The Importance of SiteMaps
The time a search engine spends on your website, analyzing it for changes, keywords, etc., is measured in milliseconds. You can't even count a millisecond. A properly formatted and updated sitemap helps the search engine spiders maximize the efficiency of the time spend on your website. It is appalling how few websites maintain their sitemaps, if they have them at all. Next time you are meeting with your marketing team, ask them: "When was the last time we updated our sitemap?"
Creating and Submitting a SiteMap
1. SiteMaps are Critical
2. SiteMaps Have To Be Updated
Why would we dedicate a page to talk about sitemaps? Because we see websites all of the time, and more than 80% do not use proper sitemaps.
If we do see two valid sitemaps, we rarely see them up to date. Thank you! It just makes marketing for our clients that much easier.
Just as you need a map when you travel somewhere new, search engines need accurate, updated, sitemaps. The majority of us would not think of leaving home for a long trip without either using a map or a GPS. We wouldn't want to get lost and end up somewhere unfamiliar. Imagine your business webpage as a destination for travelers on the Internet. You certainly don't want the travelers getting lost or arriving at another destination. That would mean a loss of money and traffic.
After all, if you were in your car searching for one restaurant and wound up at another, you would probably stop and eat at the restaurant you were able to locate easily.
What is a Sitemap?
These maps are maps that a web designer submits to search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing, that instruct the search engine about the pages on his or her site that are available for indexing and crawling. It is a specially coded XML file that lists a site's URLs as well as additional information about the website, such as, the date the site was last updated, how relevant the site is, and how often the site is updated.
Without sitemaps, webmasters and web designers have to wait for the web crawlers to discover the site and then index the site. While waiting, valuable time can be lost as "travelers" discover other sites. The time a search engine spider visits your website is measured in milliseconds. Sitemaps make efficient use of their time.
There are two types of sitemaps that must be created in order for your website to receive the optimum amount of traffic. They are XML and HTML.
What is a XML Sitemap?
A XML sitemap is a Google sitemap and provides coding for their search engines. If you were to look at the XML, it would appear to be gibberish. A search engine can read this coding and then index and rank your pages. It basically contains links to all the pages on your site that all major search engines can read and process. The advantage to this is that with a proper XML map, the search engines are able to know about and "read" every single page of your website.
Creating XML sitemaps is a very daunting task. Here at Solution Web Designs, we are experienced in this field. We understand that in order for your website to get the prominence it needs and deserves, it must be crawled by the search engines and indexed.
What is an HTML Sitemap?
In its simplest form, an HTML sitemap is a table of contents for your website. It can be located either at the top of your webpage or at the bottom. It is a vital part of your page for two major reasons.
It is a tool for visitors who arrive at your site. Just like a table of contents, the HTML map allows any visitor to find any page quickly and easily. Even more importantly, it allows you to optimize the linkage needed for SEO purposes. It works best if you have a link to your HTML map from each of your pages and a backlink from your HTML map to each page.
One of the unique services we provide clients is that we also create a visitor sitemap. Visitor sitemaps are designed for the visitors of your website and look more appealing than coded html and xml sitemaps.
Our Sitemap Submission Service
Solution Web Designs doesn't just understand the importance of these maps. We understand and know that each time your website is updated, your XML and HTML maps need to be updated and resubmitted. We also understand that you need to run your business. You don't have the time needed to create the proper maps.
We also know first-hand the importance of Google sitemaps. While Yahoo and Bing are still popular search engines, but Google owns the largest market share. It is the "go-to" search engine of over half the Internet users. In order for your web content to rank high on searches, it must be submitted to Google.
Sitemaps for Google are submitted manually to them via their Google sitemap program. By having a sitemap-formatted file on your webpage, you facilitate the ability of the Google crawlers to discover what pages are present, have recently changed, have had information added, and have the crawlers immediately index your pages.
Solution Web Designs are experts at both creating a sitemap and submitting a sitemap to the Google sitemap crawlers. We not only create your maps for your website, both in XML and HTML format, we also submit them and we update them as your website is updated. Only by this process are your webpages guaranteed to be indexed and prominently displayed on the first page of the Google, Yahoo, and Bing search functions.
Solution Web Designs
Online Marketing Success by Design
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Click to See Sample Sitemaps
You may see the three different ypes of sitemaps we use for our clients by clicking the box above.
Here at Solution Web Designs, we pride ourselves on being able to bring your web content to the forefront of these search engines. We understand that you need the traffic to your site to make money. Our aim is to keep your web content not only fresh and relevant, but also findable.
