Installing a Sitemap Plugin in Wordpress

A query that I see from time to time is “how do I create a site map?” or “when I use the site map plugin I get an error”

In this tutorial I will work through the stages step by step and get round the most common error message using the Plesk dashboard (it may be different on other platforms) on WA hosting.

Why do you need a site map? It makes it far easier for Google to look over your site and index all the pages. This will ensure that it is recognised as a well set up site with a proper hierarchy of pages/posts.

If you have never installed a plug in then this page is for you ifI am teaching a Grandma to suck eggs (I never did understand that phrase then go to page 2.

To install a plug in there are basically 3 different ways.

The easiest is probably to go to your plugins page on your Wordpress site, at the top click on Add New and in the search box put in “sitemap” The one I use is Google XML Sitemaps with Multisite support by Mario Kostelac. When you find the one that you want then click install and all should be straight forwards.

Another way is to download the plug in from the website to your computer http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-xml-sitemaps-with-multisite-support/

Then you can go to Add New and click on the upload option at the top. You can then browse for the file on your computer and follow the instructions.

Thirdly you can upload the file to your Wordpress site using FTP and then install it manually into Wordpress. This method is useful for very large custom plugins but for this one I suggest sticking to 1 or 2

Once installed then go to the next page