Are you on your way to making a sitemap for your website? Here are some tips and guidelines that will make your website easier to crawl.
- Keep URLs Formats Consistent
For example, if your home page URL begins with https://website.com, don’t make your About page URL begin with https://www.website.com/about. - Break Up Large Sitemaps
If your website is huge and contains a lot of content, making separate sitemaps for logical breaks will make information easier to find. For example, you might make a sitemap for pages, another for files, and perhaps a third with posts in it.
If you choose to do this, make sure to make a sitemap that contains the links to all of the other sitemaps (for organization) - The Order of URLs Doesn’t Matter
(The Search Engine will read everything the same regardless) - Use Alternate Language URLs too (with hreflang)
Google lets you make multiple versions of the same page in different languages for different regions using hreflang in your code. Check out Google’s instructions if you would like to do this. - If Your Desktop and Mobile Pages Are Different, Pick One URL
Example: both pages use https://website.com instead of one page using https://website.com and the other using https://m.website.com - Avoid Duplicate Content by Using Only Canonicals
While you should already have only one URL per page, if the case that you don’t, it is a good idea to mark which URL is the original in your sitemap with the canonical tag. If Google thinks you have duplicate content, it won’t place your page as high. - Place Your Sitemap at the Root
Your sitemap can only reference descending URLs, so if it is the farthest back part of the website files, it allows Google to crawl everything. - Submit Your Sitemap to Search Engines
Forcing Google to search for your sitemap completely defeats the point of having one. The easiest way to submit your sitemap to Google is through Google’s Search Console sitemap report (link: Manage your sitemaps using the Sitemaps report – Search Console Help (google.com)). Also, Google only crawls your sitemap when it’s submitted, and not every time it’s searched, so it is a good idea to update your sitemap when anything changes.
For a more expansive look into this list, read more at What is a Sitemap & How To Create One for SEO (klientboost.com)
One Response
These are great tips for making a website easier to navigate through. However, I think some could’ve used more explanation. URL’s seem difficult to work with.