Create a Sitemap and Submit for Visibility
December 31, 2012
It is recommended for better website/blog visibility to
- Create a Sitemap
AND - Submit a Sitemap to Google for better SEO.
A page from the art book
"And Let There Be Light"
steel, riveted.
Artist:Harriete Estel Berman
Photo Credit: Philip Cohen
This post is about how to create a Sitemap and submit a Sitemap. These instructions may work for your blog, and maybe your website, too, especially, if you have a template-type host.
I will be the first to admit I am afraid.
Step by step, this is how I submitted a Sitemap for my blog.
First I read all the Sitemap tutorials on Typepad and Google.
If you aren't on Typepad, find tutorials for your blog or website host.
Next, open all the windows you need to keep all the various instructions and sites open at the same time. I just can not remember these tech instructions. It is like complete gibberish the first time.
Typepad (the host for my blog) says it will create a Sitemap for you and submit it to Google.
This is shown in the image below.
The problem... is that Google Webmaster Tools (now called Google Search Console) said there was no sitemap.
So I decided that I have to try and do this myself.
I went to my Google Webmaster Tools OPTIMIZATION.
CLICK on Optimization > then CLICK on Sitemaps.
CLICK on the button that says:
ADD/TEST SITEMAP, it looks like the image below right.
Paste the site map address from your blog* or website provider in the window on Google Webmaster Tools. It should look like the image above.
I pasted my sitemap URL into the window. The URL below is the web address for my blog ASK Harriete Sitemap.
http://askharriete.typepad.com/ask_harriete/sitemap.xml
*AT the beginning of this post, I found the URL on Typepad.
Keep in mind that I didn't paste in the whole URL ...just the part that was missing........from the box. (Look at the image below.)
CLICK on the Submit Sitemap Button that looks like the image right.
I DID IT!!!
You can too!!!!
In the box below you can see that Google Webmaster Tools now says I have a Sitemap submitted.
P.S. If your website is on WordPress here is a tutorial.
How to submit your website sitemap is coming up....in a future post. It involved asking a 3rd party website to make me a Sitemap.
More scary stuff to do.
Harriete Estel Berman
This post was updated on July 28, 2022, to provide current links.