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Sitemaps Improve Site Value
By Lisa Barone (c) 2007

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.

What is a Sitemap?

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 list form. 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:

  • Show a quick, easy to follow overview of your site.
  • Provide a pathway for the search engine robots to follow.
  • Provide text links to every page of your site.
  • Quickly show visitors how to get where they need to go.
  • Give visitors a short description of what they can expect
    to find on each page.
  • Utilize important keyword phrases.

Why They Are Important?

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.

Tips for Creating a Sitemap

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 larger sites should not. You do not want the search
engines to see a never-ending list 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 lose interest.

Remember to Update!

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 instant visitor and search
engine favorite.
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Lisa Barone (lbarone@bruceclay.com) is a senior writer at Bruce
Clay, Inc. (http://www.bruceclay.com)
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