Site Maps

Finding Your Way Around

A Site Map, for the uninitiated, is a page which is an index of all of the pages on your website. Each page title is a direct link to that page - particularly useful if your site contains a large amount of pages divided into different categories.
When compiling your site map, ensure that every page is listed in the same order as your navigation bar. That is, all category titles listed in the right order, with each page under each heading indented to make it clear exactly where to find it.
Check that all of the links to the pages work, and be sure to update your site map whenever you add or delete pages on your site.
The word ‘sitemap’, when spelt as one whole word, refers to a coded list of all of all of the pages on your site, which then submitted to search engines manually. Creating an XML sitemap can be quite difficult if you’re an internet newbie with little if any experience in coding, but once you get started and experiment, you’ll find that it is a useful skill to have.
 

Using Sitemaps For Other Features

 
Submitting your sitemap to a search engine means that there’s more chance of more pages of your site appearing in the results of a search, as opposed to perhaps just your homepage. Sitemaps also allow you to submit information about other features each page has, such as images, videos and graphics, which then increases the likelihood of each individual item appearing in results, providing a link back to your website; remember all fresh traffic is good traffic!
 
If your website has lots of pages which aren’t all connected together for whatever reason, is relatively new with only a couple of links within it, has pages that feature lots of images (such as a portfolio or gallery, dependant on your industry) or has dynamic content, such as Flash animation or rich AJAX, then submitting your sitemap is very useful. Of course, sitemaps can’t guarantee that every single page and item of your site will appear in search results, but putting the effort in now ensures that it increases the chances of them doing so, which is the most important aspect to remember.
 

Example of a Sitemap

 
Google, Bing and Yahoo, all adhere to the protocol detailed on http://www.sitemaps.org/, which is a good place to visit to learn more, although since you’re here now, we’ve provided you with a handy example of a sitemap of one of our pages that features an embedded video from YouTube:
 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"
        xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap-image/1.1"
        xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap-video/1.1">
  <url>
    <loc> http://www.vizcomdesign.co.uk/Search-Engine-Marketing/70/</loc>
    <video:video>    
      <video:content_loc>http://www.example.com/video123.flv</video:content_loc>
      <video:player_loc allow_embed="yes" autoplay="ap=1"> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXm9_e3NWEs&feature=player_embedded</video:player_loc>
      <video:title>Search Engine Optimisation- Why Bother?</video:title> 
      <video:description>Vizcom Design talk SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), and increasing online traffic, but not before fondly remembering Dial-Up connection.</video:description>
    </video:video>
  </url>
</urlset>

If you’re looking at the coding about and feel a little daunted- don’t be! A couple of hours spent researching will help you learn and recognise where each line of the text should live in the paragraph and what each command means to the search engine that will read it all.

If you have a Google account, ensure you have added your website to Webmaster Tools, where you will find a wealth of information and support to help you create an XML sitemap for your own pages, and don’t forget to visit http://www.sitemaps.org/ too. 

With potential customers staying on your page for approximately 5 seconds trying to find the information they need, it is not unusual for them to bypass your navigation bar completely and head straight for a site map page rather than risk going to a page they may not need.