Different Types of Sitemaps & Best Practices

Today, you’ll learn about sitemaps.

We’ll cover the basics first. Then move on to discussing different types and the best practices you can follow when creating a sitemap.

And you’ll see some examples.

Let’s start.

What Is a Sitemap?

A sitemap is a file that tells search engines like Google what pages you have on your website. It helps them find and index your site.

Sitemaps are available in extensible markup language (XML) and hypertext markup language (HTML) format. (More on these later.)

While sitemaps are typically created for crawling purposes, companies also build sitemaps when they’re planning their website architecture.

They typically create visual sitemaps. Like this:

This visual sitemap helps to understand how all the content fits together when planning the site structure.

Note: The rest of this article focuses on sitemaps that are relevant for SEO—the ones that help search engines (and website visitors) find your pages. Not visual sitemaps, which are used for web design purposes.

Why Are Sitemaps Important?

When search engine bots crawl your site, they follow links to discover pages.

But sometimes, they can miss a few nooks and crannies. Especially if your site is large or has complex navigation.

That’s where sitemaps come to the rescue.

By creating a sitemap, you’re giving search engines a handy directory of all your pages.

Think of it as a cheat sheet that tells them, “Hey, these are all the pages I have. Don’t miss them!”

Your pages need to be found...