This SOP is a work in progress. If you notice anything that is out of date, could be more clear or could be more efficient please update the SOP or add a comment to start a conversation.
Purpose
Provide instructions on creating and submitting a sitemap based on URLs affected by a client’s SEO package.
Procedure
Step 1: Copy the Sitemap Generator Template tab.
Navigate to the Sitemap Generator Template sheet from Ryan Kelner and copy the only tab there to the client sheet of the dealer you want to create an SEO sitemap for (Click on Existing spreadsheet).
When you copy a new tab to a client sheet the new tab goes all the way to the right of all existing tabs so make sure you move it near the Work Done Import and SEO Work Done tabs.
Make sure to also remove the “Copy of ”in the name of the tab.
Step 2: Setup the sitemap generator tab
Step 3: Creating the XML sitemap file
Once you’ve got all your links in the Work Done Import tab
Copy the B2 cell of the Sitemap Generator
Paste into a blank notepad file, it should look something like this:
Create a folder for each of your clients' sitemaps in your documents.
Save your file type as “All Files” and name your file “seo-sitemap.xml”
This should leave you with an XML file
Step 4: Uploading the XML sitemap file
Now that you we our sitemap ready we can upload it to the client’s FTP folder.
Open your NppFTP plugin in Notepad++ and navigate to the client’s FTP folder
There should be a folder named content, here upload your new XML file by right-clicking it and selecting Upload other file here… option.
Step 5: Updating the sitemap index
After uploading the new sitemap we also need to update the main sitemap index.
In the FTP folder, there should be a sitemap.xml file near the bottom of the list of files for that folder
Open that file, it should look something like any of these two options. Sometimes it may have multiple sitemaps or just 1 or none.
Copy and paste the following snippet of code replacing the [dealer domain] with the site URL for the dealer you’re working on and the last modification date with the format YYYY-MM-DD.
<sitemap>
<loc>[dealer domain]/content/seo-sitemap.xml</loc>
<lastmod>2022-11-17</lastmod>
</sitemap>
It should look like this:
Save your changes.
Step 6: Submitting your sitemap updates to Google Search Console
Navigate to the Google account where you’re GSC property is stored (most of them are in the seo@dealerspike.com or sem@dealerspike.com Google accounts).
In the left-hand menu under the Indexing section click on Sitemaps
In the Sitemaps indexing write the file location for the uploaded sitemap and click submit
Search Console will give the next message, click on got it.
Now submit the sitemap index we also updated
You should have a list of submitted sitemaps looking like this:
Outputs:
FAQs
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