Get a Google Sitemap

As many people know search engine optimization isn’t really about search engines. It’s all about people.

That being said, it’s still a good idea to get smart about sitemaps. A regular sitemap is a simple page that lists all the most important links on a web site. It’s like an index or table of contents for a site.

Then, you have an “XML sitemap” which is sitemap which consists of XML (Extensible Markup Language) code.These are meant to be used specifically by the search engines. You’re making it easy for them to find you, index you and so on.

Sitemaps are used to put “rules” into place while programming documents electronically. This allows search engines to see what pages of yours are available and it also allows you to enter text that describes when information was changed. This helps Google and it’s easy enough to get set up… as you’ll see below.

I know most of that is mumbo jumbo. Trust me… and it gets worse! But please, stick with me for just a minute longer…

If you are a blogger and you want the super fast shortcut then just get the WordPress Google Sitemap Plugin. Install it, turn it on and let the magic happen without any work.  Yippee!

OK, if you are interested in the details… here we go…

The 4 variables of each web page for your XML sitemap include the following:

• The location of your site is the URL or web address. For example: johnsrhodes.com
• You can tell Google Sitemaps the priority of every page within your website. The range is from 0-1.
• You can tell Google when your website was last modified so the Google robots will not reindex your website.
• You can state the frequency of web site updates to: always, never, yearly, monthly, weekly, and hourly.

Why You Should Use Google Sitemaps

• Gives Internet users fresh content from your website.
• Allows every page and all of your content to be available to visitors on the Google search engine.
• Easily and quickly adds your subject matter of your website to Google once you update it.
• Google Sitemaps will discover all links that are included in your web pages.
• It is an easy and free tool that essentially will bring your website more traffic.

So, there are many awesome reasons to get a Google sitemap set up.

Speaking of that… if you don’t use WordPress, here’s how to “manually” get an XML sitemap generated.

Create a Google Sitemap for Your Website

1. Go to www.xml-sitemaps.com or any other third party sitemap generators. You have to use these generators because Google requires you to submit your information in XML format in order to index your web pages.
2. You will be presented with a brief form on the home page where it will ask you for your website name or URL, frequency, last modification and priority. Enter in your information correctly and click the start button.
3. Once these parameters are entered, there will be a wait until your site is crawled from top to bottom, so be patient; when it finishes, you will need to download the sitemap file and entering it in the “public-html/” folder found on your site.
4. Next, you will need to go to your Google Webmaster Account and enter your sitemap URL. If you do not have a Google Webmaster Account, you will need to create one.

Improving the search engine awareness of your website and all of its pages are very important in the success of your website and the interest of your visitors because fresh, up-to-date information will be accessible.

Using Google Sitemaps as part of your search engine optimization will help you in many ways. It will show you any broken links that are on your website which is diagnostically relevant and it can always have the brand new content you want to provide “on file” with Google.

This will put your website out in front of the eyes you want. Google Sitemaps will give you an edge because your pages will be on hand for potential customers to refer to and quite possibly to add to your success as conversions, sales or profits.

RECOMMENDED READING

• Juggernaut SEO

Tagged as: Google Sitemap, Juggernaut SEO, search engine optimization, XML sitemap