No matter how beautiful your navigation menu is, it always helps to have a map that helps locate everything on your blog, right?
Well, the same goes for the search engines. They are able to explore your website on their own, but you can make their job easier by creating a website map or " sitemap ».
Essentially, a sitemap tells search engines like Google and Bing about the structure of your website. This way, they can analyze and index your website more efficiently. It is an essential part of your strategy. SEO.
In this article, I will show you how to create a map of the website on your WordPress blog.
But before, if you have never installed WordPress discover How to Install a WordPress Blog in 7 Steps et How to search, install and activate a WordPress theme on your blog.
Then, back to why we are here.
What is a sitemap and how useful is it?
A sitemap or " Site map websitesAllows search engines to have a basic understanding of the structure of your website. Essentially, search engines send bots called " bots Which follow links on the internet.
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Every time they find a new link, it will index the new page (of course, some guidelines may change his behavior). And from there, your pages are displayed in the search engine results.
The website map speeds up the process by providing search engine spiders with a detailed map of your website. Instead of having to manually crawl your website for links, the " muzzle Will instantly know where each page and article is.
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Being considered a magic bullet in the SEO, Sitemaps will improve the indexing of your WordPress blog. It will allow all your content to be visible on search engines.
They also allow you to provide search engines with optional information like the date a page was updated, how often a page is updated. This information can also help search engines optimize the way they explore your website.
XML vs Sitemap HTML Sitemap
XML sitemap is more common. They are exactly what I talked about above: a map dedicated almost entirely to search engines. Their data is not really useful for visitors.
HTML sitemaps, on the other hand, can be used by humans and search engines. It's an actual page on your website where humans and search engines can get the big picture of how your website is organized.
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Search engines can also explore this page, but it also gives curious visitors a better user experience.
So what type should you use?
The answer is both. This is not a comparison between the two because they do not conflict and use both offer advantages.
How to create a Sitemap on WordPress
Given the popularity of SEO plugins, there is a good chance that you already have all the features needed to create an XML sitemap. If you use Yoast SEO, All in One SEO, or SEOPressor, you just need to find the relevant plugin setting to configure your XML sitemap.
Creating a sitemap with Yoast SEO
For example, with Yoast SEO you just have to navigate to " SEO → XML Sitemaps To enable the feature and configure it:
One cool feature with the sitemap tool on Yoast SEO is the ability to include attachments in your XML sitemap:
When enabled, it can increase your traffic by improving the indexing of your media.
Read also our article on How to Configure All In One SEO Pack on WordPress
Creating an XML sitemap is similar with " All in One SEO Is also simple, you just need to go to "All in One SEO → XML Sitemap":
Creating an XML Sitemap with Google XML Sitemaps
If you don't have one of these plugins, or want additional control over your XML sitemap, you can easily create one with the Google XML Sitemaps plugin. It is free and available on the directory of WordPress Plugin.
After installing the plugin, you can configure it by going to " Settings → XML-Sitemap "
Here is what you will certainly want to configure on this page:
- Priority of articles : Define how you want to calculate item priorities. You can define that the plugin automatically calculates the priority by the number of comments, or manually.
- The content of the Sitemap : Choose what types of content are included in your sitemap. For example, if you want to exclude the archive category, you just need to uncheck this box.
- Change frequencies : Set the frequency of each type of content is changed. This gives search engines an idea of ​​how to prioritize their exploration. For example, you will definitely want to set the page that displays your recent articles to be crawled by day.
- priorities: Allows you to manually set exploration priorities for different content. You will want your homepage and unique items to have high priority.
How to create an HTML Sitemap with WordPress
To create a sitemap HTML plan, you will need to turn to a different plugin. His name is " WP Page Sitemap And it's also free on WordPress.org.
Once you install the plugin, you can customize it by going to " Settings → WP Sitemap Page "
You can exclude certain post formats, choose how to display titles, and choose whether or not to display articles multiple times if they appear in different categories.
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Then you can add your sitemap to a page using a shortcode. The plugin has a lot of custom shortcodes that will allow you to do things like show only pages, tags, categories and more. You can also customize the sorting options and display them in the exact order you want.
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The ideal would be to place this shortcode at the footer of one of your pages. In this way, it will be easier for humans and search engines to find it, so it is not necessary that it occupies an important place in the main menu.
Discover also some premium WordPress plugins
You can use other WordPress plugins to give a modern appearance and to optimize the handling of your blog or website.
We offer you here some premium WordPress plugins that will help you do that.
1. Ultimate Membership Pro
Ultimate Membership Pro is a great WordPress Plugin subscription and content restriction. It allows users to be managed according to their package (free or premium) by creating exclusive access levels.
It will therefore be possible to protect all the content of your website, or just part of it. It will be for example a course, a lesson, a page, a product, a category, an image, etc ...
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Key features include: content protection, multiple levels of access, support for multiple payment gateways -PayPal, Authorize.net, Stripe, 2CheckOut, Bank Transfer-, partial content protection, and more again…
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2. Slider
Slider Pro is one of CodeCanyon's top three sellers. It provides a clean and intuitive user interface in the administration area and a smooth browsing experience for users and visitors.
It avoids unnecessary fantasies, which are often an obstacle for users who are looking for the information they need. In addition, it focuses on simplicity and performance, while offering a wide range of customization possibilities.
See also How to create a slideshow with Slider Revolution on WordPress
Its management of Urls on the browser's search bar is one of the features that marked us on the latter. As the name suggests, this is the professional solution you need.
Read also our 5 WordPress plugins to create FAQs on a blog
Its features are: theoptimized harnessing of images, the peasy customization,Flowing nimations, pmany layouts et more.
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3. GTranslate
GTranslate is one of WordPress plugins most popular translation tools based on Google Translate. With this plugin, you will be able to translate your website content into 103 available languages ​​without any hassle.
If necessary, you can manually correct Google's machine translation because it also provides integration with Google Analytics, which allows you to determine if the translation on your website is really beneficial to your users.
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The plugin comes with tons of widgets where your users can easily select their desired language.
The professional version of this plugin is fully compatible with popular plugins such as Yoast SEO et WooCommerce.
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Recommended Resources
Find out about other recommended resources to help you build and manage your website.
- 5 WordPress plugins to create FAQs on a blog
- 9 WordPress plugins to manage your product catalog
- How to Hide Affiliate Links on WordPress
- How to Add a CSS Code Safely to WordPress
Conclusion
Here ! That's all for this tutorial, I hope it will allow you to create a sitemap on a WordPress blog. If you have some Comments or suggestions, do not hesitate to let us know in the reserved section.
However, you will also be able to consult our resources, if you need more elements to carry out your projects of creation of Internet sites, by consulting our guide on the WordPress blog creation or the one on Divi: the best WordPress theme of all time.
But meanwhile, share this article on your different social networks.
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