The online business world is fast paced and always evolving. Everyone is always looking for new techniques and methods that will make their website user-friendly for online visitors as well as to search engine spiders – without deviating from the rules of SEO. Many tips have been released and published by so called “webmasters” regarding how to effectively optimize a website, however, most of the time the significance of a sitemap is being neglected.
To point out the importance of sitemaps, just take a look at Google’s Webmaster Central Blog, you’ll find discussions on the importance of having sitemaps and in fact, Google even launched a Google Sitemap Generator which you can use on your website.
In the world of SEO, it is important that you pay attention to what Google is talking about because despite the presence of other search engines like Yahoo and Bing, Google maintains the top spot in the world of search engines, so if it’s talking about sitemaps and its importance, it’s high time for you to listen. And if Google already acknowledges the fact that sitemaps contributes to have your website indexed faster, then it’s not a waste of time to incorporate one on your site.
What Is a Sitemap?
A sitemap is an illustration or outline of your website and the link for this is generally located on the main page of a website. It shows and indicates the framework of your website such as the available sections and the links between them. Basically, it tells search engine spiders about the pages on a website that are already available for crawling as it lays out each and every page of your website’s navigation. Each time a new page is added to your website, it is automatically logged on the sitemap which in turn alerts and instructs the search engine spiders to start crawling, pointing them to a particular page where the new article or page has been added. Any important information within a website will be highlighted by the sitemap, which will allow crawlers to instantly catch it. Websites using flashy images, portion of which are only material to the page content, will greatly benefit from sitemaps.
A sitemap also makes it easier for your visitors as well as for search engine spiders to navigate through your website. A sitemap’s function is totally opposite with that of robot.txt because with the former, you instruct search engine spiders where you would like them to go, and as for the latter, search engines are instructed to exclude a certain part of your website from indexing.
Importance of Sitemap
1. It will help users to easily navigate on your website as it gives your users an outline of the site’s content.
2. Better visibility and makes it easier for search engines to rank a website’s content, so most likely, it will be indexed and get a better ranked in the Search Engine Results Pages.
3. It encourages and directs search engine spiders exactly where you want them to be.
4. It immediately informs search engine spiders about any changes on your website.
5. By having and submitting a sitemap to the search engines, you don’t have to depend that much on external links.
6. It helps in organizing your website content.
Two Types of Sitemaps
HTML Sitemap (User Sitemap) – is the standard view of all the pages of your website as it provides the link for all the pages of your website. This type of sitemap will help your visitors as well as the search engines to find your content pages. It will make a lot easier for your visitors to find the information that they are looking for. Some of the benefits of having an HTML sitemap are:
• it makes user navigation easier,
• it organizes or arranges each section of your website,
• it communicates the overall theme of your website, and
• your users will find it easier to link within the website
Links for an HTML sitemap is usually placed either at the header or footer of a website.
XML Sitemap (SEO Sitemap) – are exclusively and specifically created for the benefit of search engines. This was introduced by Google basically for the benefit of website owners and of the search engine spiders as it puts all the URLs of a website in one place thereby making it easier for the spiders to locate them. This involves the process of submitting their site pages for search engine spiders to find and indexed them. A perfectly constructed sitemap will guide and tell the search engines the topics on your site, how frequently those pages are being updated, and the date when they were last modified. By using an XML sitemap, search engines will know the specific pages that they have to regularly visit and from there, your pages will be indexed.
However, it should also be noted that incorporating an XML sitemap to your website and submitting it to search engines won’t necessarily affect your search engine ranking as it still depends on the content of your site, but it will help a lot, especially if you have a large website, for your pages to be indexed in search engines.
Conclusion
Incorporating a sitemap to your website may help boost your website’s ranking in the search engine results pages but what’s more important is that it will give your website a better chance of being indexed by the search engines.
If you think you have done everything to improve your website but still your pages are not getting indexed, then don’t wait another minute as your online visibility suffers for every minute that you are wasting. Consider having a sitemap on your website. Although there is no guarantee that your page rank will increase just by having one, using it with your usual SEO strategies will definitely put you one step ahead toward improved online visibility.
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