How to Build an HTML Sitemap in WordPress

A visitor-facing HTML sitemap is a WordPress page that organizes links to your site’s pages and posts so people can browse them in one place. It helps visitors find content, especially when the site has many sections or a deep page hierarchy.

Simple Sitemap – Responsive HTML Sitemap for WordPress adds blocks that generate these lists. Create a page and add the block that fits your content. Adjust its settings, then check the published page on desktop and mobile. An HTML sitemap serves visitors; it does not replace an XML sitemap, a machine-readable file that helps search engines discover URLs.

Create a sitemap page with Simple Sitemap

In WordPress, go to Plugins → Add New, search for Simple Sitemap, then install and activate the plugin. Create a new page for the sitemap, or edit an existing page where visitors will expect to find it. Add the page to a footer or another relevant navigation area so people can reach it.

In the editor, add one of the plugin’s blocks:

• Simple Sitemap lists selected posts and pages. Choose a standard list or responsive tabs to separate content types.
• Simple Sitemap Group organizes entries under categories, tags, or other supported taxonomy terms. A taxonomy is a way WordPress classifies content.
• Child Pages displays pages beneath a chosen parent page, following the site’s existing hierarchy.

Start with Simple Sitemap and a standard list. In the block settings, choose the content types and their order, then set labels and other display options. Choose whether entries link to their content. You can also show excerpts or content-type labels. The free edition lets you include or exclude specific posts and pages by ID; the plugin listing describes the current feature set.

Preview the page in the editor, then publish it and inspect the public version. The editor preview does not replace checking the rendered page with your theme.

Choose a layout that matches your content

A standard list works well when visitors can scan the available links without much scrolling. If the page contains both posts and pages, tabs can separate those types. Group content by category when visitors are more likely to browse topics than content types. Use Child Pages when your site already has a clear parent-and-child structure, such as a services page with separate pages for each service.

For a long list, enable linked pagination, which splits entries across pages and adds links visitors can use to move between them. Simple Sitemap Pro adds visitor search, but its documentation says that when pagination is enabled, search filters the current results page rather than searching every page or the entire website. Check the plugin documentation before choosing that feature for a large directory.

The free plugin focuses on posts and pages. If you need the sitemap to list public custom post types, which are WordPress content types beyond posts and pages, or other sitemap types, check whether the Pro features fit your site.

Use a shortcode in a classic editor or page builder

Blocks are the simplest option for a new page. You can also use shortcodes with a classic editor or page builder. A shortcode is a small text command that WordPress replaces with content it generates. Simple Sitemap documents this example for listing pages and posts alphabetically:

[simple-sitemap types="page,post" orderby="title" order="asc"]

The plugin also provides a grouped-sitemap shortcode, with settings for excerpts, labels, and page depth. You can also set inclusion, exclusion, and pagination. See the complete shortcode reference for supported attributes and their exact syntax.

Check the published sitemap

Before sharing the page, confirm that it includes only content you want visitors to browse. Open several links, check that the page structure is clear, and view the page at a narrow screen width. If you use tabs, navigate them with a keyboard as well as a mouse. The W3C tabs pattern describes expected keyboard behavior for tab interfaces; a plugin changelog alone does not establish that a particular page meets every accessibility requirement.

Recheck the public page after plugin or theme updates. A staging site, which is a separate copy of the live site for testing changes, is a sensible place to check updates when a broken sitemap would disrupt important visitor navigation.

Keep the XML sitemap for search engines

Simple Sitemap creates a human-readable HTML page. Search engines get URL information from machine-readable sitemap formats, such as XML. Keep the XML sitemap provided by WordPress or your SEO plugin if your site uses one.

Google says a sitemap can help Google find URLs, but it does not guarantee that Google will crawl or index every URL. Its sitemap guidance concerns machine-readable sitemap files, not the visitor-facing page created by Simple Sitemap. Treat the HTML sitemap as a navigation aid rather than a promise of higher rankings.

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