Web sitemaps

Can website browsers and search engines see all of your pages?

There are two kinds of sitemaps. The first is what a user of you website can see. It is a page which consists of links to every other page on your website. The second is a "tecchie" sitemap in a format that a search engine can read quickly and easily. Use both on your website.

Sitemap for browsers
Google's webmaster guidelines recommend having a page on your website that links to every other page on it. If there are more than 100 pages on your site this may take more than one page.

"Offer a sitemap to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the sitemap is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the sitemap into separate pages"
Google webmaster guidelines - design and content guidelines

Call this page sitemap so users know what it does and make it interesting and easy for a user to navigate. Normally a sitemap link is on the bottom of every page.

Sitemap for search engines
This is to allow search engines to quickly index (see and record) every page on your website. It is in a format that search engines prefer, (xml- Extensible Markup Language). It is important that your sitemap is updated as and when your website is. You can set the frequency of change in the sitemap, the importance of each page and the type of content. Too difficult? Don't worry, there is an excellent website http://www.xml-sitemaps.com which will generate one for you. Get your webmaster to add it to your website and update it when you add new pages.

Your webmaster will be able to tell the search engines the location of the sitemap and make sure it is working as it should. Many website systems allow automatic updates of the sitemap. If your website doesn't then the xml-sitemaps.com has a downloadable program at a very reasonable price that your webmaster can set up and automate this for you.

Sitemaps are important as they help browsers and search engines find every page on your website.

Tip
If you have a menu at the bottom of your page, make a link to your homepage and use your primary keyword as the anchor text.

Side note
Did you know that 20% of Google searches have local intent. If you are not in “google places” do a search on it and get listed.

A classic mistake with sitemaps.

Watch out for duplicate content. Yourwebsite.co.uk and yourwebsite.co.uk/index.html could be classed as two separate ages. A common mistake in homepage links on the menu.

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