Verify & Submit Your Website to Google

When you submit your sitemap to Google and verify your website ownership to them, this allows you to access their various webmaster tools on Google Search Console. These tools allow you to:

• Track how your website is performing in search.
• Discover which keywords your website is showing up for.
• Analyze your traffic data for each search engine.
• Find out about other websites that link back to yours.
• Get alerts for any broken links on your website.

Follow the steps below on submitting and verifying your site with the biggest search engines on the web:

1. Navigate to Google Search Console.

2. It will ask you to login or create a Google account (email address ending in @gmail.com). After you login, you will be taken to the Google Search Console or it will ask you to navigate to it.

3. Here you have the option to 'select property type'. Please select "URL prefix" and copy and paste the URL of your website's home page, including the https://

4. Scroll down and select HTML tag to expand the menu.

5. Copy the code inside the quotation marks as seen below.

6. Without closing this window, go to your dashboard in a new window or tab. Select the Settings icon in the gray navigation bar and then select SEO under the Settings header.

7. Paste the meta tag into the "Google site verification code" field box (right-click and then paste or CMD-V on Mac & CTRL-V on PC).

8. Refresh the page to parse out the actual code (CMD-R on Mac & CTRL-R on PC).

9. Select the green Publish button.

10. Return to the Google Search Console tab and select “Verify” on the screen where you copied the HTML code snippet.

Your website ownership is now verified for Google and you will have access to Google Webmaster Tools.