Site Maps – give the search engines a helping hand!
Welcome to part 3 of our Simple SEO Series. In this part we’re going to tell you everything you need to know about site maps – what they are, why search engines love them, and how you can create them yourself.
What is a site map?
Site maps come in a number of formats and can be used by both users and search engine crawlers to see exactly what is on your site. They can be a very effective tool in controlling which of the pages on your site show up in search engine results.
The most popular type is a web page that lists and links to all the content of a website, often in a hierarchical format. These are great for your users – if there’s something they can’t find through your navigation, they should find it there, and when your site gets crawled by search engines, they’ll pick up on the content too.
Then there are XML site maps – often called ‘google site maps’, which are XML documents that you include in your site. You won’t see it, and the chances are your visitors won’t either, but the search engines and their crawlers certainly will!
There are also ROR (Resource On a Resource) site maps, which describe all the items on your site using an RSS feed XML document. Including an ROR XML file in your site allows search engines to crawl your content and index it much more efficiently. Some people argue that these are obsolete, but they certainly won’t do your website rankings any harm, so why not include one?
Why do search engines love site maps?
This one is short and sweet – site maps make the job of search engine crawlers much, much easier. Instead of having to crawl your site for content, they can go straight to the site map and see what’s there instantly. The more quickly the crawlers get the information they need, the more quickly your site will get indexed and start showing up on searches.
Who should have a site map?
Broadly speaking, everyone should have one, in one form or another. Having a web page site map helps your users to find information more easily, and a happy, satisfied user is more likely to revisit your site. XML and ROR site maps can only help to get your content noticed by search engines.
In particular, Flash sites will get an added benefit from site maps because their content is often hidden in a non-textual format, meaning that it’s not always possible for search engines to crawl.
How can I create a site map?
Website site maps
There are lots of tools out there to help you create a site map for your site. Our website is powered by WordPress and we used the PS Auto Site Map plugin to create ours. This is a great solution, as it generates the content dynamically, so if we add a new section to the site, it is automatically added. There are similar tools for most content management systems, and if your site is not dynamic and made up of html pages, you can create a simple site map page and update it manually.
XML/Google site maps
You can generate XML site maps automatically and there are lots of tools out there that will do it for you. To get you started, visit www.XML-Sitemaps.com and follow the instructions.
ROR site maps
You can easily generate ROR XML files using the online tool at www.rorweb.com/rormap.htm – just follow the instructions.
I’ve made my site maps – now what?
If you’ve made a web page site map, upload it to your web space and make sure you link to it from all the pages on your site, so that your users can find it easily.
If you’ve made XML or ROR site maps, make sure they are uploaded to the root directory on your web space. If you have a google webmaster account, go to the ‘site configuration’ option and submit your XML site map.
Summary
We believe in making the web a better place for everyone, so our number one tip would be to include a web page site map – it helps you, it helps your users and it helps your website get noticed. XML and ROR site maps are fantastic tools and they’re simple and free to set up – so you’ve got no excuse!
We are always happy to assist faithful followers of Butter Side Up, so if you need advice on using these methods or want to improve your website ranking, don’t hesitate to contact us.
