More often than not, sitemaps should be an integral part of your search engine optimization strategy. There are two types of sitemaps that can benefit your online search ability. Both HTML and XML sitemaps are recommended from an SEO standpoint. They are both important for search engine indexing; however, the HTML version is also beneficial to the user experience.
XML Sitemap
Creating an XML sitemap for your website is a surefire way to get recognized in the search engines. This type of site map is not for people to read. Instead, it is basically just a list of all the pages you want Google to see on your website. Every website should submit an XML sitemap to the search engines, but it is extremely important to websites with thousands of pages that may otherwise get overlooked because of their sheer size.
If you want all of your important pages to get indexed this is the most effective approach; however, that doesn’t mean that your search engine optimization efforts should fall by the wayside. XML sitemaps simply let Google spiders know your pages are out there and they should be crawled, but it is up to you or your SEO strategist to make sure your pages really gain high rankings in the engines.
HTML Sitemap
Not necessarily an important part of SEO but almost always recommended by SEO professionals is a user friendly website layout. There are important components your website shouldn’t be without including a home page, services page, about us page, contact us page and an HTML sitemap. This type of online sitemap helps your viewers easily locate pages of interest.
An HTML site map offers an opportunity to clearly organize and structure your site in a way that is beneficial to both the search engine spiders and the human viewer. When a user visits your site you want to offer them a site map that clearly displays the hierarchy of your site’s pages. Think of your site map as a Table of Contents. For smaller sites, text links should be incorporated to each page listed on the map so that visitors may go directly to a particular section or page of interest. These site maps also help to lay out a clear-cut content structure for the spiders so that they will be sure to crawl every page.
HTML sitemaps tend to be better for smaller sites in comparison to those with thousands of pages, only because when you are trying to configure a map that outlines a large site it will lose its purpose of a clean-cut page hierarchy map. Really large sites can still take advantage of these sitemaps, but it is then best to limit the map to key category pages that incorporate text links – but only for the main topic pages.
Creating either site map can be an obstacle without the appropriate website development knowledge. Web.com Search Agency can offer you the technical advice necessary for developing search engine appropriate sitemaps. Contact us today to learn more about SEO strategies that will help you gain exposure in the engines.
Tags: html sitemap, xml sitemap
Search is not only about knowing what is the latest but it is mainly for exploring what is available globally. Inclusion of Real Time Search is the amalgamation of news and search on the search engines.