Are you wondering what is Sitemap and how to create sitemap for your WordPress and Blogger blog, definitely read this post for complete information.
Usually a sitemap is a list of all the URLs on your site. Sitemaps simply make it easier for search engines to understand and index your content. Before the steps to generate your sitemap, let us let you know some general information on sitemap.
Are you wondering what is Sitemap and how to create sitemap for your WordPress and Blogger blog, definitely read this post for complete information.
What is Sitemap? (what is sitemap in SEO)
Sitemap is an XML file where you provide information about pages, videos, images and other files on your site to the search engine, which the search engine bots can easily crawl your site.
A sitemap tells Google which pages and files in your site are important to you, and also provides valuable information about these files. Like when the page was last updated, how many times the page has been changed, and whether the page is in another language.
Google can detect different types of sitemaps. List of Sitemap file types HTML, Video, Image, Mobile, News.
What is XML Sitemap?
Generally speaking a sitemap of a blog, then "XML Sitemap" is considered only.
A good XML sitemap works as a road map for your website, which takes Google to all your important pages. This is good for SEO, as they allow Google to quickly find the site pages you need, even if your internal linking is not good.
In the image below you can see the XML sitemap of this website.
XML Sitemap vs HTML Sitemap
The main difference is that, XML sitemap is created for search engines and HTML sitemap is created for its readers or users.
There are many pages inside a blog, html sitemap is used for visitors to easily find those pages.
An HTML sitemap should have an anchor link that points to every web page on your website. This ensures that your entire site can be crawled by search engines.
Where you can see the html sitemap of Apple India site.
Image Sitemap
Image sitemap is used to improve the indexing of image content.
However, due to the embedding of the image with the page content, the page gets crawled with the URL. Because of this, an image sitemap is unnecessary for most websites. But if your stock photo website or e-commerce site then using a separate sitemap for the image can be helpful for image ranking.
Video Sitemap
Similar to images, if videos are important to your site, submit an XML video sitemap. If not, a video sitemap is unnecessary. This helps the video to rank better in Google search.
Google News Sitemap
Only sites registered with Google News can use this sitemap. Google News Sitemaps provide information along with metadata about specific news on a site.
Using a news sitemap, Google news can quickly find the news on a site.
You want to find the XML sitemap for your website so that you can check that it is valid and submit the URL to search engines.
In the left sidebar of your blog home page URL, enter /sitemap.xml. Your sitemap URL will look something like this: http://example.com/sitemap.xml or
http://example.com/sitemap_index.xml
How to Create Sitemap for Blog?
Whether your blog is on Blogger or WordPress, creating a sitemap is very easy. Below you can see the complete process of how to create an XML sitemap and submit it to the search console.
How to Create a Sitemap in WordPress
There are many plugins inside WordPress to generate sitemap, which can make your work easier. Here I am using Yoast SEO to create a sitemap in WordPress.
Yoast SEO is the most popular plugin to improve the SEO of your site. It can also help you create XML sitemaps.
Step 1: Yoast SEO plugin Install And Activate
Step 2: Go to SEO in the menu on the left site and click on General .
Step 3: Click on the Features tab under General and click on Save changes after turning on the XML sitemaps switch below .
Step 4: Now click on the question mark ( ? ) next to XML sitemaps . You can see the sitemap of your blog by clicking on ' See the XML sitemap '.
Step 5: The sitemap of your blog will show something like this. You have to copy the sitemap URL ( Only copy red underline URL ) from here and submit it inside your Search Console.
How to Create a Sitemap in Blogger
Whether you are using a blog with a blogspot subdomain or a blogger with a custom domain, you can follow this process to generate a sitemap for both.
Step 1: Open the Sitemap Generator tool and enter the URL of your blogspot blog.
Step 2: Click on the Generate Sitemap button. This tool will generate your sitemap immediately.
Step 3: From here just copy the red underlined URL and submit it in the search console.
How to Submit Sitemap to Search Console?
Before starting this process, your blog must be verified inside Google search console .
- Open Google Search Console Or go to Sitemaps .
- Paste your Sitemap URL and click on SUBMIT .
Google takes a few days to process and crawl the sitemap submitted by you.
Conclusion (What is a Sitemap?)
When done correctly, XML sitemaps help search engines find, crawl and index your website quickly.
- The bots crawl the pages more intelligently by using the meta information available in the sitemap.
- Search engines are able to see new or updated sites and pages more quickly.
- You can be sure that search engines are finding important information about images and videos.
Have you created and submitted an XML sitemap for your site yet?
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