Improve Site
Value
By
Lisa Barone
Getting your pages indexed. It is your most important SEO
goal and perhaps the one most vital in determining the success of your SEO
campaign. However, many search engines have trouble finding links buried deep
within the structure of your site. So how do you make sure your pages are easy
for the search engines to find? With a sitemap. Creating a sitemap provides the
search engines with a one-stop-shop for all of the pages on your site. And if
designed correctly, your sitemap can also be a valuable resource to lost
visitors looking to understand your site structure.
A sitemap displays the inner framework and organization of
your site's content to the search engines. Your sitemap should reflect the way
visitors would intuitively work through your site. Years ago sitemaps existed
only as a boring series of links in líst förm. Today, they are thought of as an
extension of your site. You should use your sitemap as a tool to provide your
visitor and the search engines with more content. Create details for each
section and sub-section through descriptive text placed under the sitemap link.
This will help your visitors understand and navigate through your site, and
will also give you more food for the search engines. You can even go crazy and
add Flash to your sitemap like we did with the interactive Bruce Clay sitemap!
Of course, if you do include a Flash sitemap for your visitor, you will also
need to include a text map so that the robots can read it.
A good site map will:
Sitemaps are very important for two main reasons. First,
your sitemap provides food for the search engine spiders that crawl your site.
The sitemap will give the spider links to all the major pages of your site,
allowing every page included on your sitemap to be indexed by the spider. This
is a very good thing! Having all of your major pages included in the search
engine database will make your site more likely to come up in the search engine
results when a user performs a query. Your sitemap pushes the search engine
toward the individual pages of your site instead of making them hunt around for
links. A well planned site map can ensure your Web site is fully indexed by
search engines. Sitemaps are also very valuable for you human visitors. They
help them to understand your site structure and layout, while giving them quick
access to your entire site. It is also helpful for lost users in need of a
lifeline. Often if a visitor finds themselves lost or stuck inside your page,
he will begin to look for a way out of his hole. Having a detailed sitemap will
show him how to get back on track and find what he was looking for. Without it,
your visitor would have just closed the browser or headed back over to the
search engines. Conversion lost.
Your sitemap should be linked from your homepage. Linking
it this way will force search engines to find it that way and then follow it
all the way through the site. If it's linked from other pages it is likely the
spider will find a dead end along the way and just quit. Small sites can place
every page on their sitemap, but largër sites should not. You do not want the
search engines to see a never-ending líst of links and assume you are a link
farm. Most SEO experts believe you should have no more than 25 to 40 links on
your sitemap. This will also make it easier to read for your human visitors.
Remember, your sitemap is there to assist your visitors, not confuse them. The
title of each link should contain a keyword whenever possible and should link
to the original page. We recommend writing a short description (10-25) words
under each link to help visitors learn what the page is about. Having short
descriptions will also contribute to your depth of content with the search
engines. Once created, go back and make sure that all of your links are
correct. If you have 15 pages on your sitemap, then all 15 pages need to link
to every other sitemap page. Otherwise both visitors and search engine spiders
will find broken links and löse interest.
Just like you can't leave your website to fend for itself,
the same applies to your sitemap. When your site changes, make sure your
sitemap is updated to reflect that. What good are directions to a place that's
been torn down? Keeping your sitemap current will make you an ínstant visitor
and search engine favorite.