For the uninformed, a sitemap seems pointless when the links to important pages are already placed in the navigation bar and spiders can easily crawl the inner pages through links on internal pages. That may be true when the sitemap is not optimized for human users as well. Using a well designed sitemap on your site is very useful, and perhaps, particularly vital for search engine optimisation. Here are a few reasons why building a sitemap for your site can be a big advantage.
A Map for Easy Navigation
As the name implies, the sitemap truly does act as a map of your website, if you build it that way. This can be helpful to visitors to your site if they are on the lookout for something in particular that might not be readily available on the default page, or on the landing page which they entered your site. Also, if your site is very large, an outline of your site’s pages will help folks know how to find their way around and find what they are looking for on your website.
An Overall Picture of the Site’s ‘Theme’
When your visitors see your sitemap, they should immediately “get” the overall idea of what your website is all about. This can save time since they don’t need to stroll through pages to get a feel of your site.
Search Engine Optimization
Building a good sitemap requires a good site architecture. The sitemap will be a single page that outlines how your site is structured. It links to every other page on your internet site. This makes it easier for search engines to crawl all teh pages at your site and have all of them indexed. It is also important that the sitemap is one link away from your homepage.
A Good Site Structure Helps
A sitemap shows your visitors a fairly good outline of how the website is put together. That means that when new pages are added to your website, users will immediately know so just by looking at your sitemap. What’s great is that it gets updated automatically because it’s in XML, a language crawlers can easily understand.
Building a sitemap for particularly enormous internet sites is important for all of the reasons I’ve discussed here. It is surely worth making the effort.
Leave a comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.