How your blog gets found

Your blog is set up to be found from the first post. There's nothing to install or configure.

What's already done for you

• A sitemap at /sitemap.xml lists every post and page, with each post's video, thumbnail and length, so Google can show your posts in video results.
• Structured data on every post tells search engines it's an article from your blog, credits you as the author, links your YouTube channel and social profiles, and describes the video.
• Instant notice to Bing and others. When a post or page goes live, changes or comes down, Bing, Yandex, Seznam and Naver are told right away through IndexNow, so they don't wait to recrawl. (Google doesn't use IndexNow; it reads your sitemap.) Your blog's key is at /indexnow.txt; there's nothing to set up.
• An RSS feed at /rss.xml for feed readers and newsletter tools.
• /llms.txt, a plain-text summary of your blog for AI assistants and AI search, so they can find and cite the right post.
• Links between your posts. New posts link to older ones on the same subject, and older posts get a link to the new one when it goes live.
• One address per post. With a custom domain, every page points search engines at your domain, so your blog's address doesn't split your rankings.

The one step worth doing: Google Search Console

Search Console tells Google your blog exists and shows which searches bring readers. It's free and takes about 10 minutes.

1. Go to search.google.com/search-console and add your blog's address as a URL prefix property (for example https://yourchannel.videotoblog.com, or your custom domain).
2. Choose the HTML tag verification method, copy the tag, and paste it in VideoToBlog under Blog, then Settings, then Analytics, in Google Search Console verification. Click Save, then Verify in Search Console. (On a custom domain you can use the DNS record option instead.)
3. Open Sitemaps, enter sitemap.xml, and click Submit.

New posts are picked up from the sitemap from then on. Expect a few days to a few weeks before posts show up in search, longer for a brand-new blog.

Helping it along

• Put the post's link in your video description. Viewers who'd rather read find it, and it's a link to your blog from a site Google visits constantly. Copy it from the post's page in your dashboard.
• Check your voice notes under Blog, then Settings, so posts sound like you. Original details, like your ratings and prices, are what search and AI answers quote.