How to make a sitemap with WordPress

Search engines like Google have made life easier for both clients and owners of pages since with writing a few words and pressing a button we can see more than a thousand options to choose related to the word that we have written, and how the search engines do accelerate page index? They use sitemaps which can be difficult to create if you do not use a tool that helps you do it, in Joomunited we offer you one of the best SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tools for Wordpress this plugin’s name is WP Meta SEO.

Generation of XML and HTML WordPress Sitemap

WP Meta SEO is one of the best plugins to improve the SEO of your site in wordpress because it offers you a lot of tools that make everything really easy, one of these tools is the creation of a sitemap(XML and HTML) it will allow you to make all the changes to your sitemap with a friendly dashboard.

There are 2 types of the sitemap: XML, and HTML; which differ for several reasons, one of the most outstanding is the way in which Google crawls the site. The use of these sitemaps will depend on the purpose of your website, it could be said that the XML sitemap is for the search engines while the HTML sitemap is for the users and guess what? You can create both maps with WP Meta SEO and it is really easy!

 
Creating a WordPress XML Sitemap

Wordpress XML sitemaps are used primarily by search engines. They really help increase tracking and indexing, if your website is crawlable and indexable, then you will not have to worry so much that the search engines find all your pages or only the important ones and help the people to find them.

Now let’s see how easy is to create and edit an XML sitemap wit WP Meta SEO (for this example we are going to use WP Meta SEO with its pro addon), the XML sitemap will be created automatically and now, in order to edit your XML sitemap go to WP Meta SEO > Sitemap at your wordpress dashboard, you will get the configuration screen and several tabs to select the content you want to add in your sitemap.

By default, all your menus are selected as a sitemap source, You’ll be also able to open the XML Sitemap by clicking in “Open” at the right side of the wordpress sitemap location, now just edit all the configuration and click on “Regenerate and save sitemaps” your sitemap will be edited.

If you see, at the top there are some tabs where you will have to define sources, the ADDON also includes the possibility to add custom post types like WooCommerce as a source, along custom URLs.

 
Add custom Custom URL to sitemap (only available in the plugin Pro Addon)

WooCommerce products and categories sitemap

 
How to use the Wordpress HTML Sitemap

Wordpress HTML Sitemap is linked from every page of a  Wordpress site, it is also used for the user experience. You need an HTML sitemap to give your users a satisfying experience since this will help them to navigate in a much easier way all your page.

And again, WP Meta SEO do everything for you because the Wordpress sitemap page will be automatically generated after add all the sources, you just have to go to WP Meta SEO > Sitemaps and select all the options that fit your needs, you can select the number of columns for your HTML Sitemap, the position of your sitemap (After Page Content, Before Page Content and Replace Page Content) and with the pro ADDON you can also select a theme.

Let’s try to generate the sitemap after the page content and “List with accordions” layout.

Now just click on Open at the “HTML Sitemap page” and you will be able to see your Wordpress HTML Sitemap.

As we can see the theme gives a better look to our sitemap and everything is as simple as selecting a theme and click a button.

Look for all your 404 errors with the wordpress menu sitemap dashboard

If you have the pro ADDON you will be able to check for all the 404 errors in your content, it will help you to fix all these errors and prevent any of your users or a search engine from seeing this to don’t lose your web traffic because, to be honest, nobody likes not being able to visualize a page because of a 404 error.

It is really simple to verify just go to your wordpress menu sitemap dashboard, WP Meta SEO > Sitemap you’ll be able to see a section called “Sitemap link check” click on the Run a Link Check button and let the magic flows, the plugin will do everything for you.

A loading bar will appear, just wait.

 
A list of the pages that you have in your site will appear with their status and other information about the page (Source, Last modified date, Frequency, and priority).

You can click on the link and it will open a new tab with the page of the link that you have clicked.

Something so important for SEO as the creation of sitemaps is just one of the reasons that make “WP Meta SEO”, one of the best plugins to improve the overall SEO of your site you can try it now for FREE by following this link and, on the same page, purchase the addon in order to have more awesome functions: https://www.joomunited.com/wordpress-products/wp-meta-seo