What tools can I use in Webflow to create better sitemaps, including video sitemaps and excluding specific pages? Is Screaming Frog recommended?

In Webflow, you have several tools and features at your disposal to create better sitemaps, including video sitemaps and excluding specific pages. While Screaming Frog is a powerful tool for website crawling and auditing, it is not directly integrated with Webflow. However, you can combine the strengths of Webflow and Screaming Frog for more comprehensive sitemap creation and optimization.

Let's explore the tools within Webflow that can help you achieve your goals:

1. Pages Panel: The Pages panel in Webflow allows you to manage and organize your website's pages. You can easily include or exclude specific pages from your sitemap by toggling the "Include in XML Sitemap" option.

2. SEO Settings: Each page in Webflow has its own SEO settings, which include options to exclude individual pages from the sitemap. Within the SEO settings for a specific page, you can find the option to "Hide from search engines."

3. Collection Pages: If you are using Webflow's powerful CMS (Content Management System) capabilities and have content organized in collections, you can specify the sitemap behavior at the collection level. By modifying the Collection Template settings, you can include or exclude entire collection items, such as blog posts, from the sitemap.

4. Rich Media Support: Webflow supports embedding videos using platforms like YouTube, Vimeo, or self-hosted videos. When you embed videos on web pages in Webflow, they automatically become a part of the page's content, allowing search engines to discover and index them. This means you don't need a separate video sitemap as long as you have included the relevant web pages in the sitemap.

While Webflow offers various features for sitemaps and content visibility control, you can still benefit from utilizing Screaming Frog for additional SEO auditing. Screaming Frog's crawling capabilities allow you to analyze your website's structure, URLs, metadata, and more. With Screaming Frog, you can identify any potential issues, identify orphaned pages, and conduct a deeper analysis of your site's SEO performance.

To use Screaming Frog alongside Webflow, you can export your Webflow site's URLs and import them into Screaming Frog for a more comprehensive analysis. Screaming Frog's crawl report can help you identify missing metadata, broken links, status codes, and other SEO-related issues that can be further optimized within Webflow.

In summary, while Webflow provides native tools to create better sitemaps and exclude specific pages, Screaming Frog can complement your SEO efforts by offering detailed site analysis and identifying areas for optimization.