Wooassist

Assistance for Your Woocommerce Store

  • How it Works
  • Pricing
  • Site Maintenance
  • Blog
    • How-To Articles
    • Code Snippets
    • SEO For E-Commerce
    • Theme and Plugin Reviews
    • Wooassist News
    • WordPress/WooCommerce News
    • Interviews
  • About Us
  • Contact
You are here: Home / How-To Articles / How to Create a Sitemap for your WooCommerce Store

How to Create a Sitemap for your WooCommerce Store

March 19, 2015 By Nick J 2 Comments

sitemapYou might have heard about XML sitemaps and that it’s good for your website’s SEO but don’t really know what it is. Or maybe you don’t know how to create a sitemap for your WooCommerce store. We can help with that. For starters, Google defines a sitemap as:

…a file where you can list the web pages of your site to tell Google and other search engines about the organization of your site content.

In short, a sitemap tells search engine crawlers about the structure of your site. Whenever you add something new to your website, whether that’s a new blog post, a new page or a new WooCommerce product, your sitemap is updated and communicates with web crawlers to tell search engine that there is something new on your website.

Even without a sitemap, the content on your website will still eventually be crawled by search engine crawlers but if the structure of your website is not well-organized, some pages may not be indexed. Also, having a sitemap will make crawling your website easier and much sooner. And if you have a new website, you probably don’t have a lot of other websites linking to your pages so it is highly likely that some of your pages may not get indexed. Having a sitemap almost ensures that all your pages get indexed.

How to Generate a Sitemap for Your WordPress Site

There are a couple of plugins that you can use to create a sitemap for your e-commerce website. We’ll list them down here.

How to Create a Sitemap Using WordPress SEO by Yoast

WordPress SEO by Yoast is the all-in-one plugin for your SEO needs. It is easily one of the best SEO plugins in the WordPress plugin repository. It has a lot of useful features and that includes the creation of a sitemap. If you are already using WordPress SEO by Yoast, then look nowhere else for creating your own XML sitemap. If you are not using WordPress SEO yet, I would suggest joining the bandwagon that is unless you are already using an SEO plugin that works well for you.

To enable XML sitemaps in WordPress SEO, go to SEO and click on XML sitemaps. Afterwards, just tick the box where it says “Check this box to enable XML sitemap functionality” and then “Save Changes”. When that’s done, just click on the button below and you will be taken to your sitemap.

sitemaps

How to Create a Sitemap Using Google XML Sitemaps

Creating a sitemap with the Google XML Sitemaps plugin is very easy. Simply download and install the plugin here. After you activate the plugin, just head over to Settings and click on XML-Sitemap. You should see a section that indicates the URL for your sitemap. There are a bunch of other settings that you can tweak. The default settings are good as is but if you want to change anything depending on your needs, feel free to do so.

google-xml-sitemaps

How to Create a Sitemap Using XML Sitemaps

To create a sitemap using the XML Sitemaps plugin, simply install the plugin from this link. Activate the plugin and head over to yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml. That’s your sitemap. There are a few settings that you can tweak if you head over to Settings and click on XML Sitemaps.

xml-sitemaps

Adding a Link to Sitemap for Your WooCommerce Store

adding-sitemap-to-footerMost SEO experts say that adding a link to your sitemap on your website does not serve any purpose since the search engines find the sitemap through the robots.txt file or when you manually submit the sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools or Bing’s. Some disagree however and mention that having a link in the footer adds value.

If you do want to add a link to your sitemap on your WordPress site’s footer, it is very easy to do. Just go to Appearance and click on Widgets. Afterwards, drag a text widget to the footer where you want to have the link. Just link your sitemap using HTML code.

If you are not sure how to do this, use the code below and just replace the URL with your sitemap’s URL:

<a href=”http://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml”>XML Sitemap</a>

Submitting your Sitemap to Search Engines

When you get your sitemap ready, you should submit it to search engines using Webmaster Tools. Before you do this however, you need to verify your website with Webmaster Tools. You can check our post about the WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast which has links to some useful resources that can help you verify your site if you haven’t done that yet.

How to Submit Your Sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools

To submit your sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools, log in to your account and click on the website that you want to add a sitemap to. On the left sidebar, you should see Site Configuration, click that and then click on Sitemaps. There should be an Add/Test sitemap button in the upper right corner. Add your sitemap and then click on Submit.

How to Submit Your Sitemap to Bing Webmaster Tools

To submit your sitemap to Bing Webmaster Tools, log in to your account and click on Sitemaps. Then click on Submit a Sitemap. A text box should appear where you can specify the URL to your sitemap. Save your settings.

The Verdict: Which one is for you?

Between the XML sitemap plugins mentioned above, which one is for you? WordPress SEO by Yoast has a ton of other features and is one of, if not the best SEO plugin for WordPress. If you are already using this plugin for your SEO, then there’s no reason to get another plugin to get a sitemap. You’ll just be adding extra bloat to your site by going with another plugin. Between Google XML Sitemap and XML Sitemap Plugin, there’s not much of a difference. Both are easy to set up but Google XML Sitemaps has a slight advantage for having more options such as:

  • Automatically notifying search engines whenever you post new content
  • Creation of an HTML sitemap
  • Compressing the sitemap
  • Adding the sitemap URL to the robots.txt file

Got some questions about sitemaps? Let us know in the comments.

People that read this article also liked

How to Set Up WordPress SEO by Yoast for WooCommerce How to Optimize WooCommerce Products for SEO Related-Products-in-WooCommerce_featured-imageHow to Change the Number of Related Products in WooCommerce “Where Did You Hear About Us Field” on WooCommerce checkoutHow to Add “Where Did You Hear About Us” Field on WooCommerce Checkout

Filed Under: How-To Articles, SEO For E-Commerce Tagged With: Google Webmaster Tools, Google+, how-to, plugins, WooCommerce, WordPress SEO, XML sitemap, Yoast

Comments

  1. Kladproraba says

    December 21, 2016 at 4:26 pm

    Hello! Who knows woocommerce? I have a problem in the store kladproraba.com is not displayed the unit for external/affiliate products, reviews block works only when the setting indicated that it is the external product and the reviews block no. Third-party plugins did not solve the problem, only plug diskus works, but it’s not what you need. Have experience how to solve the problem? Share with me Your experience, I would be very grateful!

    Reply
    • Nick J says

      December 21, 2016 at 9:21 pm

      Hi there. That is exactly the sort of work we charge for and make a living from. We would be happy to help you with that. You can purchase some hours here. https://wooassist.com/pricing/

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Woocommerce Support

wooassist-team-in-Iloilo

Get 2 Hours of
FREE SUPPORT

We are so confident that you will love our services that we will give you your first 4 hours at a 50% discount

That's 4 hours for only $75

BUY NOW

Happy Wooassist Customers

Awesome! Fantastic! I just went to our site and I see that our site has been fixed!! We are getting orders again thanks to you all at WooAssist! Our site has not worked and looked this good for many months!! You all are awesome! Thank you so much for fixing our site! You have a customer for life! Thanks for making my day wonderful!

Kenneth Arnold

We have been quite pleased working with WooAssist as they help fill in the gaps of our development needs, all at a great price. They are always timely and communicate great, I highly recommend their services.

James Grasty

My husband and I am EXTREMELY pleased with the WooAssist Team. They provide excellent service, are very knowledgeable, and super easy to communicate with. The team ALWAYS has our company's best interests in mind. I love WooAssist! All of you make my job easier.

Jennifer Taft leetaft.com

Categories

  • Code Snippets
  • How-To Articles
  • Interviews
  • SEO For E-Commerce
  • Theme and Plugin Reviews
  • Wooassist News
  • WordPress/WooCommerce News

Recent Posts

  • The Ultimate Guide on How to Set Up Shipping on Your WooCommerce Store
  • WordPress Site Gets Infected
  • Where to Hire a WooCommerce Developer?
  • Recent Spike in Attacks Targeting Outdated WordPress Plugins
  • Security Vulnerability in Spam protection, AntiSpam, FireWall by CleanTalk
Let us support your online store so you can manage your business

Get started today

Get 2 Hours of FREE SUPPORT

We are so confident that you will love our services that we will give you your first 4 hours at a 50% discount

That's 4 hours for only $75

BUY NOW

Free eBook

Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.
Your subscription has been successful.

YOURS FREE!

5 Things Every Online Store Can Fix On Their Website In The Next Week To Increase Sales

Quick Links

  • How it Works
  • Pricing
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • About Wooassist
  • My Account
  • Checkout
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy
  • Terms and Conditions

Wooassist

Australia:
8 Storie St.
CLONTARF QLD 4019

Philippines:
San Miguel St.
Poblacion, Iligan City 9200

Connect

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Copyright © 2023 · Wooassist

Yours FREE!

5 Things Every Online Store Can Fix On Their Website In The Next Week To Increase Sales