Boost Your International SEO with a Multilingual Sitemap
If you want to improve the search engine rankings of your multilingual website, consider creating a multilingual sitemap. This effective strategy helps search engines index your content more easily. In this in-depth guide, we will walk you through the process of creating a multilingual sitemap using WordPress. By implementing this strategy, you can drive targeted international search traffic to your site.
The Significance of a Multilingual Sitemap for SEO
A sitemap is a file that contains all the important content on your WordPress website. It is formatted as XML, which is specifically designed for search engines. Creating an XML sitemap for your multilingual website plays a crucial role in helping search engines quickly discover and index your content, thus enhancing your SEO efforts.
For example, if you have different domains or subdomains that are translated into multiple languages, you will need a separate sitemap for each website. With a multilingual sitemap, you can ensure that your multilingual pages are efficiently indexed and appear in search results, driving targeted traffic to your site.
Creating a Multilingual Sitemap in WordPress
Although WordPress automatically generates an XML sitemap for new websites, its functionality is limited. To have more control over your multilingual sitemap, we recommend using the All in One SEO (AIOSEO) plugin, which is widely regarded as the best WordPress SEO plugin. This plugin allows you to optimize your site for search engines effectively.
Step 1: Installing and Activating the All in One SEO Plugin
Start by installing and activating the All in One SEO plugin. If you need assistance, refer to our detailed guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Step 2: Enabling the Sitemap in All in One SEO
Once you activate the plugin, go to All in One SEO » Sitemaps in your WordPress dashboard. Make sure the ‘Enable Sitemap’ option is enabled.
AIOSEO will automatically generate a sitemap for your multilingual website. You can preview the sitemap by clicking the ‘Open Sitemap’ button or adding “sitemap.xml” to your website URL.
Customizing Your Multilingual Sitemap
AIOSEO offers various options to customize your multilingual sitemaps. Scroll down to explore more options in the AIOSEO Sitemaps settings.
By default, the plugin includes all post types and taxonomies in the sitemap. It also allows you to incorporate date archives and author sitemaps. However, if you want more control over the content included in the sitemap, you can uncheck the ‘Post Types’ and ‘Taxonomies’ options.
Furthermore, you can add more pages from your multilingual website to the sitemap. If you have translated pillar articles or evergreen content, include their page URLs in the sitemap to ensure search engines easily locate your valuable content.
If you wish to exclude specific posts, pages, or terms from your sitemaps, use the ‘Advanced Settings’ option. Simply enter the relevant URLs in the ‘Exclude Posts / Pages’ field and the corresponding terms in the ‘Exclude Terms’ field.
Submitting Your Multilingual Sitemap to Search Engines
After creating your multilingual sitemap, the next crucial step is to submit it to different search engines. This ensures that search engines promptly discover and index your new content.
Submitting the Multilingual Sitemap to Google
Google Search Console is a valuable free tool that helps you monitor your site’s performance in search results. By submitting your multilingual sitemap to Google Search Console, you expedite Google’s discovery of your new content.
To submit your multilingual sitemap, log in to your Google Search Console account. From the left-side menu, access the ‘Sitemaps’ option, enter your multilingual sitemap URL in the ‘Add a new sitemap’ field, and click ‘Submit’.
Submitting the Multilingual Sitemap to Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo
You can also submit your multilingual sitemap to Bing using the Webmaster Tools. When you submit your site to Bing, it automatically gets submitted to Yahoo and DuckDuckGo as well.
For detailed instructions on submitting your sitemap to Bing, follow our comprehensive tutorial on how to add your website to Bing Webmaster Tools.
Final Thoughts
Creating a multilingual sitemap for your WordPress site significantly strengthens your international SEO efforts and improves your search engine rankings. Utilize the powerful All in One SEO plugin to seamlessly create and customize your multilingual sitemaps. Once created, submit these sitemaps to Google, Bing, and other search engines to maximize visibility. Happy optimizing for multilingual SEO!
