Who never wants their website's SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to improve, drive more traffic to the page and generate good revenue? Of course, everyone wishes to have a well-developed, SEO-based website and generate more leads.
XML sitemap assists search engines in understanding your website structure and effectively indexing web pages by improving SEO rankings and bringing more traffic to your website. Although, manually building an XML sitemap is challenging due to its technical structure. So, here's all that you need to know about XML sitemaps and the best tools to generate them.
What is XML?
XML is an acronym for Extensible Markup Language, a markup language similar to HTML (Hypertext markup language). However, it doesn't have predefined tags; instead, you define tags according to your need. So XML is purely customizable.
What is an XML Sitemap?
An XML sitemap is a blueprint of your website which assist search engine find, crawling, and indexing all the content available on your website. Moreover, an XML sitemap is a text file with a list of URLs in your website that is important for your site design and SEO. Additionally, it contains extra information, details of when content was last updated in a specific URL, or in which language the URL version is made. Finally, it allows tracking the changes, such as the addition or removal of a page. This way, search engine crawlers can crawl your website more efficiently. In simple words, XML was specially designed to describe data and focus on the data type.
Google detects file types of a sitemap, and these are the type of files supported by an XML sitemap:
- HTML
- Image
- Video
- Mobile
- News
What are the reasons why an XML sitemap is necessary for your website?
An XML sitemap simplifies the function of web search.
Indexing:
Indexing is one of the primary reasons you should create and submit an XML sitemap. Although search engines can technically find your pages, adding a sitemap makes the process easy and effective.
Crawling:
Crawling becomes more frequent and intelligent with an XML sitemap. So it helps you bring search spiders to your pages and increase the chances of appearing in web searches.
The best XML sitemap generators:
The following online tools will help you create a website's XML sitemap by crawling your web pages.
XML-Sitemaps
One of the best XML sitemap generators through which you can easily create sitemaps of approximately 1,500,000 pages. Registration is not required. However, you should register for a more extensive website with extended functionality.
Features of XML- Sitemap:
- Mobile app and easy installation
- All types of websites: online stores, portals, blogs, and forums
- Creates HTML, XML, text formatted, and mobile sitemap. Moreover, we can get extra options for creating images, videos, and news sitemaps.
- Instant Email notifications
- Updates existing sitemaps
- Detection of broken links
- Generates sitemaps for media (videos and images) separately
Pricing:
It is free for websites with a maximum of 500 pages, and websites with more pages should subscribe to its pro-paid version, starting from $3.49 per month.
Inspyder
Another best web crawling and SEO tool allows you to shuffle the web pages and build its XML sitemaps. It's an easy and quick desktop download. Yet you can use it directly or after installation on your PC.
Features of Inspyder:
- Customizable
- Easy creation of image, video, and mobile sitemap
- Scheduled generation
- Search engine ping and Email notifications
Pricing:
It offers you a free trial version yet is limited. However, you need to pay $39.95 only once to use its premium features.
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Slickplan
The visual XML sitemap generating tool helps you create professional sitemaps. It automatically crawls your website and generates its XML sitemap.
Features of Slickplan:
- Drag and drop
- Easy import of text file
- User permission and customizability
- Custom branding and page type inclusion
- Content planner
- Design mockups
- Custom branding
Pricing:
It has a free trial for up to 30 days, and paid version starts from $8.99.
Google XML sitemaps
CMS plugins for IMPROVING SEO generate XML sitemaps which help various search engines index your site. Moreover, crawlers can easily watch the complete structure of your site and fetch it properly. This type of plugin supports all websites generated by WordPress.
Features of Google XML sitemap:
- Dynamic sitemap
- Customizable
Pricing:
It is a free tool.
Writemaps
Like other normal XML sitemap generating tools, Writemaps entertain you with its simple interface and customizable user experience.
Features of Writemaps:
- Customizable
- Custom groups
- Drag and drop builder
Pricing:
You can create three sitemaps for free, and to enjoy its premium version, you need to buy monthly for $14.99
Dynomapper
Dynomapper is a visual tool that helps you develop interactive sitemaps for your websites. You find three sitemap styles where you can choose from default, circle, and tree. Moreover, with logo and color scheme, style can be customizable. With its advanced drag and drop functionality, crawler options, and analytics integration, Dynomapper has become one of the best XML sitemap generating tools.
Features of Dynomapper:
- Highly customizable
- Better workflow management
- Effectively monitor URLs in Sitemap, Google analytics
- Custom page type inclusion and branding
- URL tagging and sitemap filtering
- User permission
Pricing:
A free trial of 14-days and its premium subscription starts from $40 per month.
