Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
Sitemaps | WordPress Blog Posts | Search Engine Optimization | SEO
Here at Web Experts, we’re passionate about helping our clients achieve maximum visibility and exposure through expert SEO practices. One strategy we frequently recommend is integrating your blog content into your sitemap – an easy yet high-impact tactic. I’ll explain what sitemaps and blog content have to do with SEO, and why combining them can give your website a surge in organic traffic.
First, what is a sitemap?
A sitemap is essentially an index of all the pages and content on your website, which you then submit to search engines like Google. It provides crawlers with a roadmap of everything they should index from your site. Sitemaps make the search engine’s job easier by laying out your website structure. In return, this can help lift your site higher in rankings as Google favors websites that are optimized for crawling.
Now, how does blog content fit in?
Most websites nowadays incorporate a blog with regular content publishing. However, oftentimes, clients don’t realize these blog posts need to be a part of the sitemap too for maximum discoverability. Without sitemap inclusion, blog content risks flying under the radar of search engines. Even phenomenal blog posts struggle getting indexed and ranking if they aren’t mapped. By adding your blog pages to a sitemap, you’re signaling to Google that “this content is important, index it!” This elevates blog content visibility in search, allowing it to start attracting traffic.
The benefits of sitemap integration
Populating a sitemap with blog posts can lead to a number of interrelated benefits:
- Faster indexing of new blog content, meaning it can start ranking faster after publication
- Improved blog content visibility as search engines discover and crawl these pages
- Higher overall website crawl efficiency as the sitemap provides a clear content roadmap
- Increased blog traffic as indexed blog posts start ranking for relevant keywords
- Enhanced authority signals as a frequently updated blog shows fresh, high-quality content
Better search visibility of a website’s blog creates a positive feedback loop. More indexed pages lead to more search traffic, which lifts authority and in turn leads to higher rankings. Integrated sitemaps turbocharge this process.
Don’t leave blog content reliance on chance
In summary, leveraging sitemaps is a best practice that leading agencies like Web Experts recommend to every client. Don’t create amazing blog content just to leave its discovery up to chance. Be proactive and integrate your posts into your sitemaps.
You’ll be rewarded with faster indexing, expanded reach, and greater visibility in search engines like Google. Sitemaps are one of the most straightforward SEO wins available — make the most of them.
When its not a good idea
If your website is primarily an e-commerce site or a company website, then you may not need to include all of your posts in the sitemap. Instead, you can focus on including the most important pages, such as your homepage, product pages, and about us page. This will help search engines understand the structure and purpose of your website, and make it more likely that they will crawl and index the pages that matter most to your business.
Summing It Up
Whether or not to include posts in your sitemap depends on the purpose and structure of your website. For blog and news sites, it makes sense to include all of your posts in the sitemap to help search engines find and index all of your content. On the other hand, if your website is mainly focused on e-commerce or company information, it may not be necessary to include all of your posts in the sitemap and focus on the important pages. If you need help with sitemaps, SEO, or creating your next great website, please reach out to our team.
