In order to submit your sitemap to search engines and gain all the benefits explain in my earlier post “The Importance of Sitemaps,” you have to have one first.  If you’re using WordPress, then this process is very easy.

There are several plugins for WordPress that will create a sitemap, but my favorite is Google XML Sitemaps created by Arne Brachhold of Kernen im Remstal in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Though Mr. Brachold’s name and city are difficult for me to pronounce, his plugin is exceptionally easy to use. It’s also very frequently updated—2009 alone saw over 10 updates to the plugin—which means that bugs are frequently being identified and fixed and the plugin is kept up-to-date with changes at Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Ask.

To install the plugin, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the plugins menu in the back-end of WordPress, click on the Add New sub-menu, and  search for “Google XML Sitemaps.”
2. Google XML Sitemaps should appear at the top of the search list.  Click “Install” and then “Install Now.”
3. WordPress will now ask for your site’s FTP username and password.  If you’ve already used the install/update utility, this information may already be filled in.
4. Once it’s installed, activate the plugin.
5. Next you’ll have to manually create
6. The plugin is set up to create two files, sitemap.xml and sitemap.xml.gz (a zipped file for faster downloading by search engines).  When you first install the plugin, these files will have to be created manually as your installation should be set so that new files cannot be written to the root directory.  To do this simply create two dummy files with the right names, upload them, and set them to CHMOD 666.  For more on this, see this note from the plugin’s creator:
   

   More information about CHMOD and how to make files writable is available at the WordPress Codex and on stadtaus.com. Making your whole blog directory writable is NOT recommended anymore due to security reasons.

7. Now navigate to the plugin’s settings page to manually generate the sitemap for the first time.
8. You’re done!

Google XML Sitemaps will automatically alert Google, Bing, and Yahoo about your new sitemap.  You should see your search engine traffic increase within a few days.

Though this plugin will automatically submit your sitemap, submitting your sitemap manually to Google, Bing, Yahoo!, and even Ask.com and other smaller search engines has many benefits.  You’ll be able to see if your site is being completely indexed, if any broken links are harming your ranking, and a lot of other helpful information that can dramatically improve your position in search results.

Stay tuned to our series of posts on sitemaps to learn how to manually submit your sitemap.

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