What is a sitemap?

A site map is one page or sometimes a set of pages, which lists all, or most of the pages on a web site.

What type of file is a sitemap?

A true sitemap has an xml extension. Example “Sitemap.xml”

What program can I use to create a sitemap file?

Any standard text or program editor program.

Here is the basic layout and format of a sitemap file. I know that this is a quick tutorial, but the example that you see here is the same that I use for my website and it is Google approved.

What are you going to put into your sitemap file?

You will enter most or all of your most important web page links from your website. Example;

Index.html

about.html

YourCategoryPage.html

YourArticle.html

OK, to the point!!

1. Open your favorite text editor.

Add the following line at the beginning of the page, without the quotes. This line will tell your web browser what type of file it is viewing.

“"

2 . Now add the following line bellow, without the quotes.

“<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"

        xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"

        xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9

        http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9/sitemap.xsd">”

3. Now add your website links, without the quotes.

“<url>

        <loc>http://www.yourdomainname.com/index.htmlloc>

url>”

“<url>

        <loc>http://www.yourdomainname.com/about.html

url>”

“<url>

        <loc> http://www.yourdomainname.com/YourCategoryPage.htmlloc>

url>”

“<url>

        <loc> http://www.yourdomainname.com/YourArticle.htmlloc>

url>”

4. Now close your code with the following tag

“”

5. Save your sitemap.xml file to your web hosting service.

Now visit, http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ to validate your sitemap.xml file. If you sitemap returns no errors, you have created the perfect sitemap file.

If you do not have a Google Webmaster Tools account, I would advice you sign up for it. Add your site map link, http://www.yourdomainname.com/sitemap.xmll to Google site map tools to have your sitemap index with Google.