Quite often I get asked the best way to get listed on Google or how to make sure that Google crawls each page of your website. Far and away the best way to get your website submitted to Google is by submitting a Google Sitemap.

A Google Sitemap is an XML file that you upload to your website and is used as a way to let Google know about the pages that make up your website. Any time that I create a new site I submit a sitemap to Google and have found that it's the most thorough method of getting majority of my pages indexed.

It's actually a very simple process to complete but obviously your first time is going to take a bit more time. The other thing is that it needs to be submitted in a certain way otherwise Google won't be able to read your sitemap.

Here's a snippet of the sitemap that I submit for MakeAWebsiteSpot.com:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<urlset xmlns='http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap/0.84'>

<url><loc>http://www.makeawebsitespot.com/about-me.htm</loc>

<lastmod>2008-05-08T17:36:00Z</lastmod>

<changefreq>weekly</changefreq>

<priority>1.0</priority></url>

<url><loc>http://www.makeawebsitespot.com/accept-.....ds-online.htm</loc>

<lastmod>2008-05-08T17:36:00Z</lastmod>

<changefreq>weekly</changefreq>

<priority>1.0</priority></url>
...

...

...

...
</urlset>

You'll be required to start the sitemap with the information in green above. Other than that the fields below are also required.

<loc> - URL of the web page.

<lastmod> - The date that the page was last modified.

<changefreq> - The frequency of how often the page is updated.

<priority> - A way to tell Google how important the page is with 1 being extremely important. The number then drop to 0 such as .75, .50, .25, etc.

You can get detailed information on Google Sitemaps by clicking here.

One thing to keep in mind that a Google Sitemap doesn't guarantee inclusion into their index nor does it guarantee any sort of ranking. These two pieces are really going to depend on the quality of your site and how much SEO you put into the website.

Lastly, even though you are telling Google where your pages are it will still take some time for them to get crawled so don't wonder why your site isn't showing up in a week.