How to Create A Sitemap & Why It’s Important?

Sitemaps have always been essential for websites, users, and search engines. Organizing all the relevant pages and content improves navigation for site visitors and search engines. For search engines, a sitemap makes indexing and crawling every page efficiently easier.

On the other hand, users will have an easier time navigating the website and its features, especially on more complex sites. This article will explain how to create a sitemap, its importance in SEO, and how it improves navigation and user experience.

What Is A Sitemap?

A sitemap is a document that outlines the critical pages, videos, images, and other content available on your website and their connections to each other. Sitemaps act as a roadmap for search engines by assisting Google’s bots in locating, crawling, and indexing your site in an orderly manner.

By offering a detailed summary, sitemaps aid Google in figuring out our website’s structure and which are the key pages. This is particularly useful for new sites with only a few external links and large websites with several pages. Sitemaps also help discover orphan pages, which have no links from other pages, and make sure that all necessary pages are reachable by Google’s bots.

Types of Sitemaps

In simple terms, a sitemap is a list of web pages with sequential links that act as a navigation guide for a website. There are three main types of sitemaps: XML sitemaps, HTML sitemaps, and visual sitemaps. All three sitemaps differ by audience and purpose, but all together assist in the website’s success—be it in optimizing search engines (SEO), enhancing user experiences, or aiding web design.

XML Sitemap

XML sitemaps stand for Extensible Markup Language sitemaps. It is a list of URLs on the site that helps identify the pages on a website. This sitemap is made in XML and is designed for search engines. An XML sitemap helps divide the website’s data into easily readable indexed information. Each XML sitemap contains certain elements that are very useful, such as when a page was created, how many times it was altered, how often the page updates, and whether the page has more importance than other pages on the same site.

Large websites with a lot of content can now divide their sitemaps into multiple ones for better organization. This new feature is referred to as a “sitemap index.” The purpose of this feature is to ensure that large websites’ sitemaps are efficient and easy for search engines to process. For websites that get updated often, like a blog or a news channel, XML sitemaps must include RSS feed sitemaps or news sitemaps.

RSS Feed Sitemap: This type of sitemap helps search engines easily find internal links to track updates and changes to websites with dynamic content, like blogs. These websites greatly benefit from this feature.

News Sitemap: This sitemap was specially created for news websites. It includes important metadata of an article, such as when it was published, its headline, and other relevant details. This helps speed up the indexing process for news articles on Google.

Media Sitemap: This type of sitemap has been customized for websites and blogs with rich media content. Videos and images can now easily be sorted by titles, descriptions, licenses, and the URL of the media files.

XML sitemaps ensure proper indexing and ranking of the pages on a specific website, hence helping SEO. For example, if a page has no internal or external links, XML sitemaps will assist the search engines in discovering, crawling, and indexing the page.

HTML Sitemap

HTML sitemaps, as opposed to XML sitemaps, focus more on the audience. An HTML sitemap is presented as a simple webpage containing important pages of a website categorized hierarchically for easy access. This simplifies specific page searches for visitors without navigating through countless sections.

An HTML sitemap is a website’s table of contents. It is generally found at the bottom of a webpage or the footer for easy access. This ensures that users have a bird’ s-eye view of the site’s structure, perhaps improving their overall experience and making it easier for them to find the content they require.

Large websites with multiple pages can benefit from HTML sitemaps more than any other type of website. Users can bypass varying levels of navigational structures by aiding them with HTML sitemaps that list important pages. Further, they make the website more user-friendly, which can lower the website’s bounce rate. Although HTML sitemaps do not directly impact SEO effectiveness like an XML sitemap does, they nonetheless enhance site usability, which, in turn, can improve a website’s SEO effectiveness.

Visual Sitemap

A visual sitemap is a graphical representation of a webpage that illustrates its hierarchical structure and the interrelations of its components. This is particularly important for designers and developers during a website’s planning and designing phase. Using this type of sitemap, they can better understand the website’s structure and thus create a workable site by linking various pages whilst also being able to foresee navigation difficulties.

Visual sitemaps are not considered XML and HTML sitemaps. Search engines and visitors to an actual site completely disregard XML and HTML sitemaps, while visual sitemaps are utilized for site construction only. These sitemaps assist in conceptualizing, designing, and structuring a website prior to building the actual pages. Posting a visual sitemap for a website can also help check for gaps in the website’s information structure, ensure the page flow is logically sequential, and ultimately help with page usability.

Visual sitemaps are usually paired with wireframes, UX research, and other design assets that reflect important design details. These sitemaps act as a guide for the designers to work with while formulating the website’s layout to make it user-centered and easy to use.

Creating an XML Sitemap

There are multiple ways to generate an XML sitemap. The best method depends on the platform your website is built on and your technical expertise.

1. Using a CMS Plugin (Recommended for WordPress Users)

If your website runs on WordPress, you can generate an XML sitemap effortlessly using SEO plugins. One of the most popular plugins for this purpose is Yoast SEO.

Using Yoast SEO Plugin to Create an XML Sitemap

1. Install the Plugin:
   • Go to your WordPress dashboard.
   • Navigate to Plugins > Add New.
   • Search for “Yoast SEO” and click Install Now.
   • Activate the plugin.
2. Enable the Sitemap Feature:
   • In your WordPress dashboard, go to SEO > General.
   • Click on the Features tab.
   • Find the XML Sitemaps option and switch it to On.
   • Click Save Changes.
3. Access Your Sitemap:
   • Once enabled, your sitemap will be available at https://yourdomain.com/sitemap_index.xml.

Other popular WordPress plugins for generating sitemaps include Rank Math SEO and All in One SEO Pack.

2. Using Online Sitemap Generators (For Non-WordPress Websites)

If you don’t use a CMS or prefer an external tool, online sitemap generators can help.

Steps to Generate a Sitemap Using XML-Sitemaps.com

1. Visit XML-Sitemaps.com.
2. Enter your website’s URL.
3. Configure optional settings like page priority and frequency of updates.
4. Click on Start to generate the sitemap.
5. Download the sitemap.xml file.
6. Upload it to your website’s root directory (https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml).

This method is quick and does not require technical knowledge.

3. Using Website Crawling Software (For Large Websites)

For websites with hundreds or thousands of pages, using a desktop-based website crawler can be beneficial.

Using Screaming Frog SEO Spider

1. Download and install Screaming Frog SEO Spider.
2. Open the software and enter your website URL.
3. Click Start to begin crawling your site.
4. After the crawl is complete, go to Sitemaps > XML Sitemap.
5. Configure any additional settings, such as excluding unnecessary pages.
6. Click Next and save the sitemap.xml file.
7. Upload the file to your website’s root directory.

Screaming Frog is ideal for websites with complex structures.

4. Manually Creating an XML Sitemap

If you have technical expertise, you can create an XML sitemap manually. This method provides full control over what gets indexed but requires precision.

Steps to Manually Create an XML Sitemap

1. List Your Website’s Important URLs:
   • Identify which pages should be included in the sitemap.
   • Avoid duplicate content or low-value pages.
2. Create the XML File:
   • Open a text editor like Notepad or VS Code.
   • Use the following XML structure:

1. Save the File:
   • Save the document as sitemap.xml.
2. Upload the Sitemap:
   • Use an FTP client (like FileZilla) to upload sitemap.xml to the root directory of your website.
3. Submit to Search Engines:
   • Go to Google Search Console.
   • Navigate to Sitemaps and enter your sitemap URL (https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml).
   • Click Submit.

This method is labor-intensive but provides maximum flexibility.

Creating an HTML Sitemap

You can have schemas in HTML pages to increase the usability of your website. Navigating around your site will be easier with an HTML Sitemap that renders your site in a tree-like structure. Your XML sitemap is designed for search engine bots, but an HTML sitemap is meant for people. In any case, creating an HTML sitemap is essential to ensure users can navigate through the critical pages easily. In this guide, we’ll cover the steps you can take to make an HTML sitemap and use plugins manually.

1. Using CMS or Plugins to Generate Automated HTML Sitemaps

If you own a WordPress site, one of the easiest ways to create a sitemap is to use plugins. Simple HTML Sitemap Generator Plugin will do the work easily. These applications save you the stress of constantly monitoring the updates and changes made on your website.

WordPress Plugins

Simple Sitemap Plugin: One of these plugins is the Simple Sitemap Plugin. This is a free plugin designed for WordPress users that enables them to effortlessly create HTML sitemaps for WordPress-powered websites. The best part is that the plugin will update the site maps on its own when you make changes to the pages.

All in One SEO: One of the other popular WordPress plugins, All in One SEO, performs SEO functions and has a feature that creates HTML sitemaps. This plugin allows you to generate sitemaps for your site, and it auto-updates every time new content is added.

These plugins certainly simplify the process of designing and maintaining an HTML sitemap because they require no coding knowledge. This is particularly useful to non-technical individuals or those who do not want to spend too much time maintaining their sitemaps manually.

2. Creating an HTML Sitemap From Scratch

If you have a particular design for your HTML sitemap in mind or happen to run a small site, you can create it from scratch. While more labor-intensive, this approach allows you to design your sitemap however you feel best.

Steps for Creating an HTML Sitemap From Scratch:

Create a New HTML Page: Start by creating a new page in HTML format and saving it as a new file. For example, you can save it as ‘sitemap.html’ and upload it to your website’s folder.

Catalog All Your Pages: At the center of the sitemap is a compiled list of all hyperlinks for the respective pages of your site. This entails not just the general pages but also the sub-pages, category pages, blog posts, and any other material you want readily available. Each page can be linked using the [<a>](HTML) tag.

Arrange the Links: The links on the sitemap should be organized clearly and logically so that they are easy to navigate. You could use headings and lists to define different categories of pages. For example, all the product pages could be grouped under a “Products” heading, all blog posts under a “Blog” heading, etc.

Include Supplementary Information: Add further information, such as short descriptions of the page, so that the user has a better understanding of what they are about to click.

Design Your Sitemap: Use CSS to make the sitemap appealing to the eye. Focus on a clean, simple design that is easy to read and accessible, keeping in mind the primary goal of convenience.

Make Changes As Necessary: When adding or deleting pages, remember to refresh and modify the sitemap. This will allow users to always access the most up-to-date links.

Even though this method may seem like it takes quite a while, it works best when complete control over the design and layout of the sitemap is needed, such as for smaller websites.

3. Implementing Website Crawlers For Generating HTML Sitemap

Doing so manually can be daunting if your website is drawn on the larger side. In that case, it is better to leave it to website crawlers. These crawlers can automatically scan your website, identify all pages, and build the site map accordingly.

How Website Crawlers Functions:

Website crawlers are tools or software that crawl through your website’s public pages, much like search engines such as Google crawl websites. These tools and programs will then generate an HTML site map listing all the pages they can gather.

Slickplan: Another example of a tool that helps generate HTML sitemaps is Slickplan. When they crawl your website, they gather all the page links with the option to export the data in other formats like HTML, PDF, and PNG. You can customize the layout and add or remove pages, which is helpful for bigger websites with more complex structures.

Web crawlers help save immense amounts of time, especially on websites that host hundreds to thousands of pages. They can also guarantee that no page will be missing in the site map.

4. Recommendations for Arranging an HTML Sitemap

While each approach differs, the organization of your HTML sitemap is essential for usability. A good sitemap follows these guidelines:

Definite Categories: Related pages should be combined so that users can quickly locate them. For instance, product pages can be put together in a “Products” section, while posts can go under “Blog.”

Ability to Search: If the site has many pages, consider including a search option within the sitemap so the user can quickly retrieve pertinent information.

Simple Layout: Accommodating the sitemap is important, but overloading the page with useless information and unnecessary details should also be avoided.

Creating a Visual Sitemap

A visual sitemap is an invaluable tool for planning the structure of your website, ensuring its layout is clear, logical, and user-friendly. Unlike a traditional text-based sitemap, a visual sitemap visually represents your website’s pages and their interconnections, helping both technical and non-technical teams understand the site’s architecture. In this guide, we will walk through creating a visual sitemap, from initial planning to using online tools.

1. Plan Your Website’s Structure

The first step in creating a visual sitemap is planning the structure of your website. Before you begin, you must clearly understand the pages and sections your site will need. These can include main pages like the homepage, about us, services, contact, and blog and subpages such as service details, blog categories, and product pages.

• Define Key Pages: Start by identifying the key pages of your website. These might include the homepage, about us, product or service pages, and contact page.
• Organize Content: Break your site’s content into sections and categories. For instance, under a “Services” section, you might have pages dedicated to individual services. Consider the flow of information and how users will move from one page to another.
• Establish a Hierarchy: Determine the hierarchy of your pages. The homepage will likely sit at the top, with other pages below. Group similar pages under main headings or categories to keep the structure logical and easy to follow.

2. Choose Your Tool

Once you have a rough idea of your site’s structure, choose a tool to create your visual sitemap. Various tools are available, from free online generators to sophisticated design software. The goal is to select a tool that allows you to map out your pages clearly and intuitively.

• Online Tools: Platforms like Slickplan and MindMeister offer easy-to-use, drag-and-drop interfaces for creating visual sitemaps. These tools allow you to design your site layout by clicking and dragging different elements, making it a quick process to map your pages and their relationships.
• Manual Tools: If you prefer a more hands-on approach, you can start by sketching your sitemap on paper or using a whiteboard to brainstorm. This can be especially helpful for smaller sites or when figuring out the structure.

3. Create the Sitemap

You can begin building the visual sitemap with your planning and the tool chosen. The process is relatively straightforward if you’re using a visual sitemap generator.

• Add Pages: Start by creating a node or box for your homepage, the starting point of your website. Add branches for each key page identified during your planning phase. As you progress, keep adding subpages beneath the main pages to which they belong.
• Use Labels and Colors: Label each node with a short title that reflects the content of the page (e.g., “Contact Us,” “Blog,” “Products”). If the tool allows, use colors or shapes to distinguish between categories or page types. For example, you might use blue boxes for primary and green for blog pages.
• Link Pages: Connect the pages using arrows or lines to show the navigation flow. The lines should indicate the relationship between pages, showing how users will move through the site. Keep the connections simple and straightforward to avoid clutter.
• Add Details: In some cases, you should include additional details in your visual sitemap. For example, if your website has dynamic content like blog categories or product listings, you could note the types of content each page will contain. Some tools allow you to add notes to each page for further clarification.

4. Review and Refine

Once you’ve built your initial visual sitemap, take a step back and review it. Does it make sense? Is the structure logical? View it from a user’s perspective and consider how easily they can navigate the site.

• Look for Redundancies: Ensure there are no duplicate pages or unnecessary repetitions. If you find pages that serve the same purpose, consider merging them.
• Check the Navigation Flow: Make sure the navigation flow is straightforward. Are there any dead ends or confusing paths where users might get lost? If so, reorganize the structure to ensure smooth transitions.
• Seek Feedback: It can be helpful to get input from others, primarily if they represent the target audience. Share the visual sitemap with team members or stakeholders and ask for their feedback. They might spot issues you missed or suggest improvements.

5. Export or Share

After finalizing your visual sitemap, you can share it with others or export it for reference. Most online sitemap generators, like Slickplan, offer export options such as PDF, PNG, or XML files, which can be saved and shared easily. This is particularly useful for collaborating with developers, designers, and content teams.

If you’re working with a larger team, sharing your visual sitemap online can help keep everyone on the same page during development. You can adjust quickly and ensure everyone is aligned with the site structure.

How To Submit A Sitemap to Google?

Submitting a sitemap to Google is essential for helping search engines crawl and index your website’s pages. A sitemap acts as a roadmap, guiding Googlebot to discover and understand the structure of your site. However, it’s important to remember that submitting a sitemap is only a suggestion to Google. It doesn’t guarantee that Google will crawl or index all the URLs listed.

1. Submit a Sitemap Using Google Search Console

The most straightforward way to submit a sitemap is through the Google Search Console (GSC). The Search Console provides a tool called the Sitemaps report, where you can easily upload your sitemap and monitor its status.

Steps to Submit a Sitemap via Search Console:

1. Sign In to Google Search Console: Go to the Google Search Console and sign in with your Google account. You must add and verify your website in the Search Console if you haven’t already done so.
2. Select Your Website Property: After signing in, select the website property for which you want to submit the sitemap. This will take you to the site’s main dashboard.
3. Navigate to the Sitemaps Section: On the left side menu, click “Sitemaps” under the Index section. This will open the Sitemaps report.
4. Enter the Sitemap URL: In the “Add a new sitemap” field, enter the full URL of your sitemap. For example, if your sitemap is located at https://example.com/sitemap.xml, you would type that URL into the box.
5. Submit Your Sitemap: Click the Submit button. Google will attempt to crawl your sitemap and start processing the URLs listed.
6. Monitor Status: After submission, Google Search Console will show you the sitemap’s status. You can check when Googlebot last accessed your sitemap and review any potential processing errors. If there are issues, the Search Console will provide details on what went wrong so you can fix them.

By submitting your sitemap through the Search Console, you can track how many pages were successfully indexed and if any URLs were excluded for specific reasons.

2. Use the Search Console API to Programmatically Submit a Sitemap

If you have a large website or manage multiple sites, submitting sitemaps manually via the Search Console can be time-consuming. In such cases, using the Search Console API to submit sitemaps programmatically can save much effort. This method allows you to automate the submission process, which is particularly useful for sites updating content frequently.

• To submit a sitemap programmatically, you would need to interact with Google’s Search Console API, which provides a way to manage and submit sitemaps automatically. Developers can integrate the API into their workflows, allowing them to submit updates to sitemaps regularly.

3. Add the Sitemap URL in the robots.txt File

Another way to make your sitemap available to Google is by including the sitemap’s URL in your website’s robots.txt file. This is a simple method that can effectively ensure that Googlebot finds your sitemap when crawling the site.

Steps to Add Sitemap to robots.txt:

1. Locate the robots.txt File: The robots.txt file is usually located in the root directory of your website (e.g., https://example.com/robots.txt).
2. Add Sitemap Directive: Open your robots.txt file and add the following line:

3. Replace https://example.com/my_sitemap.xml with the actual URL of your sitemap. This tells Googlebot where to find your sitemap on the site.
4. Upload and Test: Once you’ve added the line, upload the updated robots.txt file to your server. Googlebot will then crawl the robots.txt file the next time it visits your site and discover the sitemap automatically.

This method doesn’t require you to log into Google Search Console, but it is less direct than submitting the sitemap through the console.

4. Use WebSub to Broadcast Sitemap Changes

If you are using Atom or RSS feeds on your website, you can also broadcast changes to your sitemap using WebSub. This method allows you to push updates to Google (and other search engines) automatically when new content is added to your site.

WebSub is a protocol that notifies subscribers (like search engines) of updates to a website’s content. By integrating WebSub into your RSS or Atom feed, you can ensure that Google is notified immediately when you make changes to your sitemap, helping it stay up to date with your content.

Is A Sitemap Essential For SEO? Why?

Sitemaps are an integral part of search engine optimization (SEO). They structure your website’s information, boosting its chances of ranking highly in search engine results. Here are seven reasons why a sitemap is crucial for your business.

Helps Users Crawl and Index Content Easily

Looking for specific content on a website with numerous pages can become complex for users. A sitemap ensures that all crucial sections are easily accessible, allowing crawlers to locate all content without problems. Thus, the time spent crawling and indexing your site will be significantly reduced. 

Boosts The Visibility of the Site

Organized URLs allow sitemaps to assist search engines in understanding your website’s selling structure. Well-organized websites that use sitemaps will have a better chance of being displayed on the SERP since relevancy and significance will be easily established. 

Aids in Content Prioritization

Crawlers’ tight schedules mean that certain pages may be crawled while others may not. The information on your sitemap allows you to set priority values, which determine what pages should be crawled first. Important content, such as high-ranking blog posts, can, therefore, be crawled first.

Aid Multilingual and Multinational Websites

Businesses now use multiple languages and country-based content to convert users to capture a larger market share. Sitemaps allow you to add annotations that highlight the different languages.

This enables search engines to show users the page that best fits their language or geography, which improves user experience and SEO. 

Improves User Experience

An HTML sitemap, which is user-friendly, facilitates ease of understanding of the components of your site. This enables users to navigate more quickly, leading to higher engagement and lower bounce rates, which are suitable for SEO. 

Facilitates New Content Discovery

A sitemap makes it easier for search engines to discover new pages or content on your site. This is especially helpful for large or dynamic sites that don’t have internal linking and need to be indexed quickly. Sitemaps and Google Search Console enable you to track the sites on which search engines crawl and index your site. This lets you know the problems, such as crawl errors and pages that do not load or get indexed. This can help you solve these problems fast and keep a healthy site.

SEO Best Practices For Sitemap

Implementing an effective sitemap is fundamental to search engine optimization (SEO). A well-structured sitemap not only aids search engines in discovering and indexing your website’s content but also enhances user experience by providing straightforward navigation. Here are several best practices to optimize your sitemap for SEO:

1. Prioritize Important Pages

Your sitemap should focus on your website’s most important pages. Including every single page, even those that have little value or are not SEO-optimized, can overwhelm search engines and make it harder for them to identify your most relevant content. Prioritize pages that contribute the most to your site’s goals, whether product pages, blog posts, or key service pages.

• Focus on Quality: Include only high-quality pages with original content that adds value for your users.
• Organize by Relevance: If your site has much content, consider categorizing pages into sections such as blogs, products, or services to make the sitemap more organized and more manageable for search engines to process.

By prioritizing essential pages in your sitemap, you signal which pages you consider most valuable to search engines, helping them allocate crawl resources more effectively. This can lead to faster indexing and better rankings for your critical content.

2. Regularly Update Your Sitemap

Sitemaps should be dynamic documents that are regularly updated to reflect changes to your website. Adding new content, removing outdated pages, or modifying existing content all require updates to your sitemap to ensure that search engines have the most current and accurate version of your website’s structure.

• New Pages: Whenever you add new content, make sure it is added to your sitemap so that Google can crawl it.
• Removed Pages: If a page is removed, ensure it’s excluded from the sitemap. This will prevent search engines from wasting resources on crawling non-existent pages.
• Revised Content: If the content is updated or significantly changed, update the timestamp in the sitemap or modify its URL to reflect the changes.

Keeping your sitemap up to date improves the chances of new and updated content indexing by search engines, which can positively impact your rankings.

3. Use a Sitemap Generator Tool

Creating a sitemap can be time-consuming and error-prone, especially as your site grows. To simplify the process, you can use sitemap generation tools that automatically generate and maintain your sitemap. These tools also ensure that your sitemap is formatted correctly and follows best practices.

• Google XML Sitemaps Plugin: If you’re using WordPress, this plugin can automatically generate a sitemap that updates whenever you add new content.
• Slickplan or Screaming Frog: For non-WordPress websites or more complex structures, tools like Slickplan or Screaming Frog can help generate and manage sitemaps, even for large sites with thousands of pages.

Using an automated tool not only saves time but also reduces the risk of human error in the process of creating and updating the sitemap.

4. Avoid Including ‘Noindex’ Pages

If your website contains pages marked as ‘noindex’ (for instance, pages you don’t want search engines to index), these pages should be excluded from your sitemap. Including such pages in your sitemap sends a conflicting message to search engines, as they are meant to be excluded from indexing but are listed as part of your site’s structure.

• Review Your Content: Regularly check your pages to ensure no ‘noindex’ pages are included in your sitemap.
• Robots.txt File: In addition to updating your sitemap, ensure that ‘noindex’ pages are blocked via your robots.txt file to prevent search engines from crawling them.

By excluding irrelevant pages, you help search engines focus on the pages that matter most, ensuring more efficient crawling and indexing.

Conclusion

A sitemap is an essential part of making your website more accessible. It greatly influences search engine optimization. A sitemap can be created manually, with CMS tools or online software for constructing complex websites. 

Additionally, it should be updated as the website changes to allow effortless navigation for users and easy indexing for search engines. A sitemap addresses many requirements, improving user experience and simplifying SEO complexities. As such, no website can afford to ignore the benefits of sitemaps.