In my post, I take you step by step on how to create and find a sitemap in WordPress. I show you how to install a plugin that generates a sitemap for you automatically and then updates the sitemap every time you edit or publish new content.
Sitemaps in WordPress are important because they make it easier for search engines, like Google and Bing, to read and understand your content better.
When I first started blogging, I had no idea what a sitemap was or how to generate one for my WordPress site.
The easiest way to create a sitemap is to install the Yoast SEO plugin and let it generate one for you.
Follow my guide and in just a few minutes you will have a sitemap for your WordPress blog.
Let’s get started.
- What is a sitemap?
- How to install the Yoast SEO plugin
- How to find your WordPress sitemap
- Your WordPress sitemap URL
- How to find a sitemap in WordPress video tutorial
- Conclusion
What is a sitemap?
A sitemap is a file on your WordPress website that provides information about pages, posts, videos, and other files on your site, and the relationship between them. Search engines, like Google and Bing, read the sitemap to get a better understanding of your site content.
To get started, we need to install the Yoast SEO plugin, let’s do that next.
How to install the Yoast SEO plugin
To install the Yoast SEO plugin, hover your mouse over ‘Plugins’ on the menu on the left in your WordPress admin and select ‘Add New’.
On the next page, is the WordPress plugin library. Type ‘Yoast’ into the search bar.
The Yoast SEO plugin will appear on the top left. Click on the ‘Install Now’ link. After installation is complete, the same link will say ‘Activate’, click on that one more time.
Once installed and activated, Yoast SEO will generate a sitemap automatically.
Next, I show you how to find the sitemap for your site.
How to find your WordPress sitemap
When you install Yoast SEO for the first time, Yoast will ask you a few questions about your site. For a more detailed post on configuring Yoast, check out my ‘How to create a sitemap‘ post.
To find your WordPress sitemap, hover your mouse over ‘SEO’ on your WordPress admin, and select ‘General’.
Next, is your Yoast SEO dashboard.
On this dashboard, there are three tabs, ‘Dashboard, Features, and ‘Webmaster tools’. Select the ‘Features’ tab.
On the list of features, look for ‘XML sitemaps’.
To view your sitemap, click on the question mark icon. Then, click on the ‘See the XML sitemap’ link.
Your WordPress sitemap opens in a new browser tab.
My posts and pages are listed with the date and time they were last updated.
To get a full list, click on one of the links. For example, when I select the post’s link, I can see all the post titles with information about images, and when the post was last edited.
Your WordPress sitemap URL
It is possible to view your sitemap without going into your WordPress admin.
Go to your website homepage and after the .com, type ‘/sitemap_index.xml’. For example, to view my website’s sitemap. I would type, ‘newblogr.com/sitemap_index.xml’.
How to find a sitemap in WordPress video tutorial
Conclusion
That is how you generate and find your WordPress sitemap. I recommend installing the Yoast SEO plugin to generate a sitemap for you.
Yoast generates the sitemap and updates it every time you make changes or publish content automatically.
Google and Bing scan for new and updated contact every second of the day, having a WordPress sitemap makes it easy for the them to understand your content.
You can find your sitemap in ‘General’ on Yoast, or you can type your sitemaps URL directly into the address bar.
To learn how to submit your sitemap to Google, check out my blog post at ‘How to submit a WordPress sitemap to Google‘. To submit to Bing, check out my blog post at ‘How to submit a WordPress sitemap to Bing‘.
Alternatively, you can check out my YouTube channel, I have many tutorials about WordPress and SEO.
Before you return to your WordPress blog to create your sitemap, would you kindly spare one minute to leave me a comment? Did my post help you? Do you have an issue I can help you with?
I look forward to reading your comments and answering any questions you may have.
