How to Use XML Sitemaps to Improve Your Website’s SEO

Learn How to Use XML Sitemaps to Improve Your Website’s SEO

What is an XML Sitemap, and why does it matter for your SEO? Well, in short, an XML sitemap is a simple way to tell Google about every single page of your website and make it easier to index all of your content.

In the past, Google had to find your website through a link and often only indexed the first page of your website. Now, you can easily submit your sitemap to Google and make sure their ‘spiders’ can crawl your website completely.

XML is just a fancy way of saying your data is packaged in a way that makes it easy for a Search Engine like Google to understand key details about your website, its pages, and its content.

XML is an example of structured data. Structured Data like XML or SCHEMA tie things together to help search engines connect things and understand content better. XML is the way Google wants us to share our website data. XML sitemaps are often referred to as ‘Google Sitemaps.’

Why XML Sitemaps Matter for SEO

The first thing you need to know is that you can’t expect Google to find everything on its own, nor do they want to. Google considers the internet a “Cesspool of Information.” Your website is considered guilty until proven innocent, and that means they’re going to ignore you unless you explicitly invite them to review your content and judge it.

While most websites are small enough, it’s plausible that Google could find most of its pages for complex and robust websites like eCommerce and content-heavy platforms (e.g., news sites, forums, social media platforms, etc.). If you have a robust content marketing strategy in place, you’ll often find that most of your content is ignored or undiscovered by search engines.

That’s where knowing how to use XML Sitemaps comes in: they help Google find and index your content quickly and ensure they visit your website frequently to see new content you’re posting.

Best Practices for Optimizing Your XML Sitemap

Now that you have a basic understanding of XML Sitemaps, we need to get a bit nerdier to understand better how to use them. I’ll do my best to translate, but if you get lost, just know you can schedule a Free Website Audit, and we can ensure this is all configured and submitted correctly.

First, you must ensure that only your canonical URLs are submitted. For example, if you have a blog index page that only displays 10 posts, but you have 101 posts, you’ll find pagination appears at the bottom (the list of pages and arrows to help you scroll through content). Each page will display 10 posts but duplicate your content 10 times, meaning you have 10 duplicate pages. Search engines do not care about these other pages, and you’ll waste resources by having crawlers access these useless pages, which will get you dinged. So, you need to ensure you only submit original pages and posts. Most modern SEO Plugins will automatically block duplicate content for you.

The second thing you want to know about how to use XML sitemaps is that you want to ensure your XML sitemap is updated regularly. This can be tedious; in the past, you’d have to write each page and post manually using XML markup. Now, those same SEO Plugins will do this dynamically, meaning you post something, and it adds it for you. Having your new content appear in your XML Sitemap means Google can find it, index it, and help drive organic traffic to your website.

The third thing about knowing how to use XML sitemaps is that prioritization matters. The order in which you list your content will indicate to Google what you think to be the most valuable content and essential for them to index first. Again, if you’re using a good SEO Plugin, they’ve already coded this prioritization for you, so you don’t need to worry about it.

Fourth, make sure you avoid indexing errors. This typically happens when you include pages that you don’t want Google to Index. These can consist of:

• Deep Content – Content hidden within your website that isn’t meant to be public (e.g., Admin Pages, Account or Portal pages, membership-restricted content, etc.).
• 404 Errors – A 404 error means that content doesn’t exist. This usually happens because someone changed a page URL or deleted the page. If it’s still listed in your Sitemap, you’re sending Google crawlers to dead pages, and this is a low-quality signal Google doesn’t like.
• Noindex Content – By marking public content as noindex or nofollow, you’re telling Google crawlers that you don’t want them to index or view the content on a page. If you have these pages in your XML Sitemap, you send the crawlers there only to tell them you don’t want them. That’s like inviting someone to a party and then refusing them access. Nobody wants that. Some examples of this type of content include thank-you pages, opt-in confirmation pages, or PPC landing pages (if designed to test PPC leads only).

The takeaway is that submitting everything is a mistake, but not submitting an XML sitemap is worse. You just need to do it properly to encourage Google crawlers to spend more time on your website.

Submitting & Monitoring Your Sitemap in Google Search Console

So, you’ve got an XML Sitemap, now what? You want to sign up for a free Google Search Console account. After you sign up and verify your domain ownership, you can submit your XML sitemap directly to Google. This encourages its crawlers to comb through your site, finding everything you’ve submitted and making sure they can quickly come back and see all of your new content, too.

Now, it’s essential to audit your Search Console account regularly. Search Console (formerly Webmaster Tools) is your gateway to hearing directly from Google. They’ll tell you what they think of your website content, give you details of how your site is performing in Google search results, and a whole treasure trove of other information.

The big thing to know is that you may find crawl errors or get error notifications. These are essential signals that Google asks you to fix so that they can see your great content and index it for their searchers.

If you struggle to understand these messages, schedule a Free Website Audit, and we’ll help review your Search Console account to diagnose any issues you see.

Common XML Sitemap Mistakes to Avoid

We’ve already discussed some do’s and don’ts of how to use XML sitemaps, but let’s talk about things you need to avoid at all costs:

• Lazy Updates – Assuming SEO Plugins and other tools are doing the hard work for you is generally okay; however, if you’re doing any significant updates or significant changes to your website, it’s important that you manually submit your information in Search Console and make sure your XML Sitemap reflects those changes. You may inadvertently get penalized in SERPs for perceived issues that you’ve already corrected.
• Bloated Sitemaps – We already know to avoid submitting 404 errors and other issues, but having outdated URLs and unhelpful or outdated pages can be just as bad. Your site authority is weighted across your entire site, so having that bloat is like an anchor holding you down in SERPs and can cost you.
• Ignoring Robots.txt – Your robots.txt file is the first file a crawler will look for when it hits your site. It helps Search Engines know how their bots (crawlers, spiders, etc.) should treat your website. If your XML sitemap isn’t listed here, you’re missing out on an opportunity to ensure crawlers find your entire XML sitemap and miss key updates pending in Search Console’s next crawl.

Again, having an XML sitemap is good, but keeping it tidy and avoiding simple mistakes will ensure you’re leveraging this important SEO tool at its highest level.

Final Thoughts: Get Your Website Audit

Many Digital Marketing Agencies like to tout that they’ll set up an XML sitemap for you as part of their initial work. They’ll even charge you an arm and a leg to do it. Sure, there’s an argument for that approach, but at Rook Digital, we see an XML Sitemap as a foundational piece of any SEO strategy. We have to do this anyway, so why bill you for it?

Beyond an XML sitemap, optimizing keyword-rich content, authoritative backlinks, and rich structured data like SCHEMA are vital to ensure the crawled pages are worthy of being submitted to search engines.

Yes, your pages need to be crawled to be indexed, but they also need to be worthy of being indexed to be indexed. Your XML sitemap is the first stepping stone into a broader and more robust SEO strategy, so don’t ignore the work that comes after.

Want to make sure your sitemap is working correctly? Get a free website audit from Rook Digital to ensure everything is correctly set up for SEO success.

Schedule Your Audit Today