HTML sitemap: How to utilize them for UX and SEO

An HTML sitemap is made for your website visitors. This kind of sitemap typically offers access to your website pages as well as possible details of those pages. Utilizing HTML sitemaps is encouraged. They facilitate user navigation on your website.

How does SEO and UX work together?

UX focuses on the users of your website, while SEO addresses search engines. The ideal user experience is something that both parties work for.

What is an XML Sitemap?

Throughout the early stages of the internet, many businesses expanded gradually. Information architects failed to properly plan websites using UX best practices.

They began from nothing, and webmasters continued to add information as needed frequently in extremely unusable ways. Back then, there were no blogs, social media platforms, or systems for managing content. You used HTML to create websites by yourself.

Most of the time, you had to manually code the HTML in a word document, either with a poor WYSIWYG editor like Dreamweaver. In an effort to replace traditional search engine submission, later search engines offered so-called XML sitemaps.

HTML sitemaps are less used now, more than 25 years later. Like we did with guest books and webrings, can we really stop utilizing HTML-sitemaps as well? I don’t think so.

HTML sitemap vs. XML sitemap

The primary distinction between HTML and XML sitemaps is that an HTML sitemap is typically visible to webpage viewers, whereas an XML sitemap is not.

End of 2007 saw the introduction of the XML sitemaps specification by search engines including Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Nevertheless, simply because a website is listed on an XML sitemap does not guarantee that Google and Bing will index it or that it will be accessible even if it is in the index.

Do you need to submit a sitemap to Google?

XML sitemaps are often mechanized and contain all newly published material as soon as it is available publicly. You can construct sitemaps on WordPress using a variety of tools. XML sitemap feature was ultimately implemented to WordPress core in 2020. That’s why you won't even need third-party plugins.

While HTML is unorganized, the XML coding structure is also machine-readable. Although XML fails when a word is missed, HTML must function even in the face of mistakes. The generation of the XML sitemap largely takes place electronically without the interference of human hands, which are prone to error.

XML sitemaps that are user-friendly

Fortunately, there is usually some kind of compromise. XML sitemaps are not required to be made invisible. Much like an HTML page, XML sitemaps can be formatted using css file. As far as XML has available, this method has proven effective. You can find tutorials online to assist you with that. However, with the invention of HTML5, computers accepted websites with poor coding to make publication simpler but at the cost of automatic indexing.

What is the use of HTML sitemap in SEO?

Users can navigate your website more easily thanks to HTML sitemaps. Also, a defined structure with text and connections assists in our ability to index your website.

The most crucial pages on a website are listed in a sitemap, ensuring that search engines can locate and analyze them. Sitemaps also help to explain the layout of your website, making it simpler to explore.

How do I enable HTML sitemap?

Start by selecting the HTML-Sitemaps tab under Sitemaps in the All in One SEO menu. The Display Sitemap option is located at the top of the window and is turned on by default. If you want to turn off the HTML-Sitemaps option, click the toggle.

An HTML sitemap is made for your website visitors. This kind of sitemap typically offers access to your website pages as well as possible details of those pages. Utilizing HTML sitemaps is encouraged. They facilitate user navigation on your website. HTML sitemaps are less used now, more than 25 years later. Users can navigate your website more easily thanks to HTML sitemaps. Also, a defined structure with text and connections assists in our ability to index your website.