WordPress Simple HTML Sitemap Plugin – Easy And Powerful
Before taking a look at the features and use of WordPress Simple HTML Sitemap plugin, lets first go through a quick introduction on HTML Sitemap.
What is HTML Sitemap?
HTML sitemap helps website visitors navigating through a website. HTML sitemap is a text version of the site navigation and built with ordered or unordered lists. Website visitors can take a look at the HTML sitemap and locate the pages they are looking for as it is an easier option comparing to locating the page by using search function. HTML sitemap contains anchor links which points to every page of the website. With HTML sitemap you can improve website’s ranking by improving your user experience.
HTML Sitemap V/s XML Sitemap
The difference between XML sitemap and HTML sitemap is that XML sitemap makes the process of crawling easier for crawler and HTML sitemap makes process of navigation easier for website visitors. In short XML sitemaps are exists for search engines and HTML sitemaps are for humans.
Now a days with modern design trends and too many choices available, website visitors don’t bother navigating through the website using HTML Sitemap. If they don’t find it easily what they are looking for then they’ll move to another website.
But still HTML sitemap is really helpful specially for websites having larger content. According to Google every page should be reachable from at least one static text link. If any website is having a really complicated navigation structure, like large number of pages are almost connected through forms rather than a logical structure, then having HTML Sitemap can really help Google to understand the structure of the website based on links.
Main benefits of HTML Sitemap
Help users in navigating through pages.
Quick access option to all the pages of a website.
Helpful in SEO as Google still values the HTML sitemap.
HTML sitemaps are handy when Google crawls any website naturally, and not using XML sitemap.
Best option to interlinking the pages.
Really helpful in categories to organize pages in better way.
WordPress Simple HTML Sitemap plugin overview
Using WordPress Simple HTML Sitemap plugin, you can add HTML Sitemap anywhere on the website using Shortcode. This plugin is really beneficial to websites built with WordPress and having large number of CMS pages. This WordPress plugin is simple and easy to use, yet it provides various options to setup the sitemap format according to requirements.
WordPress Simple HTML Sitemap provides options to generate a sitemap of pages and posts including parent child relationship, specific depth, various layouts, order by options, include image or excerpt, date and date format, etc… Based on selected options plugin generates a shortcode of a sitemap which can be used anywhere on the site to show a sitemap.
Most importantly, WordPress Simple HTML Sitemap plugin does all things automatically and you don’t have to make changes manually in shortcodes because of wide variety of options available.
WordPress Simple HTML Sitemap options and shortcodes
Important note: If you like to generate a sitemap having both posts and pages, you need to use two shortcodes. One for the pages and another for the posts.
1. Select Page
Select Page
To generate shortcodes, the initial step is to select the Pages option. After selecting this option you can go through the other options.
2. Order By
Three options available to order the pages or posts in HTML sitemap named “Date”, “Title” and “Menu Order”.
Order By DateOrder By Date
This is the default option and there is no need to make any changes if you are looking to generate a sitemap having links arranged by latest items at the top.
Shortcode of pages sitemap ordered by date
[wshs_list post_type="page" name="Page Sitemap" order_by="date"]
Shortcode of posts sitemap ordered by date
[wshs_list post_type="post" name="Post Sitemap" order_by="date"]
Order by TitleOrder By Title
Title option will help listing all the items alphabetically in ascending order.
Shortcode of pages sitemap ordered by title
[wshs_list post_type="page" name="Page Sitemap" order_by="title"]
Shortcode of posts sitemap ordered by title
[wshs_list post_type="post" name="Post Sitemap" order_by="title"]
Order by Menu OrderOrder By Menu Order
In case if you like to arrange the pages with the same order like to have for menus, you can select this option. This option can be really helpful if you have customized the order of pages.
Shortcode of pages sitemap ordered by menu order
[wshs_list post_type="page" name="Page Sitemap" order_by="menu_order"]
Shortcode of posts sitemap ordered by menu order
[wshs_list post_type="post" name="Post Sitemap" order_by="menu_order"]
3. Display only child of (option available for pages sitemap only)
Display Only Child Of
If you like to generate HTML sitemap for the pages and like to include only child pages of any specific parent page then this option can be helpful.
Shortcode of pages sitemap to show child pages of specific parent page
[wshs_list post_type="page" name="Page Sitemap" order_by="date" child_of ="157"]
Here 157 is ID of parent page and this shortcode will show all the child pages created under page having ID 157.
4. Display Depth (option available for pages sitemap only)
Display Depth
In WordPress you can arrange or create pages in hierarchies by selecting a top level page for other pages. Pages under a parent page are called child pages. Using this option one can control what level of sub-pages should be included in the sitemap.
Shortcode of pages sitemap to show 4 level of subpages
[wshs_list post_type="page" name="Page Sitemap" order_by="date" depth="4"]
5. Column Layout
Column Layout
For the layout we have 2 options, single column and two columns.
Shortcode of pages sitemap with single column
[wshs_list post_type="page" name="Page Sitemap" order_by="date" layout="single-column"]
Shortcode of posts sitemap with single column
[wshs_list post_type="post" name="Post Sitemap" order_by="date" layout="single-column"]
If you select two columns then one more option will be available to select the position. You can generate a shortcode to show the sitemap either in left or in right column.
Column Position
As an example
[wshs_list post_type="page" name="Page Sitemap" order_by="date" layout="two-columns" position="left"]
Display Image
In case if you like to include a thumb image for each item in the sitemap, WordPress Simple HTML Sitemap plugin provides an option for that.
Once you check the checkbox, two more inputs will appear dynamically under the Display Image option. Here you can specify the width and height (in pixels) for an image you like to include in the sitemap.
Shortcode of pages sitemap with image
[wshs_list post_type="page" name="Page Sitemap" order_by="date" show_image="true" image_width="30" image_height="30"]
Shortcode of posts sitemap with image
[wshs_list post_type="post" name="Post Sitemap" order_by="date" show_image="true" image_width="40" image_height="40"]
7. Display Excerpt
Display Excerpt
Excerpt in WordPress CMS is a term used for post of page summary with a link to the whole article entry. WordPress can generate an excerpt automatically or can be generated by using the <!–more–> tag inside the content. If you like to include the excerpt into the sitemap this option can be useful.
This checkbox upon activation will open up new input to specify the characters limit for excerpt. These are examples of posts and pages sitemap shortcode having 100 characters excerpt.
Shortcode of pages sitemap with excerpt
[wshs_list post_type="page" name="Page Sitemap" order_by="date" content_limit="100"]
Shortcode of posts sitemap with excerpt
[wshs_list post_type="post" name="Post Sitemap" order_by="date" content_limit="140"]
8. Show Date
Show Date
Date in a sitemap file were used to tell crawlers about when the pages/posts were updated or changes. But now priority and change frequency doesn’t really play that much of a role with Sitemaps anymore. Still it’s a good option to indicate the date when the post or page was created. Using this option you can include the date in sitemap.
Alongside with date, you can select the date format in which you like to include the date in sitemap.
Shortcode of pages sitemap with date
[wshs_list post_type="page" name="Page Sitemap" order_by="date" show_date="true" date="created" date_format="F j, Y"]
Shortcode of posts sitemap with date
[wshs_list post_type="post" name="Post Sitemap" order_by="date" show_date="true" date="created" date_format="F j, Y"]
9. Taxonomy list
Taxonomy List
If you like to include custom taxonomy in post sitemap, you can select the desired taxonomy from the list.
10. Taxonomy Terms Of
Taxonomy Terms
You can also select the term of taxonomy.
11. Exclude option in Preview
Exclude Pages
WordPress Simple HTML Sitemap will show a preview after every option selected. In the preview there will a checkbox at the right side for every item. Using this checkbox you can select items which you don’t want to include in the sitemap.
12. Horizontal View
This option is not there in the configuration but you can add an attribute in generated shortcode (horizontal=”true”) to change the layout of sitemap to horizontal. By default the generated sitemap will appear in vertical view.
Additionally, you can also use the separator you like to. For example, separator=”|” or separator=”/”
Shortcode of posts sitemap with date
[wshs_list post_type="page" name="Page Sitemap" order_by="date" horizontal="true" separator="|"]
This shortcode will generate HTML sitemap of posts
name=”Post Sitemap”
You can specify sitemap heading (title)
order_by=”title”
Posts will be ordered by title alphabetically in ascending order
show_image=”true”
A small image of all pages will be included, if it is not
image_width=”30″
Images will be 30 pixels wider
image_height=”30″
Height of the image will be 30 pixels
content_limit=”140″
Excerpt will be included under the post title with maximum 140 characters
show_date=”true”
The date will appear for all items in the sitemap
date=”created”
Date when the page was created
date_format=”F j, Y”
How the date will appear (in this case it will be like June 29, 2018)
layout=”full”
To show the sitemap in full page or in half view
position=”left”
For half layout, you can choose to show sitemap in left or right column
taxonomy=”category”
To include custom taxonomy
terms=”wordpress-plugins”
To include term of the custom taxonomy
horizontal=”true”
This will generate sitemap having horizontal view
separator=” |”
Allows to add separator like ‘|’ or ‘/’ or ‘\’
exclude=”100,122,155″
Comma separated list of post IDs to exclude from the sitemap.
As an overview, HTML Sitemap is a simple page containing links to pages within the site. HTML Sitemap can be considered as a general overview of the available pages in the website. WordPress Simple HTML Sitemap plugin makes the HTML sitemap generation process simple and easier. You can quickly setup, configure and start adding HTML sitemap into your website in no time using WordPress Simple HTML Sitemap plugin.
Please feel free to connect with me if you find any difficulties in using this plugin or you have any queries/questions regarding WordPress Simple HTML Sitemap plugin.
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