How to Create a Sitemap

SEO Guide Step 9

• Help the search engines find your content
• What is a sitemap? 
• How to create an XML sitemap
• How to create a HTML sitemap
• How to submit your XML sitemap to search engines
• FAQ: How can I create an effective sitemap to enhance my website’s search engine optimization?

Help the Search Engines Find Your Content

What is a Sitemap: a sitemap is a file that tells a search engine information about the pages, images, videos, and other sitemaps and the relationships and importance of them. Search engines (Google, Bing, and others) use this file to crawl your site. There are two forms of sitemaps: HTML and XML.

Spiders use Sitemaps to index your content: the common SEO tool to make that happen is a Sitemap, a file that points to the important pages on your site and that is used by the search engines when they are scheduled to spider your site. A search engine spider needs to know your content exists and we need to help that process with sitemap files.

Creating a sitemap for your website and keeping it up-to-date are important SEO best practices. Search engines can crawl and index your website more completely if you create a sitemap for reference.

This necessary SEO lesson covers how to create a sitemap so you can welcome search engine spiders and help them find their way around when they visit.

What Is a Sitemap?

There are two kinds of Sitemaps: HTML and XML, and they serve very different SEO purposes. An XML sitemap is a text file webmasters create that tells search engines like Google and Bing about pages, images, and videos on your website. An HTML sitemap serves site visitors and identifies the important parts of your website.

XML: Basically, it’s a list of all the URLs (the page addresses) that you want indexed for your site — URLs of web pages, images, videos, and other content files on the site — formatted with a few XML tags.

HTML: It is a website page that is friendly to visitors and helps them to locate key parts of your website. This, as a webpage, is crawled by search engine spiders. It is believed that a page in the HTML sitemap is a very important page and it may influence search results rankings.

Learn how to create a sitemap for your website. Creating HTML and XML sitemaps is the best way to tell search engines about your webpages for indexing.

XML vs. HTML Sitemaps

XML sitemaps should not be confused with HTML sitemaps, which are regular web pages created to help human visitors get around a website. Each has SEO benefits, so you should create both XML and HTML types for your site. Here are the differences:

How Many Sitemaps Should I Create?

Every site needs at least one XML sitemap. Having an up-to-date XML sitemap is really an essential SEO best practice. Likewise it is a best practice to have a HTML sitemap for your users.

(By contrast, submitting your site manually is an optional task. You only need to do a submission occasionally, such as when you launch a new site, add a new site section, or change content and don’t want to wait for the crawlers to find it.)

Large websites may need to break their list of URLs into multiple XML sitemaps. This ensures that the number of page URLs per sitemap doesn’t exceed the limit. Although an XML sitemap can contain up to 50,000 page URLs, we recommend not more than 2,000 per XML file to improve SEO coverage.

It is also recommended (for any size website) that certain types of files be listed in their own specialized sitemap: videos and news are two examples. Therefore, if you have videos on your site, create a specialized video XML sitemap to help make sure the search engines find your video files.

SEO GUIDE BONUS VIDEO

In another useful video from Google Webmaster Help, Matt Cutts answers why it’s important to offer an HTML sitemap AND an XML Sitemap.

Listen as he explains that since they meet different needs, both are important, especially for search engine crawling.

How to Create an XML Sitemap

You can create a sitemap manually, but using a sitemap generator makes the job easier. There are many good third-party tools for creating XML sitemaps automatically. One is Microsoft Bing’s free server-side Bing XML Sitemap Plugin, which can automatically generate two types of XML sitemaps that can be read by any search engine:

• Comprehensive sitemap, which includes all files (except any you disallow in your robots.txt file)
• Recently updated sitemap, which includes URLs of changed files only (useful for your own tracking or for prioritizing the pages that search engines should crawl)

NOTE: Any search engine can read your XML sitemap files because they comply with Sitemaps.org protocol.

How to Create a HTML Sitemap

Simply put, this is a page on your site that is commonly by convention linked to in a footer (sometimes page header) that will help a user that is having difficulty locating what they want on your site. Under normal circumstances it is a limited list of links to key areas of your website. If you have a site search you should be sure to include it because often a user of this page is lost. Simply make a page of key links and link to it from every page template in the footer.

Since the HTML sitemap is referenced via links from your site pages there is no need SEO to submit it separately – the search engines can easily find and spider it.

How to Submit Your XML Sitemap to Search Engines

You can submit your XML sitemap(s) to Google and Bing using the Sitemaps feature within their webmaster tools:

• Google: Log in to your Google Search Console account. Under the Crawl menu, choose Sitemaps.
• Bing: Log in to Bing Webmaster Tools. You can use the Sitemap widget on your Dashboard or go to the Sitemaps feature, located under the Configure My Site section.

The above methods let you proactively submit your XML sitemap file(s) to the search engines if you want to. Regardless, make sure you specify your XML sitemap’s location in your robots.txt file, where the spiders are sure to find it the next time they come crawling. (A robots.txt file is simply a text file saved at the root of your website that gives instructions to visiting search engine spiders.) Your robots.txt file should look similar to this, with a Sitemap directive line for each of your different XML sitemaps:

User-agent: *

Disallow: /tmp/

Disallow: /filename.html

Sitemap: http://website.com/my-sitemap1.xml

Sitemap: http://website.com/my-sitemap2.xml

That’s it! Once you create your XML sitemaps and tell search engines where to find them using your robots.txt file, the search engine spiders should do the rest. If you need more details on creating a Sitemap, see Google’s Search Console Help.

Next in the SEO tutorial, you’ll learn how to use rich media elements properly to make your site more engaging and more rankable.

Next Lesson

Need more SEO tips?
Building an XML Sitemap

Related blog posts and articles:

• XML Sitemaps in SEO – Part 1
• 10 Video SEO Tips to Improve Rank and User Experience
• How to Set Up Google Search Console (Webmaster Tools)

FAQ: How can I create an effective sitemap to enhance my website’s search engine optimization?

An essential aspect of boosting your website’s search engine optimization is creating an effective sitemap. Sitemaps provide search engines with a map for navigating your website and indexing its content while improving user experience by giving a clear view of your website structure. Here are expert tips for creating a sitemap with significant impact.

1. Understanding its Importance: A sitemap allows search engines to better discover your website by listing all pages, posts, and resources contained within. This makes indexing content much simpler for search engines.
2. Prioritize Hierarchy: Create your sitemap hierarchically, beginning with the homepage and branching outward toward other sections. This arrangement aids both users and search engines in understanding your site’s organization.
3. Include All Content Types: Your sitemap should encompass various content types, such as web pages, blog posts, images, videos, and any other relevant media. This inclusivity ensures that search engines index all valuable content.
4. Utilize XML Sitemaps: XML sitemaps are specifically designed for search engines, providing them with crucial information about your site’s URLs and their priority. Generate an XML sitemap and submit it through Google Search Console and other search engine webmaster tools.
5. Update Regularly: Keep your sitemap updated whenever you add new pages or content to your website. This dynamic approach informs search engines about fresh content and changes, accelerating indexing.

Constructing an effective sitemap requires careful consideration of both technical and user-oriented aspects. By implementing these tips, you can create a sitemap that enhances SEO and improves your audience’s overall browsing experience.

Step-by-Step Procedure: Creating an Effective Sitemap for SEO

1. Recognize the Importance: Understand why a sitemap is essential for search engine optimization and user experience.
2. Map Your Website’s Hierarchy: Identify the main sections of your website and establish a hierarchical structure.
3. Incorporate All Content: Include web pages, blog posts, images, videos, and other relevant content types in your sitemap.
4. Choose XML Format: Opt for an XML sitemap designed for search engines and contains vital information about your URLs.
5. Use Sitemap Generators: Leverage online tools or plugins to generate XML sitemaps for your website.
6. Prioritize URLs: Assign priority levels to URLs in your sitemap to indicate their importance.
7. Include Last Modification Dates: Specify the last modification date for each URL to inform search engines about updates.
8. Submit to Webmaster Tools: Use Google Search Console and other search engine webmaster tools to submit your XML sitemap.
9. Regularly Update Your Sitemap: Whenever new content is added or changes are made, update your sitemap accordingly.
10. Check for Errors: Ensure your sitemap is error-free and follows the XML format correctly.
11. Monitor Indexing: Track how search engines index your website after submitting the sitemap.
12. Integrate Sitemap on Your Website: Place a link to your sitemap in the footer to aid users in navigation.
13. Use HTML Sitemap: Create an HTML version of the sitemap for user convenience and link it from your homepage.
14. Implement Mobile Responsiveness: Ensure your sitemap is optimized for mobile devices to cater to mobile users.
15. Regularly Audit Your Sitemap: Periodically review your sitemap for any broken links or outdated content.
16. Optimize Image and Video URLs: Include image and video URLs with relevant metadata for better multimedia search visibility.
17. Consider Multilingual Sites: If applicable, create separate sitemaps for different language versions of your website.
18. Monitor Performance: Monitor how your sitemap impacts SEO and user engagement metrics.
19. Stay Updated: Stay informed about changes in search engine algorithms and sitemap best practices.
20. Continuously Improve: Evolve your sitemap strategy based on performance insights and industry trends.

By following these detailed steps, you can create an effective sitemap that significantly enhances your website’s search engine optimization and overall user experience.