How to Utilize Sitemap to Enhance Your Website’s Search Engine Optimization

Posted on January 27th, 2012. Written by Suhail.

Website and blog owners invest a fair amount of their time coming up with new content or revamping and managing their ventures. However, unknown to most, they are neglecting a very basic step which may be costing them organic search engine traffic. Most people perceive SEO as overly complicated and akin to rocket science which it isn’t! While it is an acknowledged fact that a major chunk of a webpage’s ranking is comprised of off page factors, such as the amount of relevant and quality backlinks referring back to the webpage, on page SEO shouldn’t be overlooked.

Incorporating a simple feature such as a sitemap would act as an invitation to search engine spiders. The presence of a sitemap makes the site more accessible for the spiders, makes it easy for them to categorize it by taking inventory of what you have to offer and divert traffic to desired pages. Making a sitemap is fairly easy once you are familiar with the process:

What is a Sitemap?

A sitemap basically acts like an index page for your website. It contains details of all the pages your website is made up of and also contains clickable links to those pages.

Sitemaps are also very helpful to visiting users; it allows them to quickly seek out their page of interest and go to it directly, instead of roaming through the entire website page by page.

How can a Sitemap Enhance a Website’s SEO

Sitemaps render the hierarchy of your website more readable to search engines when they are attempting to index your website pages. This allows them to be indexed, which basically means your targeted audience has an easier time locating it online.

How to Create a Sitemap

Depending upon the magnitude of your website and its size, a sitemap can be made quite easily.

• The same template that is incorporated for all the pages in your website should be used for the sitemap.
• The link titles on the sitemap should be comprised of keyword anchor text.
• On each link page, at the bottom, a brief summary of 20 to 30 words from the page should be included; this would provide a glimpse of what the page is about to search engines and visitors.
• Incorporate your sitemap on your website’s home page so the search engine bots won’t have to delve deep into your website to gain access to the pages. They should be able to crawl to the pages from the home page itself.

If your website consists of numerous pages which a simple sitemap can’t cater to, some software might assist you. If you are using WordPress, there is a plugin available that would generate a sitemap for you.

Google XML based sites

A plug-in is capable of generating a XML sitemap which will help search engines to better index your website. The added benefit of this plugin is, it alerts renowned search engines every time you add a new page to your website, thus allowing it to be immediately indexed.

Adding a sitemap is a surefire way to boost your site’s SEO and is also a highly recommended SEO practice.

Suhail