Now, assume you have just created the online store on the Shopify store that you have always wanted. You have listed your products well, worked hard to come up with an appealing storefront, and are awaiting the day customers knock on your door. Even when you work extra hard, you lack website traffic, and the store you run should be more popular.
What could be missing?
The answer often lies in how such search engines as Google can find and index your site. This is where a Shopify sitemap becomes relevant.
If you are into SEO, then sitemap is one such component that cannot be ignored for your website. It basically plays the role of a map, especially to the search engines, as they navigate through the different pages and content on your site. They help manage your site’s structure and organization and help the search engine locate your pages quickly, making your store more visible to customers. Unfortunately, many Shopify store owners do not know how to develop and index sitemaps of their online stores, which is a severe drawback for their further successful online promotion.
In this post, we will highlight what you need to know about a Shopify sitemap. In this article, we’ll break down what a sitemap is, why this tool is so valuable, and how you can generate and submit a sitemap to Google.
What is a Shopify Sitemap?
Source: SemRush
Shopify sitemap is an Excel file containing all the critical pages on your Shopify store that helps search engines like Google map the structure of your site. It aids search engines most quickly and efficiently in crawling and indexing your site, making your website appear in the search results whenever potential customers are searching for products that you have to offer.
- Google defines a sitemap as an essential feature for any website since it ensures that the various search engines can locate and crawl through the website easily.
- Thus, a sitemap helps ensure that the pages of your store, including those placed in the virtually unreachable corners of the internet, will remain easily accessible and indexed by search engines.
- It is more critical for huge eCommerce stores containing thousands of product pages, categories, and collections, as it guarantees that search systems will thoroughly index the resource.
- In the Shopify store, a sitemap is generated by the owner and updated most of the time; this file is well located at http://yourdomain/sitemap com/sitemap. XML.
- This file contains all your product pages, collections, blog posts, and other consumable content, thus making it easy for the crawlers to index your site.
Updating the sitemap has its benefits, which include improving your store’s SEO ranking, enabling fast indexing of your pages, and directing traffic to your store.
Why is Submitting Shopify Sitemap Significant?
Another necessary action that should be taken to make your store visible to search engines, for example, Google, is submitting the sitemap of your store based on the Shopify platform. In this way, you assist in introducing search engines to the overall graph of your site, which makes them index your pages better.
This process also helps in improving your SEO strategies and, at the same time, provides the best chance to drive organic traffic. Still trying to convince? Include in the list the following advantages.
Improved Indexing
By submitting your sitemap, all the web pages of your store will be indexed by the search engines as soon as possible, and new and updated web pages will also be indexed immediately. This makes the site appear higher in the list of websites that are found by the search engine.
Enhanced Crawl Efficiency
The primary benefit of making a sitemap is that it helps the search engines to crawl your site more effectively; this means that the likelihood of missing key pages when crawling the site will be minimized, and the crawl coverage will be boosted.
Faster Updates
A submitted sitemap can be even more helpful when you’ve made changes to your store and added new products and collections; submitted changes to our sitemap will help search engines find these changes and index them much faster.
Increased Organic Traffic
Source: Hush Anasthetics
Thus, by adequately indexing all of the essential pages, a sitemap will help your store rank higher on several keywords in organic search and attract more potentially interested customers to your website.
Comprehensive Site Coverage
As a sitemap incorporates every kind of content you have on your site, including the product pages, posts in the blog, and categories, you cover all bases and improve your site’s chances of being indexed and found by search engines.
These are benefits that, if fully understood and utilized, will help you improve your Shopify store’s SEO and drive better organic traffic. In the next section, we’ll describe step by step how to build the Shopify sitemap and resubmit it to Google.
What is Inside in the Shopify Sitemap?
A Shopify sitemap is a single accessible file that contains the details of all the necessary pages and information of an eCommerce store. This automatically created file serves the purpose of mapping search engine bots as it provides the specifics of how the bots may index your site.
The Shopify sitemap includes all the necessary sections that are important for SEO, guaranteeing that all the significant facets of the store are searchable by search engines.
Components of a Shopify Sitemap:
- Main Sitemap File: This is the master sitemap file that contains links to the other more detailed child sitemap files to give an idea of how your store is structured.
- Child Sitemap Files: Some are general sitemaps. In contrast, others are more specific depending on the type of content, such as product sitemaps, collection sitemaps, blog sitemaps, and even page sitemaps, making sure that they are well indexed.
- Product Pages: Incorporates all individual product pages, allowing search engines to quickly recognize and catalogue every product that is available for purchase on your site.
- Standard Pages: It includes the most frequently accessed sections of the site, also including the About Us, Contact, and FAQ sections for broad site inclusion.
- Image URLs: Always add links to images related to your products and posts to improve your results under the image search option.
Thus, each component of the Shopify sitemap means that every page and post on your store is discoverable by search engines, in turn increasing your store’s visibility and optimization.
How Do I Create a Sitemap for Shopify?
Making a sitemap of your Shopify shop is easy, as Shopify offers to develop a sitemap by default. But more importantly, it is crucial to understand where to look for it and how to ensure that everything is fine-tuned to contribute to the SEO of your site.
Here are the instructions that you need to follow to generate your sitemap on Shopify.
- Navigate to your Shopify account and go to the dashboard section of your store online.
- In the dashboard, go to the “Online Store” link located under the name on the left sidebar.
- In the Online Store, navigate to the drop-down ‘Menu’ and click on ‘Preferences’.
- Scroll downward to the “Search engine listing preview” block.
- Next, to check the files used by Google in the indexing process of your store, click on the “See the files used by Google to index your store” link. This will help open your store’s sitemap in another tab of your browser.
- Click ‘Save’ to generate your sitemap, and then copy the URL of your sitemap from your browser.
- The next step after the submission is to closely monitor the status of the sitemaps from time to time in the Google Search Console sitemaps report.
- Google will then give a summary and details of the indexing process as well as some of the problems faced.
Following the above-given points, you’ll be able to generate and submit a sitemap for your Shopify store to help search engines crawl the page and boost your store’s organic traffic rankings.
Easy Steps to Submitting a Shopify Sitemap to Google
After creating a Shopify Sitemap, it is time to submit it to the search engine for crawling purposes. Let’s take a look at the easy steps.
Find Your Shopify Sitemap
- This is done by navigating to the Shopify website and accessing the store’s admin panel.
- Select the “Online Store” option from the sidebar menu drop-down list.
- Click on the “Preferences” tab under the “Online Store” tab.
- Look for the section entitled “Search engine listing preview” further down the page.
- Further, click on the “See the files used by Google to index your store” link. This should take you to your store’s sitemap in a new tab, providing a list of all available pages.
Verify Your Shopify Store
Source: PageFly
- Navigate to Google Search Console by typing ‘www.google.com/webmasters’ in the address bar or search Google’s website manually.
- After that, click on the button that says “Start Now” and provide the input field with your Shopify store’s address in the format of a domain name, such as www.yourstore.com.
- To complete the verification process, follow the links below.
- Here are some examples of the ways to verify your domain: You may add a meta tag to your site’s HTML code or upload an HTML file to your Shopify site.
Submit Your Sitemap to Google
Source: Logeix
- To do this, open Google Search Console, locate your Shopify store there, verify it, and then go to the “Sitemaps” tab on the left.
- On the sitemaps page, there will be a button marked “Add a new sitemap”; click on this.
- Type “sitemap. xml” after your domain name (for example, your store. com/sitemap. xml) in the proper field.
- To inform Google of your Shopify sitemap, click on the “Submit” button.
Thus, by performing these actions, you will be able to easily submit the Shopify sitemap to Google search, which will help to enhance the crawling and indexing of your store’s pages in the desired results.
Common Errors When Submitting Shopify Sitemap to Google
It is essential to submit your Shopify sitemap to Google so that the specific pages of your online store can be crawled and ranked. However, several possible mistakes can be made during the submission process, and this may distort the SEOs you are implementing.
Below, we highlight some common errors that Shopify store owners may encounter when submitting their sitemap to Google, along with explanations of each:
Incorrect Sitemap URL
Perhaps the biggest mistake is the use of the wrong URL for your Shopify sitemap. When submitting your sitemap, ensure you use the correct format (e.g., sitemap. xml of your online store will be http: //yourstore. Com/sitemap. XML
Verification Issues
If you do not own a Shopify store in the Google Search Console, then you are likely to be locked out from submitting your sitemap. Be sure to stick to the directions carefully if you want to get access to the required tools.
Missing or Incomplete Sitemap
If your sitemap in Shopify is not proper or contains a lack of information about certain pages of your site, search engines will not index all of your content. Make sure your sitemap contains all the URLs and is properly updated when new URLs in your store are added or eliminated.
Sitemap Submission Limits
Like most other tools, Google Search Console restricts the number of sitemaps that one can submit across a property. They also have to state that if these limits or multiple sitemaps filled with duplicative content are crossed, then there are potential mistakes in indexation and uncertainty for robots.
Redirects and Errors in Sitemap
If there are some URLs of your Shopify sitemap which are redirected or lead to an error page (for example, 404 error), search engines can experience problems when indexing your site. It is also a good idea to check sitemaps for issues and fix them as soon as possible to enhance indexing.
By being aware of those mistakes and preventing them from happening, it would be possible to submit Shopify sitemaps to Google effectively, boosting the SEO of your store.
Frequently Asked Questions on Shopify Site Submission
Why do I need to submit my Shopify sitemap to Google?
When you submit your sitemap, Google will be able to locate your site’s pages to improve their ranking in the search engine result pages.
What is the easiest way to obtain my Shopify sitemap?
It is simple to locate your sitemap; you need to go to the Shopify admin panel, click on the Online Store option, and then click on Preferences.
How can I handle the errors that may occur when submitting a sitemap on Shopify?
Look for specific issues that are easily encountered, for example, wrong links or verification problems, and refer to Google’s recommendations.
Can I submit more than one sitemap for the Shopify store?
It is quite acceptable to have multiple sitemaps, but it is advised that the sitemaps should not be duplicative as this may confuse the search engines.
How often should I refresh the sitemap on my Shopify Store?
Your Shopify sitemap must update in real-time whenever you publish new content or make changes to your store; however, it is wise to manually review it from time to time to ensure that it is seamless.
Final Thoughts
All in all, the owners of online stores based on Shopify need to submit their sitemaps to Google to improve the visibility of their shops and increase their SEO efficiency. This way, all the pages important to your business will be carefully indexed, which means that your site will rank higher in the search results.
In addition, a properly constructed and submitted sitemap also helps in avoiding basic mistakes. It also guarantees that your store’s updates are quickly indexed by the search engine—ensuring that your site information is recent.
In today’s environment, enhancing the result of digital marketing and the number of visitors to the Shopify Online Store, sitemap optimization has the potential to produce crucial differences. By being aware of these mistakes and following the tips above, you will be able to optimize your sitemap submission and set your store for success in the saturated online market.