Are you wondering what is an XML sitemap, and how to create an XML sitemap for your website?
By creating an XML sitemap, you can tell search engines like Google what pages and files on your website are the most important, and what information about those files is valuable.
For example, when was the web page last updated, and if there are any alternate language versions of the page.
In this article, we will understand what an XML sitemap is and how to easily create an XML sitemap for your website.
What is XML Sitemap
An XML sitemap is a file that lists the pages of a website and provides additional information about each page, such as when it was last updated and how important it is in relation to other pages on the site.
The purpose of an XML sitemap is to help search engines more efficiently crawl and index a website, by providing information about the structure of the site and the frequency with which pages are updated.
XML sitemaps are written in XML (Extensible Markup Language), which is a markup language used to store and organize data in a structured way. The sitemap is submitted to search engines, such as Google, using a submission tool or by placing a link to the sitemap in the robots.txt file of the website.
Although XML sitemaps won't boost your rankings, they will help search engines better crawl your site. As a result, search engines can find more content and show it in search engine results, which in turn leads to more search traffic and better SEO performance.
Importance of XML Sitemap
Sitemaps are super important for search engine optimization (SEO).
Even though search engines can find your URLs without any mapping, including pages in an XML sitemap shows that you consider them to be high-quality landing pages.
But simply adding a sitemap will have no effect on your search rankings. A sitemap, on the other hand, will notify search engines about any pages on your site that are not indexed.
It's very beneficial to have a sitemap when starting a blog or creating a new website because most new websites don't have any backlinks. Consequently, search engines will have difficulty finding your content.
And that’s where the importance of XML sitemap comes into play!
Popular websites are equally important to have a sitemap. This allows search engines to index your content based on which parts of your website are more important and frequently updated.
Having said that, let's look at how to create an XML sitemap for your website.
How to Create an XML Sitemap
There are multiple methods you may use to create an XML sitemap for your website. We will demonstrate the most effective methods for creating an XML sitemap.
We'll furthermore show you how to submit XML sitemaps to search engines and use them to improve your SE rankings.
Manual Method
You can create an XML sitemap manually by writing the XML code yourself, following the sitemap protocol specified by the Sitemaps.org organization. This method is recommended for small websites or for website owners who are familiar with XML. After creating an XML sitemap you can also use an online XML sitemap validator tool to check if there’s anything for correction.
Online Sitemap Generator
There are many online sitemap generators that allow you to create an XML sitemap by entering information about your website into a form. You can also use our free XML sitemap generator tool. Simply enter the URLs of your pages and other information, such as the last modification date, and the generator will create the sitemap for you.
Now, it’s time to learn how to submit XML sitemaps to search engines.
How to Submit Your XML Sitemap to Google
To submit your XML sitemap to Google, make sure that Google Search Console is connected to your site.
First, go to Google Search Console and from the dashboard, click on “Sitemaps”.
Now, enter the web address where you saved your sitemap. It must end in ".xml" because it is an XML file.
Click the "Submit" button.
Then, using the Sitemaps report, ensure that there are no indexing errors.
Once it's done, Google will take over the remainder.
How to Submit XML Sitemap to Bing
Bing receives over 900 million unique visitors per month. It's well worth your time to submit your sitemap to Bing.
To submit your XML sitemap to Bing, firstly ensure that the Bing Webmaster Tool is connected to your site.
Simply open your Bing Webmaster Dashboard and find the Sitemaps widget and click “Submit a Sitemap” and then just enter the URL, and click on Submit.
That’s it!
XML Sitemap Best Practices
There are some best practices that you need to know when working with XML sitemaps :
- Create dynamic XML sitemaps
- Include the <loc> and <lastmod> tags
- Ignore the <priority> and <changefrequency> tags
- Include hreflang tags
- Compress using gzip
- Use a sitemap index file
- Include all URLs in a single sitemap
- Include sitemap index URL(s) in your robots.txt file
- Submit sitemap to search engines
- Fix all indexing issues
Google’s John Mueller clearly stated that Google does use the lastmod metadata to determine when a page was last modified and whether it should be crawled. However, the priority and the change frequency metadata doesn’t hold any value in terms of SEO performance.
Final Thoughts
Now, you completely know how important it is to have an XML sitemap. An XML sitemap can help website owners ensure that all of their pages are being indexed and appearing in search results.
By providing information about all of the pages on a website, an XML sitemap makes it easier for search engines to find and crawl new or changed pages, which can improve the visibility of a website in search results.
Comment below if you have any questions about this!
