For any site to be indexed in any of the search results quickly, such as Google and Bing, it is necessary to provide XML file to them. It contains the link details added within your site. So, it will be fast for indexing your site on their search results since it contains all the links added within your site. WordPress, on the other hand, does not provide you with it by default. So, you need to add extra plugin for generating sitemap for your site. So, here, we will learn about how to create XML sitemap for your site.
Brief introduction on XML sitemap
As stated earlier, it is the link, which contains all of the posts, pages, as well as other links too, added within your site. By submitting this link to Google Webmaster Tools or Bing Webmaster Tools, you are providing them what links are added in your site. So, indexing the site of yours to their search results will be very quick.
And specially for the news site, which posts are added daily, it is the most essential part for their site, since the posts should be indexed too quickly for those sites in search results.
How to create XML sitemap for your site?
Now, since you know the basics on about what is XML sitemap and why is it important, you may want to create XML sitemap for your site, right? Well, then why the wait? Let’s move ahead and learn about how to create XML sitemap for your site, shall we?
For adding XML sitemap within your WordPress site, you need to find the plugin for it. Since, there are lots of plugin available in WordPress plugin directory, we will learn on only some of the plugins about how to create XML sitemap for your site. Now, let’s move ahead and learn on those plugins, shall we?
Google XML Sitemaps
Google XML sitemaps is one of the plugin to create XML sitemap for your site. In order for it to be installed within your site, you can do so via Plugins section within your WordPress dashboard.
After the install, for this plugin, you do not need to modify anything at all. All will work fine with the default plugin settings. And you can view the sitemap generated by this plugin via the url: http://siteurl/sitemap.xml. Here, below is the screenshot about how it displays it.
The same url is to be submitted in those previously mentioned webmaster tools, to index your site quickly on their search results.
Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO or WordPress SEO plugin has many featured included within it, for better SEO purposes for your site. It also includes the XML sitemap feature too within it.
For this plugin, to activate the sitemap feature, you can visit SEO->General section and then, toggle the XML sitemaps button available there. All the default settings are fine and can be tuned via SEO->Search Appearance section about what to be added and what not to be added within that generated XML sitemap.
In the above screenshot, you can see the output provided via Yoast SEO for sitemap, which can be viewed via: http://siteurl/sitemap_index.xml.
All In One SEO Pack
All In One SEO Pack is another SEO plugin, which provides much more feature for better SEO within your site. Like Yoast SEO, it also has the option of generating the XML sitemap for your site.
When you install this plugin within your site, by default, it will not activate the XML sitemap feature within your site. So, you need to enable this feature as you need. Hence to do so, you can visit All In One SEO->Feature Manager section and then, click on the Activate button for XML Sitemaps feature.
After you have done that change, you can see new section arriving there as XML Sitemap under the All In One SEO section. From there, you can generate the XML sitemap as needed for your site.
Also for this plugin, leaving it to the default settings for sitemap generation is absolutely fine. Here, below is the screenshot about how it generates sitemap within your site visiting the link: http://siteurl/sitemap.xml.
Finally
So, above mentioned plugins are some of the lists of the popular plugin, which can create XML sitemap for your site. Apart from it, you can also use the plugin Jetpack for the same purpose.
And there are lots of plugin available in WordPress plugin directory for same purpose. So, choose the best one as needed and add it within your site to create XML sitemap for your site, for quick indexing of your site links in the search results.
You may also want to read:
- XML Sitemap Support For Custom Post Type Using JetPack
- How To Implement Yoast SEO Breadcrumb In Your Theme?
- How To Create Meta Box In WordPress
- Integrate Bootstrap NavBar 4 Into WordPress Theme
- Make Your WordPress Theme Breadcrumb NavXT Plugin Compatible
Conclusion
If you have followed this tutorial properly and became successful on about how to create XML sitemap for your site then, we can assume that you are more familiar to it than before. However, if you are still confused on it then, do drop the comment below on the comment box and we will follow it up.
