XML Sitemap SEO Benefits and Best Practices

XML sitemap SEO benefits aren’t something to miss out on. If you own a website and you want to ensure Google can find all your content, then creating an XML sitemap is the way to go. In this video I break down how to generate an XML sitemap and explain why it’s important to do so.

It’s not just about understanding xml site map best practices either, you need to remember to create an HTML sitemap too, especially if you have a large website with a lot of pages. I cover this in the video too, so you can follow best practices for XML sitemaps and HTML sitemaps.

If you have a question about sitemaps and want to learn more, drop me a message in the comments! I covered XML sitemaps and much more in my short course covering the Google Search Console, which you can find here:

If you liked this video, don’t forget to subscribe and follow me on Twitter & LinkedIn via the below.

[IsaacTannerDempsey]

This did have a lot of words. My search term was best practices. I'm using wp and rank math. I basically was looking for answers to questions like should all taxonomies be included, categories etc is it better to exclude pages from site map or mark them as no index. You are confident in front of the camera and this video is the top result but please provide more value in the video

[BeatGrowthMarketing]

I have come back to this video several times! Thank you.

[stadler]

Working on a sitemap for a client, and I was like "What, exactly, is this for?" :) So this video was very helpful. Thanks, Dude!

[iambongani]

Love the way you present the information. Keep it up. Thank you for the content

[supersafaris]

Does it mean, If you you have updated a new page you should add a new sitemap ?

[gogomaju]

Thankyou Sir good video, however where in my domain should I place my XML file? is it the header part? or body?

[salvirji]

Thank you for explaining the detail, will have a look at you other videos before I try and submit my XML.
have a great weekend

[skyscraperfan]

Is an HTML sitemap really needed, if there already is an XML one? The "problem" with an HTML sitemap is that it is visible to website visitors and I am not so sure if they have any benefit of seeing the sitemap with tens of thousands of pages.

Sadly unlike Bing, Google ignores the "priority" tag in sitemaps, although the tag could really help Google to decide which pages of a website to show, if the same search term appears at many pages. For example I have a website about skyscrapers and the pages are heavily interlinked, so that Google does to really get the hierarchy right. It would really improve the user experience if I could tell Google which pages it should prioritize.

[digbot]

Hi ' How do I add my sitemap to my website? I have the sitemap html code I don't know what to do next. Thanks

[lermamendoza]

Thanks for the video. It helps me a lot

[ashishbijwe]

Can we test the performance of XML site maps using Google Optimise? If yes, how can I do it?

[GabrielConstantinides]

Cheers for the upload, I'd like to ask some questions about the Vodafone website HTML sitemap that you used as an example in the video.
I went to the HTML sitemap on their website via the footer you showed in the video to have a look, and wasn't able to find the home page in the HTML sitemap. Unless it is indeed there and I just didn't see it, would the home page not be one of the most important pages to include in your sitemap?
Is it the case that HTML sitemaps are aimed more at users, and that XML sitemaps are aimed more at search engines? This would maybe answer the previous question, because most users can probably find the home page without the sitemap (and so if the HTML sitemap is aimed primarily at users, there may be no need for the home page to be found there).
If you were to find and look through the XML sitemap for this website, would you then likely find the home page among many other webpages on the site that are not included in the HTML sitemap?

[hogarthheathan]

What about sitemaps for database websites with pages generated by users, how would that work?

[ammarzaki]

please make a video about solving sitemap errors 🙏
Google search console worned me that my sitemap couldn't

what does that mean?

[Ronan-qzfz]

Good video, I have a lot better understanding of the subject than I did. Thank You

[eventmax]

Hi,

What can companies like us who use website builders and not sites like WordPress?

[Whitenoise]

Thank you for the information. I’m not technically minded but I will now find out.

[jayell]

I keep getting the "couldn't fetch" error message. I'm also not sure which part of the sitemap is copied. Every url I enter will not go. I've already uploaded the sitemap to the domain root folder, now I'm stuck on Google Search Console.

Awesome vids, btw. Thank you.

[ricardolcrowster]

Robot, txt file and xtm sitemap work together well hand in hand what are the similarities

[ShudhKnowledge]

Described perfectly 👍
Thanks for info🙏