Manage Your Sitemap (Advanced)

While editing your Nucleus navigation menus, you might encounter something called a Sitemap. If you’re wondering what that is, you’ve come to the right place! Managing your sitemap isn’t something you need to do in order to have a functional website, but it can help with search engine indexing depending on a few factors on your website (which we’ll explore below).

In this guide, we'll cover the following topics. Click on any one to jump ahead.

What Is A Sitemap?

Your Sitemap is just like any other navigation menu you create on your website with a couple of differences:

  1. It typically contains items/links to all your website’s main/essential pages (and possibly even lesser main/essential pages). In contrast, your Header or Footer navigation menu might only contain top level items/links.
  2. It’s a navigation menu that search engines (like Google) use to properly index and file your website so it better understands how your website is linked together.

You might have visited some websites with a large list of menu items in their footer. For example, if you scroll down to the footer of Linkedin’s website, you’ll see their sitemap in action:

Now, you don’t need to showcase your sitemap directly on your website in order for search engines to better crawl your site for indexing purposes, but we’ll explore later how to showcase your sitemap on your Nucleus website.

When To Create A Distinct Sitemap

Nucleus allows you to create up to three different navigation menus: your Header (Main), Footer, and Sitemap menus.

This means you can create a distinct Sitemap menu that’s different from your Header (Main) and Footer navigation menus. But when is it beneficial to do this?

Sitemaps are super helpful in a couple of contexts:

  1. You have an extremely large site (i.e. 500 pages or more) with too many main/essential pages to include in a typical navigation menu on your website.
  2. Your Header (Main) and/or Footer navigation menus are simplistic with only a few pages listed/linked there.

If neither of those listed above fit your context, then you likely don’t need to create a distinct Sitemap, and you can link your Header (Main) or Footer navigation menu to the sitemap that search engines use to index your website.

Regardless, there’s no harm in creating a distinct one, so we’ll explore how to do that. But first, let’s connect the Sitemap that search engines will use to the correct navigation menu.

Note: To learn more about sitemaps, Google has a great explanation here.

Connect Your Sitemap To A Navigation Menu

Nucleus Web allows you to connect any of your navigation menus with your Sitemap. This allows search engines to still index your website using your Header (Main) or Footer navigation menus as your stand-in sitemap without needing to create a separate navigation for this.

To connect a specific navigation menu to your Sitemap, In Nucleus Web, click the Manage dropdown menu and then select Site Settings. Then choose Sitemap. Click here for a quick link.

By default, Use Navigation will be selected. If you’d like to have no sitemap available for search engines to use for indexing your website, you can select None. But doing so will decrease your visibility in search results, so we recommend not selecting this option unless you don’t want your website to be found in search results for a specific reason.

With the default setting selected, click the dropdown menu below to select which navigation menu to use for your Sitemap. If you’re not creating your own sitemap, select the most robust navigation menu you have available on your website: either your Header (Main) or Footer navigation.

If you are planning on creating a distinct menu for your sitemap, select Sitemap.

Then click Save Changes.

Note: If you’ve selected Main or Footer as the navigation to use for your Sitemap, then your work here is complete! But if you’re planning on creating your own navigation for your Sitemap, then keep reading.

11 Types Of Navigation Items

Creating your Sitemap is exactly the same process as creating any of your other navigation menus. This means you can add any of the same 10 types of items to your Sitemap navigation. Let’s quickly explore each one.

None

Choosing None is great for creating placeholders if you don’t yet have a page or Flow created to connect to this item.

You can also use it as a main item that you anticipate parenting other items under to create a submenu.

Page

Adding a Page item is a great way to link directly to another page on your website. Once selected, you can choose from a dropdown menu of all the pages you’ve created.

Info Card

Adding an Info Card item, you can then select a particular Info Card that you’ve already created in Next Steps here.

When someone clicks on this item, it will open The Launcher to that specific Info Card.

To learn more about what Info Cards are and how to use them, click here.

Flow

Adding a Flow item, you can then select a particular Flow that you’ve already added in your Flows here.

When someone clicks on this item, it will open The Launcher to that specific Flow.

To learn more about creating Flows, click here.

Prayer

Adding a Prayer item, you can then connect either the Prayer Hub or PrayerFlow to that item.

When someone clicks on this item, it will open The Launcher to either the Prayer Hub or PrayerFlow.

To learn more about Nucleus Prayer and how to add the Prayer Hub or PrayerFlow to The Launcher, click here.

Giving

Adding a Giving item, you can then connect your GivingFlow to that item.

When someone clicks on this item, it will open The Launcher directly to the GivingFlow.

To learn more about Nucleus Giving and how to set up your processing account (if not done so already), click here.

Sermons

When you add a Sermon, you can choose a location in your SermonHub to direct people to.

Link to a specific page in your SermonHub, a unique Sermon, a custom created Playlist, or sermons with specific Topics or Scriptures!

URL

Adding a URL item, you can then connect any website link/URL to that item.

Simply type in the specific URL (with the appropriate http:// or https:// in front) and choose whether you want the URL to open in a new tab.

File

Adding a File item, you can upload any typical document, audio, video, or image file that’s 50 MB or less.

Simply drag and drop the file to the designated spot in your Nucleus Dashboard, or click +Add a File which will open a file explorer window on your device.

Email

Adding an Email item, you can add an email address so that, when someone clicks on that menu item, it automatically opens up their dedicated mail app to compose an email on their device with that address pre-populated in the “To” field.

Note: If someone does not have a dedicated email app already programmed into their device, clicking this link will likely not do anything. But by and large, most people have a dedicated email app on their device (especially if using a mobile device).

Phone

Adding a Phone item, you can add a phone number so that, when someone clicks on that menu item, it automatically initiates a phone call sequence on that person’s device.

Note: If someone is using a device that does not have calling capabilities, clicking this link will likely not do anything for them.

Add Items To Your Sitemap

To add an item to your Sitemap Navigation Menu, go to your Navigation Panel in Nucleus Web. Click here for a quick link.

Because it’s not necessary to showcase your Sitemap, you have the option to toggle on/off whether it shows up in your Navigation Panel. If you don’t see your Sitemap Navigation, simply click Turn On/Off. Make sure Sitemap Navigation is selected and click Apply Changes (or Cancel if you didn’t make any changes).

Once you can see your Sitemap Navigation, click to Edit it.

Now you can begin adding items to your Sitemap. Click the + Add New button to reveal all the types of actions you can link to each item in your navigation menu.

First, give your item a name. Then choose which type of action you want for the item and complete the unique option that appears for each type of action. Then click Add New.

To add an item that lives “under” a main navigation item, go through the exact same process as explained above. Only this time, before completing that process, click the dropdown menu under Parent / Add Under. Here, you can now add the item you’re currently working on so it exists “under” that item.

Using the Parent option is helpful if you have several navigation items and need to file them together in groups. For instance, if you have a navigation item titled “Small Groups”, you could have individual items parented under “Small Groups”, each for a different small group your church offers. Below is an example of what that could look like.

After you create your parented item, click Add New.

You’ll notice an arrow beside the name of the item you just added. This denotes that this item is parented under the next item above without that arrow.

You can add as many items under a main item as you’d like. In fact, unlike when creating your Header (Main) or Footer Navigation Menus, it’s okay if your Sitemap is large and complex.

Reorder & Manage Your Sitemap

Once you have multiple items created in your Sitemap Navigation Menu, you can reorder them so they appear in your desired sequence. Simply click the two lines on the item, drag it up/down to your desired spot, and release it there.

To delete a navigation item, click the down arrow beside the type of item, and select Delete Nav Item.

Then click Yes, Delete Now.

If you decide you want to delete a main navigation item that has sub-navigation items, doing so will delete all the parented items attached to it. So if you want to still keep those items, you’ll need to edit each one and remove the parent option.

To unparent an item, click on the item’s name. Then click on the Parent dropdown menu, and select the “blank space” at the top of the dropdown list.

Then click Done.

Publish Your Sitemap

Once you’re happy with your Sitemap, you can publish it immediately by clicking the Publish button. Unlike when publishing pages, there are no options to set a “publish in the future” date/time, so when you click this button, it will immediately publish the changes you’ve made to that particular navigation menu.

But don’t worry! You can always revert the published changes. (More on that below.)

Regardless if you’ve published your changes or you’d rather just save them and publish them later, you can click Exit and then select Save & Close. (Or Discard Changes if you’d rather not save any of the edits you just made.)

This takes you back to the main Navigation Panel where you can build and manage all your other navigation menus in the exact same way you just did.

If you published your navigation menu and wish to revert those changes, click the down arrow on the menu in question, and select Revert.

Here, you can type REVERT in all caps and select Yes, Revert Changes.

Once you’re done, click Exit and then Save & Close.

When creating your Sitemap, you can choose whether you want to showcase it on your website (i.e. have it accessible to visitors on your site) or to leave it in the background for only search engines to access.

Typically, if a website showcases their sitemap, it appears in the Footer. So let’s explore how to showcase your Sitemap in your Footer.

In your Design Panel, select Footer in the left sidebar. Click here for a quick link.

Scroll down to Layout & Style. Here, you can select which navigation menu you wish to showcase. Go ahead and choose Sitemap.

Note: Unlike how you need to toggle on/off to showcase a navigation menu in your Header, the Life Theme is designed to showcase a navigation menu, so there’s no need to toggle on/off to showcase a navigation menu in your Footer.

This now means that your Sitemap is now visible anywhere your Footer is displayed on your website. But you can select whether your Footer is turned on/off on certain pages. The easiest way to preview how your Sitemap will be seen by visitors to your website is by ensuring the Footer is displayed on your homepage.

Go ahead and click Exit, and then Save & Close.

Then, go to the Pages Panel and click on Edit Homepage. Click here for a quick link.

Next, click on Customize in the left sidebar and make sure the Show Site Footer option is selected. If not, select it.

Then, click Exit and then Save & Close.

Now, click on View Site in the main menu and select Preview URL.

Scroll down to the bottom of your website and you should now see the Sitemap displayed in your Footer.

Note: Clicking on the Preview URL opens a new tab. To go back to your Nucleus Dashboard, simply click on the correct tab in your browser.

What Next?

If you’ve read this guide, you’ve likely already established your Header (Main) and Footer navigation menus. But if not, below are some articles to get you started:

Otherwise, you should check out some of these other guides that explore other Site Settings you might have seen when connecting your Sitemap to a specific navigation menu:

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