An XML sitemap tells Google and other search engines what your important web pages are and how they are connected. Search engines use the sitemap to navigate your website to understand what kind of content you have on your website and how pages are linked.

This is what Google says about XML sitemaps:

A sitemap is a file where you provide information about the pages, videos, and other files on your site, and the relationships between them. Search engines like Google read this file to more intelligently crawl your site. A sitemap tells Google which pages and files you think are important in your site, and also provides valuable information about these files: for example, for pages, when the page was last updated, how often the page is changed, and any alternate language versions of a page.

Sitemaps are an important part of your technical SEO strategy. You can have the best content, an amazing brand, and a buzzing social media presence, but if your technical SEO is letting you down, you won’t get the traffic and engagement you want.

In this blog, I give you the facts on XML sitemaps and links to articles that dig deeper into the technical aspects of XML sitemaps. By the end of this blog, you’ll know what XML sitemaps are, why they matter to your website, what to include in your sitemap, and how to create and submit a sitemap to search engines.

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Learn about keyword research, links, content optimization, and more in this free SEO course

There is a lot of content available about SEO, search, content marketing, and Google. Unfortunately, this means there is a lot of contradictory, misleading, and plain old incorrect information out there about SEO and search.

We want to put an end to the confusion around SEO and help people like you understand what the priorities should be for SEO, search, content marketing, and Google.

When you focus on getting the basics of SEO right, it’s much easier to run successful pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, strategic social media rollouts, and to build a consistent base of blog and email newsletter readers.

This year we are celebrating the 10-year anniversary of Know Agency. This is a big deal for us. We’re a small team, each of us has very specific roles and unique expertise. This allows us to be agile, flexible, and responsive to our client needs and challenges. And ultimately, is the reason why we and our clients are successful.

We are driven by a few core questions:

• “What are the client challenges? How can we solve these client challenges?”
• “What can we do better for our clients?”
• “What don’t we know? What is the best way to learn?”

And this is why we developed the Know Agency 8-Week SEO Basics Course.

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