A website sitemap is one of the most important tools to help increase visitor traffic on your site. Having a good and effective sitemap submitted to major search engines greatly increases the chances of your site's content appearing in relevant search results. If you're trying to monetize your website, take a few minutes to create and submit your sitemap today. This guide will show you how to do that.
Step
Method 1 of 2: Creating Your Own Sitemap
Step 1. Create a new document in a text editing program
The program must be a plain text editor, such as Notepad on Windows or TextEdit on Mac. This method is especially suitable for small sites, as you have to enter each page manually.
Step 2. Create a template for your sitemap
Paste the lines below into your text document. A basic sitemap is an XML file that is sent to search engines so they can read your site more easily. Using this format, you can quickly list all the pages on your site:
https://www.example.com/ https://www.example.com/page1 YYYY-MM-DD always/hourly/daily/weekly/monthly/yearly/never 1.0 https://www.example.com/ page2 https://www.example.com/page3
Step 3. Replace the example with your site's URL
Visit your site in a browser and search for each link, then copy the URL from the address field in your browser and paste it into the template. If your site has more pages than the space in the template above, just copy the "" section down as much as you need.
Step 4. Use optional tags
In the first entry of the example above, you'll see several tags that can be added to individual URLs. This is optional, but it can make your page easier for bots (a search engine program to run automatically).
- The tag is the date when your page was last modified.
- Tags indicate how often your page is updated. "Always", means the page is updated every time a user views it, while "Never" means the page is already archived.
- Tags allow you to rank the importance of individual pages on your site in relation to other pages. The value can range from 0.0 to 1.0. The default priority for all pages is 0.5.
Step 5. Save the file in XML format
Click File and select Save As. Use the "Save as type" menu and select All Files. Change the file extension from ".txt" to ".xml" and save the file as "sitemap.xml".
Step 6. Upload the sitemap to your server
Once your sitemap file is complete, you will need to place it in the "root" folder on your web server. This is the bottom directory on your web server. The final URL for your sitemap will be www.example.com/sitemap.xml.
Step 7. Submit your sitemap to search engines
All major search engines allow webmasters to submit the URL of their files to the search engine's web crawler (a search engine's program to index individual websites). Go to Webmaster Tools on the search engine you want to use to submit your sitemap and and go to the Sitemaps section. Paste your sitemap URL into the provided field.
Method 2 of 2: Using a Sitemap Generator
Step 1. Explore the available services
There are a variety of sitemap generators you can use, either free or paid. You can use online services, server-based tools, or download programs to generate your sitemap. Free services usually have a limit of 500 to 1000 pages. Popular programs and services include:
- InSpyder
- SiteCrawler
- XML-Sitemaps
- Generator.com free sitemap
- G-Mapper
Step 2. Check whether your CMS (Content Management System) has a sitemap builder program or not
Many CMS like WordPress have a sitemap generator that can be accessed by logging into your Dashboard. Often, the better option is to use a third-party program because they are better suited to the content on your site.
Step 3. Choose an alternative sitemap
Beyond the standard XML sitemap, there are alternative sitemaps for certain types of sites. If you're creating a sitemap for a Mobile, Image, News or Video site, Google supports custom sitemaps for these types of sites. If you need to create a custom sitemap, check whether the program you are using supports that format or not.
Step 4. Submit your sitemap
All major search engines allow webmasters to submit URLs of their files to the search engine's web crawlers. Go to Webmaster Tools on the search engine you want to use to submit your sitemap and and go to the Sitemaps section. Paste your sitemap URL into the provided field.
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You can also add a reference to your sitemap in the robots.txt file. Just add a line
Sitemap:
- to the file.
