page:
- Clearly answers the searcher’s question
- Has a descriptive title
- Has a clear heading structure
- Covers the topic properly
- Uses relevant terminology naturally
- Links to other useful pages on the website
- Provides an actual reason for someone to stay on the page
I’m not trying to repeat a keyword 50 times. I’m trying to make the page the best answer I can reasonably provide.
- Build internal links
If I have other relevant pages on the website, I’d connect them with internal links.
This helps users navigate the website and gives search engines additional ways to discover pages and understand how the content is related.
- Work on authority
Finally, I’d think about authority.
Relevant links from other websites can help search engines understand that a site or page is being referenced elsewhere.
The goal isn’t to collect hundreds of random backlinks. I’d rather have a smaller number of relevant, legitimate references than a huge collection of links that have nothing to do with the website.
The complete process
So my basic process is:
Set up Bing Webmaster Tools → submit the sitemap → inspect important URLs → fix technical issues → create useful content → build internal links → work on relevant authority.
And one more important distinction:
None of these steps guarantees a #1 ranking.
They simply give Bing a website it can discover, crawl and understand while giving users useful content to find.
I also recorded the entire process as a full step-by-step video tutorial, including the Bing Webmaster Tools setup, sitemap submission, URL inspection and technical checks.
Watch the full walkthrough here:
https://youtu.be/5-M4QRLxX78?si=Otu6CgJK7jkOu-jK
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