For years, Google has been the leader in search engine technology and has dominated the industry like no other company. While Bing and a few lesser-known rivals are making inroads, search remains the domain of Google. As a result, anyone that hosts a website is naturally interested in doing well in Google’s search results. Here are five simple ways to get your site listed on Google pronto.

Submit Your URL to Google

The easiest way to kick-start the indexing process is to submit your URL to Google. They’ll index your site sooner or later anyway even if you don’t submit it. Furthermore, it’s always wise to sign up for a Google Webmaster Tools account and verify that your website belongs to you. From here, you can use the various capabilities of Webmaster Tools to improve your site’s standing.

Include a Robots.txt File

Another simple way to ensure that your site and its content are featured in the organic SERPs is by using a robots.txt file. These simple text files are stored in the root directory of a site’s file hierarchy and explicitly tell Google’s spiders to index that site. It’s quite easy to add a robots.txt file to your site regardless of the CMS software that you’re using.

Publish an XML Sitemap

In addition to a robots.txt file, an XML Sitemap is an indispensable tool in the fight to gain wider recognition for a web domain. XML Sitemaps are merely directories of all of the pages contained within any given site. They’re incredibly easy to create and require no special software to produce. Just be sure to submit Sitemaps that follow Google’s preferred format and you should be fine.

Syndicate Your Most Recent Content

If you’re like most webmasters, you regularly update your site’s blog with fresh content. That content can greatly improve your odds of ranking highly for various search queries if other people link to it. Broadcasting the publication of new content to the broader web through syndication is the best way to spread the word. You can use an RSS feed or specialty services like Outbrain to syndicate content.

Flesh Out a Google+ Profile

It’s no secret that Google has been aggressively pushing its social media platform Google+ in recent years. Nowadays, sites and businesses with Google+ Pages actually stand a better chance of ranking well in the SERPs. Be sure to claim your Google+ Page and populate it with information about your site or business as well as links to your other social media profiles like Facebook and Twitter.

Jump-Start Your Visibility

The aforementioned tips are easily the most productive tactics that can be used to quickly establish a site within Google’s index. However, they’re just the tip of the iceberg. Additionally, you can make use of Google Authorship as well as Rich Snippets to boost your profile if your marketing strategy relies heavily on content. In any event, these techniques should get you off to a good start.