Do you own a website like WordPress and intend to do optimization? Relax, you can use a sitemap. Making an effective sitemap is also easy, depending on its media. Sitemap is also one of the SEO techniques which is quite important.
A sitemap makes visitors and search engine bots able to see the structure of the website. A sitemap also gives better experience for the visitors. Moreover, the existence of sitemap can make you earn income from the website. So, how does it work? Check these paragraphs below!
What is Sitemap?
A sitemap is a page where you can find all the link information from a website. The information can be a post, category, page, image, or maybe tag. All of them will be shown on the sitemap.
Sitemap functionates as a tool to simplify search engines in identifying your website.
In other words, Sitemap is a group of information in a site that can load various URLs or list down all URLs on your website. Sitemap is a map to help search engines index new URLs on your website.
Sitemap doesn’t only contain links, but also metadata. Metadata is information about when the last time you updated your website and how often you updated it.
By the existence of sitemap, search engines like Google, Bing, and Yandex can easily find every URLs in blogs or sites.
Later on, it will have an impact on whether the content indexing on search pages is fast or not. It is not a surprise that Sitemap is very vital in the usage of SEO optimization.
What are The Functions of Sitemap?
Here are the functions of a Sitemap:
1. Providing information to search engine
A sitemap can help tell the search engine crawler. Then, it can also show new posts to the visitors. Besides, it also tells the visitors about previously accessed pages.
2. Maximizing SEO or Search Engine Optimization
Maximizing the website SEO by telling the search engine that your website doesn’t have any duplicated content.
Sitemap can help make the website more user-friendly. So, it will be able to increase Search Engine Result Page (SERP) ranking.
3. Simplifying the Navigation Process
Showing the structure and the hierarchy of a website by providing a complete list of custom URLs.
Ways to Make An Effective Sitemap
In fact, there are some ways to make a sitemap. For more explanation, check these steps below:
1. Ways to make Sitemap on WordPress
Ways to make a sitemap for WordPress is by using plugin. Plugins that you can use are Yoast SEO, All in one SEO Pack, and Google XML Sitemap.
2. Ways to make Sitemap with PHP
For you who want to make an effective sitemap for a website, you can use native-php. You can also make sitemap through manual script.
3. Ways to make Sitemap on Codelgniter
To make a sitemap on Codelgniter, you must do the coding manually in order to make script models, view, and the controller.
Ways to Upload /Submit Sitemap on Google Webmaster Tools
Here are the steps to upload sitemap on Google Webmaster Tools:
- First, you must Log In to Google Webmaster Tools.
- Next, click website/blog link.
- Choose the menu “crawl” -> “Sitemaps” and choose “Add/Test Sitemap”. When a column appears, enter the sitemap code.
- After copying the code, press the button “Submit Sitemap” to save the sitemap.
- Congratulations! You have succeeded in submitting Sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools.
Actually, making an effective sitemap is easy. But, you must be confident and passionate. What are you waiting for? From now on, you can make a sitemap based on your preferences. Hope this will be helpful.
