Site Maps: A Force To Be Reckoned With

Another important part of search engine optimization is the use of site maps. If you want visitors -- and search engine spiders -- to find every page on your Web site, a site map can be your biggest ally especially if you've got a good deal of content on your website (and if you have been reading all of the advice on our website, you ought to know by now that the more content you have the better your chances are for top ranking).

So, what's a site map? Basically, it's a navigation tool. It lets people know what information you have, how it's organized, where it's located with respect to additional information, and how to get to this information with the least amount of clicks possible. A fantastic site map is over a hyperlinked index, which merely provides the consumer with a list of alphabetically arranged terms.

Site maps also provide a great deal of healthy spider food for search engine spiders that crawl your website and finally index it. When the robot reaches the site map, it can visit every page on your entire website because all of the information is clearly indicated on that 1 page. However, in order to get your site map to function most efficiently, you must have a URL to your website map from the navigation on each page of your website.

To create your site map most attractive to both the search engine spiders and human visitors, be sure to include descriptive text along with the page URLs and links. Make certain to use your targeted keywords in that text. Remember not to be too repetitive with your keyword phrases, though, or you might be penalized.

When you make it simple for people to navigate your website, they will find what they want and will probably be a repeat guest. Likewise, as soon as your website is easily navigable by search engine spiders, you improve your odds of being favorably listed in their search results.

So, if creating a site map is not part of your existing search engine optimization plan, perhaps it's time you thought about incorporating this valuable -- and fairly simple -- tool to your repertoire.