As has already been said, it is important to create a Sitemap (site map) to organize and list the Urls of the site pages.
But what does this mean in practice?
Basically, by using an XML Sitemap we are helping Google to index our website more easily.
Now, this will allow all those pages that are on "background of our website" and are hard to access may also be indexed and appear in Google search results.
But how to create a Sitemap?
This is the easiest part once it’s possible **create a sitemap in less than 1 minute.**
Briefly, there are two ways to create Sitemap:
- I have a Wordpress site: Just install and activate the plugin YOAST SEO, access to "SEO" > "Features"and enable the option "Advanced Settings pages".
Sitemap is created automatically and can be accessed at "XML Sitemaps" under "SEO" on the left sidebar.
- I don’t have a Wordpress site: Log in XML-Sitemaps.
From the website domain, and the definition of some parameters such as frequency with which page content is updated and the degree of importance we want to give to the pages of the site, it is possible to create the site sitemap quickly.
However, a Sitemap alone is worth zero.
For a Sitemap to be useful, the first step is to index the site in Google with the help of Search Console (Google’s free tool).
What are the advantages of Google Search Console?
Once your site is successfully verified in the Google Search Console, there are several features that will be at your disposal.
- One of them is to upload the created Sitemap, going to "Crawl" on the left side > "Sitemaps", we can add the path where our sitemap is.
Note: Before submitting the sitemap, do the Test to confirm that everything is fine.
- It’s another to have the chance ask Google to index a url on the same day.
All you need to do is access "Crawl" on the left side > "Fetch as Google" and indicate the path of the url you want to index immediately.
This feature is extremely useful considering that, on average, a site takes about 4 days to 4 weeks to be organically indexed by Google.
However, this feature is limited to 500 orders per month.
So the best suggestion is even at the time of creating the XML sitemap to tell Google bots that you would like your site to be updated in the search results more regularly.
For example: daily or weekly update frequency.
Thank you very much!!!
– Gladison Neuza Perosini