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SEO 101 – Sitemaps

Saturday, August 1st, 2009

What is a sitemap?

A sitemap is a webpage that contains a list of all other documents and links on a website.  A sitemap outlines the information contained within a website and shows its structure.  It also guides search engines to websites as well as helping visitors navigate easily.  In the case of search engines, sitemaps help spiders find and index each page quickly.

In the world of SEO a sitemap is invaluable.  Yet they are still either ignored or omitted due to ignorance.  Spending time on creating a sitemap is time well spent.

There are two types of sitemaps.  One is used specifically by search engines and the other is used specifically by humans.  HTML sitemaps help humans navigate websites and also allow search engines to crawl around a website more easily.

Sitemaps that are used exclusively by search engine spiders can either use XML which stands for Extensible Mark up Language or simple txt files.

HTML sitemaps

This type of sitemap is commonly used by webmasters and SEO experts because it provides search engine visibility.  Visitors can also use an HTML sitemap to guide their way around a website.  To create one all you do is place your websites internal links in one page.

XML Sitemaps

XML sitemaps are popular with they enable search engines to crawl a website much better.  This type of sitemap consists of a structured list of links in XML language.  To make an XML sitemap is easy if you use a pre-designed one.  All you need do is insert your URL and choose a few options and it will make it for you.  You then load it onto your server and provide a link for search engines to follow.

Txt Sitemaps are as simple as providing a list of URL’s in simple text.

Sitemaps should only be linked from our home page because you want search engines to start following your links from the start.  It is advisable to limit your page links on your sitemap to fewer than 30 or you may run the risk of being mistaken as a link farm.    This also makes it easier for humans.  You may need to split your sitemap into numerous pages but bear in mind each page you create in an extra page of content for your website.  Each page must be linked to the next however.  If not you will in essence be created broken links and both spiders and humans will lose interest.

Test your sitemap completely and make sure that all links are in good order.  It should be easy to navigate and easy to read.  Your sitemap should also be consistent in its look and feel to the rest of the website.

Insert at most 20 words of text from the original page underneath each link.  This creates content for spiders and humans can easily see what each page is about.  Each link title should be keyword rich and should link back to the original page.

The benefits of creating a sitemap far outweigh the time spent in its creation.

Ways to help you down the ranking spiral

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

SEO is an important part of having a website online today. Once it is up and running you need to make sure that you keep up to date with all the relevant SEO news you can find. Granted, not all SEO tactics work equally well for all websites. But it up to you to figure out which ones work for yours and then keep on updating yourself on their implementation.

The internet and the search engines that rule it are always evolving to keep all websites and all cyber surfers playing on a level playing field. SEO tactics are also slowly evolving to stop people from cooking the books and scoring freebie rankings they did not earn. SEO is not only for the engines anymore, it is aimed at your human web traffic as well.

Ads, links and navigation

Search engines are wising up to the fact that web traffic is an indication of popularity and they are starting to factor popularity aspect into how well you rank in the search result pages. So it is important to optimize your website for your human visitors too. There are ways to chase your human visitors away from your website and it is all too easy.

Too many ads bombarding them on your website overwhelms a visitor. It makes it more difficult for them to navigate your website and reach their ultimate goal; to find the information they came here to find. It also discredits your website by making it look unprofessional. If you want to dot ads all over your web page, make them your own ads with links to your products or services.

Broken links frustrate visitors because it is like dangling a carrot in front of them but not allowing access. Prospects will get fed up and move on to your competition, where they can find working links. Navigation is a vitally important aspect of your SEO tactics aimed at human traffic. If people cannot easily and swiftly navigate your website to find what they are looking for, they’ll leave.

Loading, searching and checking out

Slow loading pages are going to irritate potential customer into leaving. Time is money and the more time your pages take to load the more money you are going to be losing. Once you have effectively loading pages you need an efficient site search in place.

If people cannot find what they are in search of through a functional site search they will go elsewhere for it. And elsewhere, in this case, is straight into the open arms of your competition. Finally, the checkout process should be easy, fast and effective.

Don’t add unnecessary frills and spills to your checkout. If the process takes too long your customer will quite before payment is made and run to your competition.

Drawing conclusions

It is vitally important to make sure that your website draws the attention of the web crawlers and search engines. But according to the ways that SEO is evolving that wont be enough. You need to keep your human visitors happy too.

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