Technical SEO

XML Sitemap

An XML sitemap is a file that lists all the important URLs on your website. It acts as a roadmap for search engines, ensuring they can find and crawl every page — even ones that are not well linked internally.

Why Sitemaps Matter for SEO

Search engines discover pages by following links. If a page has no internal links pointing to it (an "orphan page"), crawlers may never find it. An XML sitemap solves this by explicitly listing every URL you want indexed. It is particularly important for:

  • Large websites with hundreds or thousands of pages
  • New websites with few external links
  • Pages deep in your site structure (many clicks from the homepage)
  • Sites that update content frequently (news, e-commerce)

XML Sitemap Format

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
 <url>
  <loc>https://example.co.uk/</loc>
  <changefreq>weekly</changefreq>
  <priority>1.0</priority>
 </url>
</urlset>

How to Create a Sitemap

  • WordPress: Yoast SEO and Rank Math generate sitemaps automatically at /sitemap_index.xml
  • Shopify: Sitemaps are generated automatically at yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml
  • Other platforms: Use a free tool such as xml-sitemaps.com to generate one
  • Custom sites: Generate dynamically from your database and serve at /sitemap.xml

Submitting to Google

  1. Log in to Google Search Console
  2. Select your property
  3. Go to Indexing → Sitemaps
  4. Enter your sitemap URL (e.g. sitemap.xml) and click Submit

Also reference your sitemap in robots.txt:

Sitemap: https://example.co.uk/sitemap.xml
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