Working with Google XML Sitemaps
Having a sitemap on your website makes the Google search engine informed of the structure of your website. It won’t only work for a single search engine but to a couple of search engines that you find online. In simple terms, a sitemap is actually a map of how your pages and posts are located in your website. If you don’t have a sitemap, then you can’t expect for your website to be indexed that soon.
A special language is used for making a sitemap and that’s known as the extensible markup language or XML. Thus, if someone does not have any idea of how to write codes, they need another person to do this for them. The good thing today though is that there are now plugins and sitemap generator for websites that can be generated to create a sitemap. It takes out all of the hassles of coding and make a non-programmer capable of creating one.
Using Google Sitemap Generator
Do a quick search online for a good source of Google XML sitemaps or in your admin dashboard search tool. After you are able to download the plugin and activate, you can proceed getting into the settings. Simply read the instructions so you won’t get intimidated with the instructions, which is a normal feeling at first. You’ll be setting up some configuration settings to get your sitemap running.
You will be selecting a build-it-first time option for you to tell that it’s your first time doing the create sitemap part of your website.
There will be an option for you to do some customized settings through a dialog box showing some basic options. So you will be notified of the blog activities and updates, get an email ID that you’ll use to set it up there as well.
If you want to add more pages, sub-pages and sub-directories for your sitemap, all you have to do is look for the option for you to add these URLs.
As for the sitemap content, you can specify which parts of your website will be included in them too.
There will be an option for you to setup which parts of the website you will exclude in the sitemap content. Next, get into the priorities and frequency settings for you to tell the search engines how many times will you only want them to crawl into your pages and get them indexed. Take note that the defaults settings are already made for the best of your website, however you may have some other purpose set.
You then finally have to get access to a Google webmaster tool and thus need to have an account with them so you can submit sitemap to Google. Don’t fail to submit your website URL properly, pointing to the sitemap URL.
The Author: Christopher Dyce is a writer and blogger. He enjoys keeping up on the latest industry news, writing articles, and taking long walks. Visit this link for more information: xml sitemap You can find more on the author’s profile page.