Lecture: XML Sitemaps

AI Prompts

• XML Sitemap Generation

  • Purpose: To create a basic XML sitemap file from a list of your website's important URLs.

  • Prompt Structure:

    <aside>

    Here are my list of important URLs for my site [Enter your Site_URL] [Enter your list of important URLs or attach a CSV file containing that] Can you create an XML sitemap based on this important URLs list for me to submit to Google search console?

    </aside>

Tools & Applications

• Yoast SEO: A WordPress plugin that can automatically generate and update your XML sitemap.
  • https://yoast.com/wordpress/plugins/seo/
• Screaming Frog SEO Spider: A desktop tool that can crawl your site and generate an XML sitemap (free for up to 500 URLs).
  • https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/
• XML-Sitemaps.com: A free online tool for generating sitemaps for smaller websites.
  • https://www.xml-sitemaps.com/

Lecture: Robots.txt File

Tools & Applications

• Google Search Console: Use the Robots.txt Report to check for errors and see how Google is interpreting your file.
  • https://search.google.com/search-console/
• Screaming Frog SEO Spider: Can be configured to respect or ignore robots.txt, and can show you which URLs are being blocked.
  • https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/
• Online Robots.txt Testers: Third-party tools that can validate your file and simulate how search engines interpret it.
  • Example: https://technicalseo.com/tools/robots-txt/

Lecture: Canonical Tags

Tools & Applications

• Screaming Frog SEO Spider: Essential for auditing canonical tags across your site to find missing tags, duplicates, and other errors.
  • https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/

Lecture: Internal Linking

Tools & Applications

• Screaming Frog SEO Spider: Use this tool to conduct a full internal link audit, find orphaned pages, identify broken links (404s), and spot redirect chains.
  • https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/

Lecture: URL Structure

Tools & Applications