How to create a News Sitemap in WordPress?

Do you want to create a News Sitemap for your WordPress website? Well, you’ve come to the right place.

In this article, I will share with you the step-by-step process of creating a News Sitemap in your WordPress website.

I will cover both free and paid plugins available for creating News Sitemaps. After creating your Sitemap, you will need to submit it to your Search Console for faster indexing.

News content is generally short-lived and needs to be shown to the audience immediately. These types of content become outdated very soon. That’s why a News Sitemap helps Googlebot crawl your news content immediately.

So, if you are running a news website in WordPress, this article is super helpful for you.

Creating a News Sitemap in WordPress is a process that helps search engines like Google understand the structure and content of your news website. This can improve the visibility of your website in search results, which can lead to more traffic and engagement.

There are two main ways to create a News Sitemap in WordPress:

1. Use an SEO plugin: Many popular SEO plugins, such as Rank Math, All in One SEO, and Yoast SEO, have built-in features that can generate a News Sitemap for your website. These plugins typically make it easy to customize the settings for your News Sitemap, such as which post types to include and how often to update the sitemap.
2. Use a dedicated News Sitemap plugin: There are also a number of dedicated News Sitemap plugins available, such as XML Sitemap & Google News and WordPress News SEO. These plugins can provide more advanced features for creating and managing your News Sitemap, such as the ability to include additional metadata or to submit your sitemap to Google News directly.

Once you have created your News Sitemap, you will need to submit it to Google Search Console. This will help Google discover and index your news content.

Here are the steps on how to create a News Sitemap in WordPress using Rank Math:

1. Install and activate the Rank Math plugin.
2. Go to Rank Math SEO → Dashboard → News Sitemap.
3. Enable the News Sitemap module.
4. Configure the News Sitemap settings, such as which post types to include and how often to update the sitemap.
5. Click the “Save” button.
6. Submit your News Sitemap to Google Search Console.

Here are the steps on how to create a News Sitemap in WordPress using All in One SEO:

1. Install and activate the All in One SEO plugin.
2. Go to All in One SEO → Sitemaps.
3. Click on the “News Sitemap” tab.
4. Enable the News Sitemap feature.
5. Configure the News Sitemap settings, such as which post types to include and how often to update the sitemap.
6. Click the “Save Changes” button.
7. Submit your News Sitemap to Google Search Console.

Here are the steps on how to create a News Sitemap in WordPress using Yoast SEO:

1. Install and activate the Yoast SEO plugin.
2. Go to SEO → XML Sitemaps.
3. Click on the “News” tab.
4. Enable the News Sitemap feature.
5. Configure the News Sitemap settings, such as which post types to include and how often to update the sitemap.
6. Click the “Save” button.
7. Submit your News Sitemap to Google Search Console.

Once you have submitted your News Sitemap to Google Search Console, it will take some time for Google to index your news content. However, you should start to see an improvement in your website’s visibility in search results within a few weeks.

Steps to create News Sitemap in WordPress

Here, you can use various plugins to create a News Sitemap, such as All-in-one SEO, Yoast News SEO, and XML Sitemap & Google News. The first two are premium, while the last one is free.

To begin, log in to your WordPress dashboard and navigate to the Plugins section. Click on “Add New” and search for “XML Sitemap & Google News.” Install and activate this plugin.

After installing the XML Sitemap & Google News plugin, you might see a warning like “Install only one SEO plugin.” This is because WordPress can only generate one sitemap at a time, and you may already be using a plugin like Yoast SEO or RankMath for sitemaps.

In this case, you need to disable the default WordPress XML sitemap and enable the News Sitemap generated by the XML Sitemap & Google News plugin. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Go to your WordPress dashboard and navigate to Settings > Reading.
2. Scroll down to the XML Sitemap section.
3. Uncheck the box next to Enable XML Sitemap to disable the default WordPress XML sitemap.
4. Check the box next to Enable News Sitemap to enable the News Sitemap generated by the XML Sitemap & Google News plugin.
5. Click Save Changes.

Once you have completed these steps, the XML Sitemap & Google News plugin will generate a News Sitemap for your website. You can submit this sitemap to your search console for faster indexing.

Enter Your Publication Name (Optional)

By default, the plugin will use your site name as the publication name. If you want to specify a different publication name, you can do so here.

Select Categories to Include in Sitemap (Optional)

You can also select specific categories to include in your News Sitemap. This can be helpful if you have a lot of content and want to make sure that your most important news articles are indexed by Google News.

Access Your News Sitemap

Once you have configured the plugin, you can access your News Sitemap by visiting the following URL:

[Your Site URL]/sitemap_news.xml

Note: Google News will only display the latest blog posts that have been published in the last 48 hours.

Creating a News Sitemap for Free

As you have learned, creating a News Sitemap in WordPress is a simple process that can be done for free using the XML Sitemap & Google News plugin.

Additional Features

If you want more features, such as the ability to include more than 1,000 URLs in your sitemap, you can consider upgrading to the pro plan of the XML Sitemap & Google News plugin. Alternatively, you can use other plugins like Yoast News SEO or All-in-One SEO, which also offer News Sitemap functionality.

Submitting Your News Sitemap to Search Console

After creating your News Sitemap, you need to submit it to your Search Console dashboard. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Log in to your Search Console dashboard.
2. Click on Sitemaps.
3. Enter the sitemap URL (e.g., [Your Site URL]/sitemap_news.xml).
4. Click Submit.

Google News Sitemap Guidelines

Please note that Google has certain guidelines for News Sitemaps. These guidelines include:

• Posts are placed in the sitemap for only 2 days and then removed.
• The sitemap can only include 1,000 URLs.
• Update your News Sitemap with new articles as they’re published.

You can learn more about these guidelines in the official Google News sitemaps Guidelines.

Conclusion

Creating a News Sitemap for your WordPress website is a great way to improve your chances of being included in Google News. By following the steps in this article, you can easily create a News Sitemap for free. If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment below.

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