Last Updated / Reviewed: March 25th, 2024
Execution Time: 0.5-4 hours
Goal: To set up your sitemap for the first time, or to audit your existing sitemap.
Ideal Outcome: Your sitemap has been properly fetched by Google, contains your core URLs and is properly configured making it perfectly crawlable by search engines.
Prerequisites or requirements:
- You need to have access to your website’s Google Search Console property.
- If you don’t have it set up yet, you can follow SOP 020.
- If you are using WordPress on your website you will need to have the Yoast SEO Plugin installed and activated on your website.
- If you don’t have Yoast on your WordPress website yet you can follow the chapter on installing Yoast by going to SOP 008.
Why this is important: Having a sitemap allows search engine crawlers to more easily find the content you want them to find, and to understand how important each page is.
Where this is done: In Google Spreadsheets, your WordPress Admin Panel, and Google Search Console.
When this is done: A sitemap should be included from the beginning of the website. If your sitemap is manually generated the ideal scenario would be updating your sitemap every time there is a new page that should be indexed.
Who does this: The person responsible for SEO or website management.
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