How to create a qualitative XML sitemap to optimize your SEO?

Any good marketer generally advises creating an XML sitemap as part of your site’s natural referencing optimization. In this article, I will answer questions that site owners often ask. What is a sitemap? Why do you need to build it? How do we create it effectively?

What is a sitemap?

The sitemap helps search engine robots quickly discover the different pages of your website. What is it really about?

Definition

The English term “sitemap” literally translates to “site plan.” It is a structured presentation of all the URLs of your website or blog. This tool is, therefore, used to guide search engines and Internet users to your website.

The difference between an XML sitemap and an HTML sitemap

I will first explain to you what an XML sitemap is. This page in XML format is designed to send search engine robots information and metadata about the URLs of a website. It notifies them each time the site is modified.

In contrast, the HTML sitemap is dedicated to users. It is a navigational map allowing visitors to explore each web page easily. It is often placed in the footer of sites.

Why develop a quality XML sitemap?

Before answering the main question, “How do I create a qualitative XML sitemap?” » I would like to give you good reasons to draw up this plan.

Optimize your SEO

I strongly recommend developing an XML sitemap to optimize your natural referencing or SEO expert. This sitemap facilitates the indexing of your web pages by Google or other search engines.

Thanks to a well-designed XML sitemap, search engine robots quickly understand the structure of your website. They can easily crawl (explore to index) your site. This indexing allows a website to reach the first pages of search results more quickly.

I advise you to entrust the creation of your XML sitemap to a digital communication agency to ensure its quality and efficiency. Depending on your geolocation, you can take the number of an SEO agency in Bordeaux or other cities and contact their team to discuss your project and its references.

Have a relevant sitemap.

Creating a quality XML sitemap allows monitoring of your site’s web page pages. This site map is essential if you have a complex tree structure or pages that are inaccessible by direct links.

The XML sitemap lets you quickly detect good orphan pages and immediately reintegrate them into the internal mesh. This tool can also find zombie pages that must be improved or permanently deleted. These flawed pages lower the effectiveness of a site’s natural referencing.

In addition, a sitemap facilitates the migration of your website. Indeed, when you search and create a list of URLs constituting the platform, it is essential.

Sitemap creation in 5 steps

I will now detail the process of creating an XML sitemap. This web marketing operation takes place in 5 distinct stages.

Plan your XML sitemap project.

Before you start designing your sitemap, I advise you to consider some essential points. Ask yourself questions such as:

• What are the objectives of your web platform?
• What is your target?
• What are the needs of your visitors?

You will know how to structure your website and your XML sitemap by answering these questions. I also invite you to pay attention to the requirements of Google and other search engines. Check that they are respected to boost your SEO and avoid any sanctions.

Now, you also need to consider what to name your sitemap. Even if this name is free, it is expected to use the standard “sitemap.xml” or “sitemap.xml.gz.” However, I recommend that you choose a more complex name to carry out your SEO strategy discreetly.

Determine the number of sitemap files to create

If your website comprises only a few pages, a single sitemap will be enough to promote its indexing by search engines. If it includes many pages, it is wise to create several sitemaps, which will be combined in a sitemap index file.

Building a sitemap index file allows you to prioritize which pages to index. I specify that a sitemap file can accommodate up to 50,000 URLs and that a sitemap index file can contain up to 50,000 sitemaps within a limit of 50 MB.

Structure your website

Remember to structure your website upstream correctly to facilitate the development of your XML sitemap file. I specify that the structure of your site is also essential in SEO. In particular, you must define the depth of your website. A page too far from the homepage URL is complex for a search engine to find. A shallow site is, therefore, vastly efficient regarding natural referencing.

Pay attention to the top-level, second-level, and so on navigation structure. It depends on several criteria, including your business type, industry, target audience, etc.

If necessary, I advise you to consult the successful landing pages of your competitors to draw inspiration from them. The intervention of a digital communication agency can also be helpful because its experts can tell you the best site structure to adopt.

Build your XML sitemap file.

When building your site using a CMS, use an automatic sitemap generator plugin. Google XML Sitemaps, Yoast SEO, and Jetpack are among the most popular WordPress plugins. You can also use a standalone sitemap generator tool.

If you are not using a consumer CMS, it is still possible for you to submit an XML sitemap manually. Just ensure that your sitemap or site plugins file can update itself automatically.

To write a sitemap file, use UTF-8 encoding and add the exact URLs of your website.

You must also include specific information, including:

• the date of the last modification
• update frequency
• the priority of the page (from 0.0 to 1.0)

Submit your sitemap to search engines.

To submit your sitemap to Google, log in to Google Search Console and go to the menu in the sidebar. Then, go to the “Index” section where the “Sitemap” element is located. When you are on the page, copy the URL of your sitemap in the box provided.

I can give you another tip. Insert your sitemap in your robots.txt file as “sitemap: https://votre-site.fr/votre-sitemap.xml.” You also have the option of notifying Google about an essential update to your sitemap by sending an HTTP GET request.

Depending on your target’s browsing habits, you can submit your sitemap to other search engines, such as Bing, Yahoo!, Quora, etc. Pay attention to the rules imposed by each search engine.

Update your XML sitemap.

Once you’ve designed your XML sitemap, you’ll likely need to add new pages or make changes to it. It will update automatically if you use a plug-in or a sitemap generation tool.

Otherwise, search engines will fail to examine and crawl new pages added to your sitemap. If you want to try to speed up the indexing of your content, you can resubmit your sitemap for the publication of the new page.

Tips for building a qualitative XML sitemap

After seeing the steps for creating a sitemap, I invite you to follow the tips of National SEO Services to create a quality sitemap file.

Organize your XML sitemap by section.

By structuring your sitemap by section, you can easily track your site’s indexing. With this in mind, you must create an index to list your website’s different parts and sub-parts. This tip helps you identify valid and invalid URLs in Google Search Console.

Put only essential pages in your sitemap.

I remind you that a sitemap’s role is to facilitate the exploration of your pages by search engine robots. This is why it is important to avoid including pages that do not bring any convincing results or have no interest in your SEO strategy. Favor the “money pages,” among the most crucial pages for your activity.

Prioritize the pages you want to index

Depending on your natural referencing strategy, some website pages may be classified as “no-index.” Their URLs should not be included in your XML sitemap. Also, ignore canonical URLs.

Conclusion

Creating an XML sitemap is essential to optimize your SEO strategy. This tool increases the visibility of your web pages on the Web. However, creating a qualitative sitemap is a complex and time-consuming operation. I recommend that you entrust this project to a digital communication agency to obtain optimal performance from your site while reducing costs.