Lesson 10
A sitemap is a grouping of the content of your website with a hyperlink that a user can click to view the selected content.
So having a sitemap makes it possible for a human visitor to view all the content on your website. But it makes it easier for Search Engines to find and index all you content as well. So you want your sitemap to be both friendly to humans and to Search Engines.
A site map is like a table of contents for a website. It’s a visual model of a Web site's content that allows the users to navigate through the site to find the information they are looking for. Typically, site maps are organized hierarchically, breaking down the Web site's information into increasingly specific subject areas.
Not only will it help visitors find what they came to your site for, by being able to see quickly, on the same page, all the subjects covered by your site, they might see something else that interests them. This way a page gets viewed that might not otherwise be just because it is easy to find and view by using the website’s sitemap.
It has been found that users go to site maps if they are lost, frustrated, or looking for specific details on a crowded site.
Create and organize your site map by creating text hyperlinks to each and every page of your site. You could use notepad or your favorite html editor. Just name the page containing the links “Site Map” since that has been found to be recognized by more surfers than any other title.
You should set it up in such a way that the structure and organization of the site is easy to see. It should make it easy for the user to find the main area of interest to her and then to see what sub elements for the subject are available.
The site map is essentially a hot link to each subject or article or sub area of interest as you have created your site.
Once it is created, you need to add a link to the sitemap.html (if that’s the name) on each of your webpages. Make it a part of your Navigation System, if your site has one.
Get A Sitemap Created for Free.
You can have a sitemap created for your website for free at this link: http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/
They will crawl you website and then create a sitemap for you which includes all the pages of your site.
You can get a sitemap in xml form which Google wants but also in html for humans and another in Text format.
By the way, take a look at Google’s site map: http://www.google.com/sitemap.html
It’s a good example of how to do it. Notice too, that they include a search box that can be used to search the site.
You can submit your sitemap to Google. To learn more about how to do that go to this link: http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/
Having a site map for your site will help your visitors find what they are interested in which helps you. In addition, it will help Search Engine spiders and should make them like your site a little better. Don’t forget that, you should keep the sitemap updated when you add or delete pages from your site so that it stays current.