Value of a Site Map

One of the first things you want to do when you restructure your site or add a new piece of quality content is add a Site Map. You do not need to do this with every blog post, but you should list every main page in your website that you would like your visitors to be able to find.

There are two major types of site maps, and you need both:

  • An HTML site map is a standard web page that is public-facing and intended to help real people
  • An XML (Extensible Markup Language) sitemap is a computer code file written only for search engines and is not public facing. It isn’t linked where people can find it, and most people couldn’t understand the code even if they found the file

HTML Site Maps
HTML site maps are intended to make a visit to your site easier for your visitors. People navigate the web in different ways, so you want to give them multiple ways to find your content.

A site map lets people find specific pages without having to go through menus or other navigation. Since HTML site maps are treated like any other web page on your site, they are also a good way for search engines to discover more of your pages. In general –

  • If your site has fewer than 200 pages, you can include everything in one site map
  • If your site has 200 or more pages, consider a main site map that has the top level pages and links to category-specific site maps

Your task-oriented visitors aren’t there for pretty graphics; they don’t want to read paragraphs of text, and they don’t want to spend a lot of time trying to figure out which link they should click. Give them a nice, clean layout with logical headings, subheadings, and page names.

XML Sitemaps
An XML sitemap is a file created specifically for search engines. Having one will not guarantee the search engines will index all of the pages in your site, and will not influence how your pages rank.

But it is the quickest and easiest way for search engines to learn about your pages and give you the best chance to get them indexed is to use a product like www.snapsitemap.com.

For a small fee, this product will generate a site map and robots text page and send updates to the search engines every two weeks.