XML SITEMAP IN WORDPRESS: COMPLETE GUIDE

The XML sitemap is a URL list that is needed for SEO. This is what helps bring information about your site to search engines.

An XML sitemap on WordPress is like a city map that displays all the important details and places. Using this “map” search engines read your site.

A little over a year ago, Thierry Muller, a Developer Relations Program Manager at Google proposed “to integrate basic XML Sitemap in WordPress Core and introduce an XML Sitemap API to make it fully extendable.”

Developers all over the world liked this idea and they happily and moved on to implement this idea. Let’s find out what came of it.

You can now use our new high-efficiency services and have your task done in half the time we took before. If you have a question, please contact the Wishdesk web development agency.

What an XML sitemap is?

We suggest you first take a look at what we are talking about in the next paragraphs. What does an XML Sitemap look like?

how does a sitemap look like This is not very clear or useful for most users. Basically, Sitemaps are created for search engines.

Why is an XML sitemap in WordPress important for SEO?

XML sitemap are important for SEO because they simplify the search for your pages. It is the ideal way to promote your business. If the site does not have a sitemap, then we definitely recommend creating one.

What websites need an XML sitemap?

Google recommends having an XML sitemap for such types of sites:

large sites
recently created sites with a few external links
a site having many multimedia files
sites that have isolated pages or pages with poor linking

Short tips on how to create an excellent XML sitemap

Your website’s sitemap should be displayed behind site.com/sitemap.xml
If the sitemap is created at a different address, just redirect to site.com/sitemap.xml
XML Sitemap on WordPress should seamless collaborate with the robots.txt file
XML sitemap should not contain more than 50,000 links
The sitemap shouldn’t have 404 errors
Submit an XML Sitemap to Google
Prioritize high performance pages in XML Sitemap
Avoid ‘noindex’ URLs in the Sitemap
If the site is large, then create a dynamic XML Sitemap
Change modification times when making major changes

How to create a sitemap for your WordPress website

There are 3 ways to create an XML sitemap on WordPress:

configure the sitemap manually
use special plugins
entrust it to Wishdesk

The first way is to configure sitemap manually

If you are curious about web design, then you can try to configure a sitemap manually. First, you need to remember that the sitemap you create should contain all the main pages of your site. After all, it’s the sitemap that will help Google and other search engines index them.

Step-by-step guide how to create a sitemap manually:

Use a text editor to enter important links on your web page.
Save this data in XML format.
Check the recently created sitemap for errors.
To check, use some of the various free tools.

The second way is to configure sitemap automatically

However, if you prefer reliability, clarity, and speed, then you are better off using special WordPress plugins that automatically generate an XML sitemap.

As a rule, all these plugins work this way:

You install the plugin.
You enter the URL of your site.
It automatically generates a sitemap.

But do not forget that each sitemap should be customized for a specific site individually. It is necessary to take into account all the nuances of the site to set it up correctly.

The third way is to let Wishdesk do it quickly

In order not to worry about all the nuances or missing something, you can contact our web developers.

This will free your time to do things that are more familiar to you and avoid problems with setting up an XML sitemap on WordPress. There are nuances when setting up an XML sitemap that must be taken into account. Only the web development experts know how to deal with these.

Top 6 WordPress plugins for creating sitemap

1. Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO features:

create XML sitemap in WordPress automatically
includes all images in the sitemap
improves indexing of your visual content
can create additional dedicated sitemap
allows you to manually fix errors in sitemap
is a multifunctional plugin

Active installations: more than 5 million

Price: free / €89

2. All in One SEO Pack

All in One SEO Pack

All in One SEO Pack features:

intuitive to use
integrated with Google Analytics
XML sitemap creation
automatically informs search engines about changes to the site
available in 57 languages
XML sitemap is not the only functionality of it

Active installations: more than 2 million

Price: $55.3

3. Google XML Sitemaps

Google XML Sitemaps

Google XML Sitemaps features:

create XML sitemap and improve SEO
supports all kinds of pages
automatically informs search engines of changes
does not affect the speed of the site
translated into the language of the language