What is XML Sitemap?
To dive right in, an XML sitemap is a roadmap the leads to all of the important pages on your website. It works as a guide that leads Google to all of the main content on a website, so that people find it easier to find what they’re searching for when using search engines.
What Does it do?
A significant amount of your ranking in search engines is dependent on Google crawling every page of your website, which is why XML sitemaps can be so important as they list all of the URLs for your site. It also allows webmasters to include additional information about each URL such as:
- When it was last updated.
- How frequently it changes.
- How important it is in relation to other URLs in the site.
This is necessary if you want your website to be found by other people as bots are constantly looking for information which enables them to update their search indexes.
Benefits of Using an XML Sitemap
You stand more to gain than lose by using an XML sitemap. You’ll find some specific benefits of using a sitemap and things that you stand to gain below.
- Your sitemap can list all URLs from your site.
- It’s a chance to give search engines priority information.
- You can pass on temporal information like when a page is likely to change.
- It’s a relatively fast way to get indexed by Google.
Who Needs an XML Sitemap?
There are several categories of websites that Google feels a sitemap may be beneficial to. Some of them include:
- Websites that are relatively large.
- Websites with somewhat large
- New websites that only have a few external linksHyperlinks, also known as links, are the connection points on a webpage that take you to other webpages..
- Websites that use rich media content.
Outside of these four types of websites, you should also know that an XML sitemap can be used by anybody with a website. This is because you want Google to easily find the most important pages of your website and know when you last updated those pages.
How to Use XML Sitemap
There are typically three steps in using an XML sitemap which includes creating the map itself, adding your XML sitemap to your website and then submitting your sitemap to Google. For the first step, you can consider manual sitemap XML file creation. You can also create a sitemap in WordPress if you have an account in which you can use plugins to generate your sitemap. For those who want to create XML sitemap from scratch, there are several resources online that can point you in the right direction. You should also note that if you have hosted content and are wondering where you can find your XML sitemap, trying typing “where to find XML sitemap” in your search engine and see what comes up.
An XML sitemap is yet another way of improving your ranking in search engines. Remember that succeeding at SEO requires a combination of different methods, so all play key roles no matter how insignificant they seem. If you’re wondering on how to create XML sitemap, there are many resources online, or you can contact a professional for their advice on the matter. Hopefully, this article has helped take you a step closer to smashing your SEO goals.
