MY NUMBER 1 RECOMMENDATION TO CREATE FULL TIME INCOME ONLINE: CLICK HERE
Sitemaps are a powerful tool for SEO professionals and webmasters. They help Google and other search engines navigate your site and find new pages and content.
It is not guaranteed that search engines will index the content, however tell them which pages are important can make a significant difference.
Sitemaps can help you:
- Get an overview of your site’s structure.
- see which pages Google searches for and other search engines.
- Know how often pages are crawled.
- Identify pages that are not indexed.
- Find out which pages have errors that need fixing.
With the help of sitemap generators, it is searching through search engines your website will be faster and more efficient.
If you have a small site ie. less than a few hundred pages, the sitemap can be managed by yourself.
However, if you have a medium or large site and regularly add a significant amount of new content, you may want to consider adding a dynamic sitemap or looking for a sitemap generator.
A dynamic sitemap automatically adds new pages to the sitemap file.
It is usually faster and requires fewer resources than writing to a static file.
Choosing a sitemap generator
If you decide to use a sitemap generator, there are many tools available online – but which one is best for you?
Here are the top 10 sitemap tools I’ve found for SEO professionals:
1. Google Sitemap Generator
This WordPress plugin creates a sitemap for your website that will be compatible with all Google requirements.
It is easy to use and works for all sizes of websites.
The plugin also has various translations that can be a great addition.
2. Screaming frog
One of the most popular spiders in the SEO community, Screaming frog can be used to create sitemaps for any size site.
It also offers an XML sitemap generator.
This tool is a bit more advanced and is designed specifically for larger websites.
The XML sitemap generator follows this progression: Search Site > Click Site mapwith > XML sitemap > Select Pages Includes.
One of my favorite features of Screaming Frog is that it allows you to create a sitemap by crawling through a list.
For example, if you want to check the status codes of a list of URLs and perform a list crawl, you can quickly and easily generate an XML sitemap from that list crawl.
- The price: Free for up to 500 URLs. If you have an enterprise-level website that has thousands or millions of pages, you will need to sign up for the paid version, which is €149 per year.
3. XML-Sitemaps.com
this sitemap generator tool makes it quick and easy to create sitemaps for your website.
It also offers a range of features such as multi-language support and the ability to include/exclude specific pages.
With the web generator, you can create a small sitemap for up to 500 URLs.
If you need to create a larger sitemap (up to 1.5 million pages), a professional model is available.
- The price: Free for up to 500 URLs. Additionally, the professional model is $3.49 per month.
4. Yoast SEO Sitemap Plugin
A popular WordPress plugin that helps you optimize your website for search engines, Yoast SEO it also includes a sitemap generator tool that can help you easily create sitemaps for your website.
One of the most appealing features of the Yoast sitemap generator is its set of reasonable defaults for what goes into a sitemap—and for excluding many pages that shouldn’t be there.
Yoast SEO chooses to split larger sitemaps into smaller sitemaps. Their sitemaps contain up to 1000 linked URLs.
- The price: The XML sitemap feature is free to use in Yoast SEO.
5. Inspyder
This online company offers software XML sitemap generator which is very easy to use and can handle complex websites.
It works on your computer. You can schedule to generate a sitemap and receive an email notification when the sitemap is complete, and you can also get the sitemap in multiple formats – images, video, etc.
- The price: Inspyder offers a free trial so you can try it before you buy. You can purchase the Inspyder package for about $39.95 annually.
6. Slickplan
Website Design Company, Slickplan offers an easy-to-use sitemap generator and offers a WordPress plugin.
A valuable feature of Slickplan is that it allows you to build a sitemap from scratch using drag and drop, or start with an existing site by importing its URL, sitemap index file, or Google XML file.
Slickplan’s visual sitemap generator builds easy-to-navigate hierarchical sitemaps to help you visualize and test different website architecture scenarios.
You can also offer batch editing of large sitemaps that require many edits.
Another cool feature of Slickplan is that it allows users to easily import a website into an application from a previously exported XML file.
Additionally, you can export your existing XML sitemap directly from WordPress and import it into Slickplan.
- The price: Basic plan starts at $10.79 per month and goes up to $100.39 per month.
7. Dynomapper
This generator offers you a good solution to realize and show the right website architecture with interactive visual sitemaps.
Dynomapper’s sitemap is capable of crawling 200,000 pages in one crawl. The sitemap editor allows users to rework the hierarchy, categorize pages, and assign a workflow status to each page.
- The price: Unfortunately, Dynomapper does not offer a standalone sitemap generator; it is included in packages that have other tools. Prices start at $49.95 per month.
8. Sitemap Writer Pro
It’s a great tool for quickly creating sitemaps and for managing large sites with millions of URLs.
Sitemap Writer Pro offers eight types of sitemaps to index your website properly: Standard Sitemap, Google Images, Google News, Google Video, Google Images, Google Code Search, Google Geo, and Google Mobile.
- The price: Very cost effective $24.95.
9. WriteMaps
This is another visual sitemap creator that you can use to create sitemaps without investing time in design.
One of the great features WriteMaps is that you can export your visual content to PDF or share it with a unique URL.
You can also upgrade, downgrade or cancel at any time.
- The price: Monthly plans are free for three sitemaps of up to 50 URLs and go up to $29.99 per month for unlimited sitemaps.
10. Octopus.do.
Enjoying super fast visual sitemaps is what Octopus.do does the best.
Sitemap XML can be generated from visual sitemaps and submitted to Google, Bing and other search engines to improve your visibility and SEO.
Octopus.do offers an interactive flow that takes full advantage of drag and drop.
You can also export your sitemap to a variety of formats, including PDF, PNG, TXT, and XML.
- The price: Free for one project, then up to $120 per month for unlimited sitemaps and projects.
Take it away
These are the 10 best sitemap generators based on my experience.
There are many others, so be sure to do your research to find the one that’s right for you.
Make sure it creates a sitemap that is properly formatted and easy to upload and check.
I’ll leave you with the following time-saving tips.
Sitemap Tips
Always create multiple sitemaps for different parts of your website. This will help you identify which parts of your site are having trouble getting indexed.
Each sitemap is limited to 50 MB (uncompressed) and 50,000 URLs. If you have a larger file or multiple URLs, you’ll need to split the list into multiple sitemaps.
But you can create a sitemap index file (a file that points to a list of sitemaps) and submit that individual index file to Google.
Google does not consider priority in sitemaps, so placing one URL as a higher priority will not affect indexing.
Once the sitemap is created, place it in the root, add it to your robots.txt file and submit it to Google via Google Search Console.
When you submit it, pay attention to any errors and check that the file was sent and read successfully.
More resources:
Featured image: DestroLove/Shutterstock
MY NUMBER 1 RECOMMENDATION TO CREATE FULL TIME INCOME ONLINE: CLICK HERE