As the name implies, an XML sitemap is a business website roadmap that takes Google to all the important pages of your website. It’s a powerful tool and also underrated. A little training and knowledge about this tool will be of great help. You need to understand the usefulness and importance of guiding your business in the right direction.

What is an XML Sitemap?

XML sitemaps are great for SEO and help Google rank your site in the first few pages of search results. An important thing to keep in mind here is that SEO makes it easier for Google to find a web page because it ranks both the web page and the website. Sometimes you want Google to search every page of your site, but the internal links aren’t complete and hard to find. In this case, the XML sitemap contains all the important pages, so Google can easily find the pages. This allows Google to crawl all web pages without losing important information. 

Sitemaps are specially written for search engines, not for humans. So, it would be hard for us to understand if not seen before.

Why Sitemap is Required?

Search engines use crawlers to search and index all information on the web. Use internal and external links to detect new content as you crawl the page.

However, if the new web page is not linked to another known page, the crawler will have difficulty finding the new page on the web page and will delay the indexing process.

This is where the site map comes in.

Not only does the site map contain a lot of valuable links, but it also helps searchers find new information quickly. If you send the XML sitemap file to Google, you’ll see that all the new posts/pages you publish are available somewhere in your Google search results (after a few minutes). This is due to the sitemap file.

Google officially told when a webmaster needs a sitemap:

• Your website is really large
• Your website is brand new and has few external links pointing to it
• You don’t build internal links

How to create an XML sitemap?

1. Creating a sitemap in WordPress

Various WordPress plugins are available that allow you to create XML sitemaps, such as Yoast SEO and Rank Math SEO.

Create a sitemap using Yoast SEO

• From the WordPress admin panel, go to Plugins> Add New and search for “Yoast SEO”.
• Once enabled, go to SEO> General> Features. Click the Question icon to view the site map URL.

Create a sitemap using Rank Math SEO

• Log in to your WordPress dashboard and go to Plugins> Add New.
• Search for “Rank Math” and install it.
• After activation, go to Rank Math> Sitemap Settings.
• From there, you can set the number of links you need for each sitemap page, exclude URLs, images in posts, and more.
• At the top you will see a sitemap-URL similar to the following:

“https://www.website.com/sitemap_index.xml”

2. Creating a sitemap without a CMS

In this case, Screaming Frog is a great option. Screaming Frog is a desktop application (available on Windows and Mac) that crawls websites. The software has a premium version and a free version.

If your website URL is less than 500, you can use the free version of ScreamingFrog to generate a sitemap.

Create a sitemap using ScreamingFrog:

• After downloading and installing, open the software on your computer.
• Enter the URL of your website at the top of the screen and click Start.
• The website crawl will start and may take a few minutes to complete.
• When the crawl is complete, check the crawled page.
• If the number is less than 500, you are ready. Click the top of the Site Map> XML Site Map menu.
• You can also include the options you need in your sitemap file, such as non-indexed pages, last modified dates, paginated URLs, PDF files, and images.
• Click the Export button to save the file to your computer.
• You are ready to use the XML sitemap file.

Create a Sitemap in Wix

• If you use Wix, you don’t need to manually create a sitemap.
• Wix does this automatically.
• You can view the sitemap file at “your-wix-site.com/sitemap.xml”.
• However, Wix doesn’t give you much control over your sitemap.
• If you want to exclude a page from your sitemap, go to the SEO (Google) tab in your page settings and uncheck Show this page in search results.

Create a Sitemap in Shopify

• Shopify will automatically generate an XML sitemap file. You can view the sitemap file by visiting “yourwebsite.com/sitemap.xml”.
• The generated sitemap contains all products, collections, blogs, and web pages. The sitemap file is automatically updated as changes are made.

How To Submit An XML Sitemap?

• You need to link your Google Search Console account to your website.
• Once connected, sign in to your Google Search Console account and select your website.
• Click the site map on the dashboard.
• The Add New Site Map option is displayed. Enter the sitemap URL in the blank field and press the Submit button.