Adding a sitemap is always a great idea when it comes to increasing your site’s ranking and search engine visibility. After all, an XML sitemap helps search engines crawl and index your pages more easily, making them aware of your pages’ existence and thus helping them rank higher over time. But what if you have decided to use a sitemap on your site that will serve as an excellent roadmap not only for search engines but also for your visitors?
This is exactly what you can achieve Creating a so-called visual sitemap for your WordPress site, and in this article, we’ll show you how to do just that. But first, let’s take a look at some of the benefits of using a visual sitemap and the differences between XML and visual sitemaps.
We will consider:
An HTML or visual sitemap Handy element for navigating your website that you can use to help users navigate your site more easily and get a quick idea of the structure of your website. It is usually rendered in an HTML format, consists of most (if not all) of your page links, and is especially useful when users want to find a particular page that is not easily accessible even when using the main navigation. A visual sitemap can even serve as a good starting point or serve as a reference point in case they get lost between pages.
The main difference between XML and a visual sitemap lies in the fact that an XML sitemap is included so that search engines can find your pages more easily. An XML sitemap lists different site URLs and metadata about your pages, allowing Google to crawl and index all of your pages to make them more visible in SERPs. In turn, this also helps them rank your pages accordingly. Of course, better site ranking is achieved by using some additional SEO strategies besides simply adding an XML sitemap.
On the other hand, a The HTML-based sitemap is used to help real people get a better idea of what to find when it comes to your pages and posts.. This type of sitemap also lists all pages as clickable links, but does so in a way that is useful, user-friendly, and visually appealing to people.
Without a doubt, one of the best things about adding a visual sitemap to your site is, It allows you to present the entire website structure to users in a clear, logical and intuitive way. Depending on the type of website you have and the number of pages, it can provide useful visual context for users who have little time to browse your site or have difficulty exploring websites in general. It can serve as an excellent referral tool or a kind of roadmap – it shows them the “path” of your site and all the places they can go next, all listed as your page links. Therefore, a visual sitemap not only gives users additional context, but also helps them save time by getting them to understand your site structure from the start.
Visual sitemaps are particularly useful for sites with a lot of content and/or a large number of pages in general, such as extensive blogs or magazines, large online stores with many products and product categories, and the like. Still, even if your website doesn’t have that many pages, it wouldn’t be wrong to use a sitemap as they can only make it more accessible and user-friendly for your visitors.
We recommend a plugin called to add a visual sitemap to your WordPress site. Simple Sitemap. It is among the most popular free solutions with over 90,000 installations on wp.org.
This plugin allows you to add an HTML sitemap to your page or post using blocks (it has two different blocks so far) and see a preview directly in your editor. You can also use shortcodes to add a sitemap to your page or post if you want. As the name of the plugin suggests, Simple Sitemap is easy to use and allows you to add your sitemap in just a few seconds – no coding required.
After installing and activating the plugin, head Simple Sitemap page in your admin dashboard.
Here you will be able to access a few of the sections related to the plugin and its settings.
after clicking on expand Click the button and a drop-down menu will open revealing a few options.
Here you can enable the removal of parent page links. If you want to remove specific links, you can enter a comma-separated list with the parent page IDs. In case you want to remove all parent page links, “Remove parent page links?” Just tick the box next to the message. If not, just leave this field blank.
you should hit Save Changes Press the button. And if you change your mind, you can always hit the “Reset plugin options” button and your settings will go back to their default state.
if you expand Available Blocks field, you will see more information about the two blocks available. The first is used to add a standard sitemap, and the second is used to display a list of posts grouped by taxonomy. Here you will also have access to some operating instructions.
If you want to know about the shortcodes available, you can simply expand it. Sitemap Shortcodes Episode.
Clicking on each shortcode will take you to the full documentation page for that particular shortcode.
same goes for Shortcode Properties and Default Values section – when you expand it, you will see a list of all the available properties that you can add to override the values you want to change.
When you’re ready to create your sitemap, navigate to the page (or post) where you want to add your sitemap and Look for a block called “Simple Sitemap”. We’ll be using the Gutenberg editor to show you how to use the plugin block to add your sitemap, but don’t worry – you’ll find that this plugin also works with other page builders and editors.
As soon as you add it to your page, you will instantly be able to see a list of links in your blog.
Now, to adjust certain block settings, you can: use Block Submit tab on your page or sidebar on the right side of the screen. You can specify the post types (pages and/or posts) to display here by title, date, id etc. You can choose to sort by. You can also show (or hide) an excerpt in your sitemap, a post type tag (whether the link in question is a page, post, or some other custom post type), sitemap links, tabs, etc. enable or disable it.
Of course, you can also use any of the plugin’s shortcodes (found in the Sitemap Shortcodes section) if you want, and add your sitemap using the shortcode block instead.
shoot me Publish/Update Click the button when you’re happy with the look of your sitemap. Then you can go ahead and preview how your sitemap looks live.
If you want to create your sitemap using the classic editor, simply paste the previously copied shortcode (which you can find in the plugin’s settings) into the editor. For Elementor you need to paste the same shortcode into Shortcode.
Solution
Visual sitemaps are a useful navigation element you can use to help improve your visitors’ user experience. By letting them see a visual hierarchy of all your links and pages in one place, you’ll give them a better idea of your website structure and help them get to all of your pages quickly and efficiently. We recommend using the Simple Sitemap plugin to add your sitemap anywhere on your WordPress site. The plugin is very simple to use and allows you to add blocks or shortcodes to create and add a sitemap to your pages or posts. Make sure you follow our instructions carefully and you will be able to create an easily accessible and intuitive sitemap for your site visitors in no time.
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