How Do You Upload Html Verification File To Wordpress

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is essential for getting your WordPress website the traffic it deserves.

SEO has go such an integral role of creating a successful site that today there's an entire industry of agencies and specialists defended to helping businesses improve their SEO.

If your website is going to reach the widest possible audience, then you need SEO, and the kickoff stride to boosting your website'south search engine performance is registering it with the Google Search Panel.

Once yous've added your WordPress website to the gratis Google panel, yous'll have access to all the tools yous need to monitor, analyze and optimize your site'due south search engine rankings, making this panel essential for fine-tuning your website's SEO.

In this article, I'll cover two ways that you tin can register your website with the Google Search Console: uploading a Google HTML verification file to your WordPress business relationship, and re-create/pasting some code into your website's homepage. Regardless of how you're hosting your WordPress website, by the cease of this article you tin be confident that Google volition have no problems finding, crawling and indexing your site.

What Tin I Do With the Google Search Console?

Google'southward Search Console provides a range of tools that you tin can utilise to scrutinize and improve your website's overall search engine performance.

In one case y'all've registered your website with this panel, you'll be able to:

Optimize your content. Yous tin can identify the queries that are driving traffic to your website, and so fine-melody your content to capitalize on the most lucrative search terms.
Register new webpages. You can use the URL Inspection tool to ensure that Google has admission to whatsoever new webpages you add to your website. Past using the Console, you can start driving traffic to your new pages every bit soon as they're live.
Review your index coverage. This tool allows yous to ensure that Google is looking at the about recent version of your website.
Identify and gear up any bug. The Google Search Console will email you about whatever security or indexing issues it discovers, so you tin can resolve these issues earlier they commencement to have a negative impact on your search engine performance.

For a more in-depth look at all the tools that are available as office of the Google Search Panel, check out the console's official documentation.

Register Your Website With Google

In this department, I'll show y'all how to register with the Google Search Console by uploading an HTML file to your website's root directory. The verbal steps may vary, depending on your hosting provider and how your website is set upwards, so if y'all're struggling to add this file to your website, skip ahead to the post-obit section, where we'll be exploring an culling method of registering with the Google Search Panel.

How to Create a Google HTML Verification File

The first step is to generate an HTML verification file for our website:

Head over to the Google Search Console and select Start now.
When prompted, enter the username and password for your Gmail business relationship.

At this betoken, you can verify your website using either its domain name or URL prefix. At the time of writing,Domain name only supported DNS verification, so opt for URL prefix. Enter your website'south URL, and then click Proceed.

When registering your WordPress website you can choose between Domain name and URL prefix

Click to expand the HTML File section, and and then click the Download this file button. The HTML file volition now exist downloaded to your local machine.

Uploading Your HTML File to WordPress

Side by side, we demand to upload our HTML file using an FTP client.

There are plenty of FTP clients on the market, but I'll be using the free FileZilla application, which is available for macOS, Linux, and Windows. If you lot don't already have FileZilla, then caput over to the FileZilla website and download the latest version.

Launch FileZilla and enter your FTP username and password, which should have been included in your welcome email when you signed up for your WordPress hosting business relationship. Alternatively, if you're using cPanel, then you'll observe your FTP account data in the cPanel dashboard.

Once FileZilla has successfully connected to your server, select File > Site Manager... from FileZilla's toolbar. If y'all're connecting FileZilla to your WordPress website for the commencement time, so select the New Site button.

In the subsequent form, provide the Host, which is typically your website's domain proper noun.

There are multiple FTP clients on the market but Im using FileZilla which is free to download

Open the Protocol dropdown and select SFTP.
Open the Logon Type field and select Normal.
Enter your FTP username and password when prompted.

When you're happy with the information you've entered, click Go along and FileZilla will open a new FTP connectedness.

If this is the starting time time connecting to your website from this computer, then FileZilla may display an Unknown certificate popup. Select the Always trust document for future sessions checkbox, and then click OK.

FileZilla will now connect to your website using the provided credentials. Once FileZilla has connected successfully, you'll see a list of all your site'south files and folders in a new Remote column.

Yous now need to identify the HTML file in your website's root directory. This directory is ofttimes the /public_html/ folder, although the directory proper name can vary depending on your hosting provider—for example, it might be labelled wwwroot or wordpress. You lot tin often locate the root directory by clicking to expand the / directory and then double-clicking the first directory that appears.

Once yous're inside the root directory, you're ready to upload your HTML file. FileZilla'southward Local column displays all the files on your computer, then navigate to your HTML file, Command-click it, and then select Upload. This HTML file volition now be uploaded to your WordPress account.

Moving-picture show dorsum to the Google Search Console tab and click the Verify button. Afterward a few moments, you should see an Ownership Verified bulletin.

If you head back to the Google Search Console, then you should at present accept admission to various tools that you can apply to analyze and optimize your website'southward SEO performance.

You can analyze your websites performance using the various Google Search Console tools

HTML Tags: How to Add together Your Site to the Google Search Console

Alternatively, you tin can register your site with the Google Search Console, by copy/pasting some HTML into your website's header:

Caput over to the Google Search Console and select Offset now.
Enter your Gmail username and countersign.
Select URL prefix and and then enter your website'southward URL. Click Continue.
Click to aggrandize the HTML tag department.
You should now have access to a meta tag that yous can copy/paste into your website's header. Click the Copy button to get started.

Next, you need to verify that you own your website by pasting the HTML tag into WordPress. To make this process every bit painless as possible, I'll exist getting some help from the Insert Headers and Footers plugin:

In a new tab, log in to your WordPress business relationship.
In WordPress's left-hand carte du jour, navigate to Plugins > Add New.
Search for the Insert Headers and Footers plugin, and when it appears, click Install At present. Activate this plugin when prompted.
In WordPress's left-hand bill of fare, select Settings > Insert Headers and Footers.
Paste your HTML tag into the Scripts in Header box, and then click Save.

Copypaste the Google Search Consoles HTML tag into the Scripts in Header box

Flick back to your Google Search Panel tab, and click the Verify button. After a few moments, you should see an Buying Verified message.
Click Get to Belongings.

Y'all should now exist viewing the Google Search Console dashboard for your website.

Are You Using the Yoast SEO Plugin?

If yous're using the popular Yoast SEO plugin, then you tin can help Google discover and index your website's content past uploading an XML sitemap. This XML file supplies Google with a list of all your site'southward content, in a machine-readable format:

In WordPress's left-hand bill of fare, select SEO > General, and then select the Features tab.

Find the XML sitemaps slider and push it into the On position

Notice the XML sitemaps section and push button its slider into the On position. And so click the slider'southward accompanyingquestion mark icon.

Select the See the XML sitemap link, and WordPress should open this link in a new tab. Copy the tab's URL.

If you oasis't already, open the Google Search Console, click the menu icon in the upper-left corner, and then select your website. You should now be viewing the Google Search Panel dashboard.

In the Console'south left-hand menu, select Sitemaps. Observe the Add a new sitemap section, and paste the terminal function of your sitemap's URL into the accompanying text field to create the complete sitemap URL.

Copypaste your sitemaps URL into the Add a new sitemap field

Click Submit, and Google volition now add together the sitemap URL to your Google Search Console, meaning that Google will get-go receiving your website's content in a handy machine-readable format.

Decision

In this tutorial, I showed you how to drive more people to your WordPress website past registering with the Google Search Console. If you've been following along, then you should at present be receiving information in the Panel dashboard, and you can start using this data to fine-tune your website's search engine performance.

Want to ensure your website is reaching as many people equally possible? We have a broad range of WordPress plugins that are designed to help heave your SEO, climb those Google search rankings, and generally get more than eyes on your WordPress website.

Special Discount for WordPress Hosting

If you're looking for a host for your WordPress site, check out SiteGround. It comes with an piece of cake installer, free support, and automatic updates. We're happy to be able to offer a huge discount of 70% off self-managed WordPress hosting, thank you to our partnership with SiteGround.

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Jessica Thornsby

Jessica Thornsby is a technical writer based in Sheffield. She writes about Android, Eclipse, Coffee, and all things open source. She is the co-author of iWork: The Missing Manual, and the author of Android UI Design.