CommerceCubes

WordPress Tutorial: SiteMap your WordPress Site

I’d been searching for a bit on how to create a sitemap for CommerceCubes when I came across a good little plug-in that maps your site and submits it (the sitemap) to goggle. Doing a manual sitemap with a content-based site such as a blog or CMS like Joomla! Just isn’t feasible depending on how fast your site is growing so having this plug-in is a welcome tool.

Now if you’ve never installed a plug-in on WordPress or aren’t even sure what I am talking about, I’ve done a few screenshots on how to install a plug-in and more importantly understand a bit more about how WordPress as a software works.

1. Place the plug-in locally on your computer - the C:\ is always a good place to put a file you want to upload by default

2. Find the plugin that you placed in the plugins directory of your wordpress site - If you are at the “Dashboard” section of your wordpress site go to the “Plugins” section simply by using the top navigation menu and click it. Once you are there you should see a list like the one below and select the “Activate” hyperlink next to the plugin you want to install, in our case we would want to install the “Google Sitemaps” plugin.

3. Go to the “Sitemap” Tab under the “Options” section (see picture below)

4. Move to the “Sitemap” tab that has been created by activating the plugin - from the past steps you can now click the “manual rebuild” option or customize the sitemap to your liking.

5. When you are finished - you should see the following at the top of your screen…

I was prompted to write this after reading Michael Pollack’s posting on the subject of SEO tips for WordPress. If you’d like to download the plugin that was installed in this tutorial go to this site.  Enjoy playing around with WordPress and have a Happy Halloween!

Luc