What is an XML Sitemap, and why does your website need one?
An XML Sitemap is essentially the architectural map of your website, in which you can include and exclude certain pages in order for Search Engines like Google & Bing to crawl your website to identify important pages.
Don’t know if you have an XML Sitemap for your website already?
Go into any web browser, typing in www.yoursitename.com/sitemap.xml
It will either not exist, or it will already be up and informing Google of your most important pages, see why having too many irrelevant pages in your XML Sitemap can be detrimental to your Google Rankings here.
Don’t Have A Sitemap?
If you don’t see your Sitemap, don’t worry.
We’re about to create it right now!
For this to work, you’ll need to have a WordPress website. Which is one of the most popular Content Management Systems for blogs to date.
Creating A WordPress Websites Sitemap
Once you’re in your WordPress Dashboard, simply go down the left column to “Plugins” and click on “Add New”.
This will take you to a page where you can search for Plugins!
In the search bar type in “Yoast SEO”, click on Install & then Activate the plugin.
Once you have the plugin installed, you’ll look on the left side column again for “SEO” with the Icon as a “Y”.
Now click on the “Generate” button for the XML Sitemap, once it’s complete you can use the URL method from previously www.YourSiteName.com/Sitemap.XML and see if it has appeared!
You’ve Generated Your Sitemap Successfully
Congratulations, you’ve successfully created your XML Sitemap in less than 5 minutes.
The next step is to learn what to include or remove on your XML Sitemap.
Leave a comment if you have had any trouble with generating your XML Sitemap and I’d be glad to help!