We all know how important SEO is in getting a site ranked well within search results. Sitemaps are one area that can be forgotten about, especially for those who are new to SEO. There can be a little confusion to what a sitemap is as well since there are two completely different types of sitemap.

The first sitemap that most people are accustomed to is the one that is created for visitors. These do have their uses – in fact, I tend to use a site’s sitemap more than I do their navigational sidebars. Others rarely use them at all.

The second sitemap is the one that is most important when it comes to SEO. This is the sitemap, generally written in XML, that is created wholly and solely for the search engines. Search engines use these to crawl your site.

There is no denying the importance of quality content. The XML sitemap can provide that vital link between your content and the search engines. Without the sitemap, you would have to wait for someone to link into your content and for a search engine to follow that link before your content was found and indexed.

Once you have created your XML sitemap you have a number of options. You can link to it on your site and/or you can submit that sitemap to the search engines. Google provides a quick and easy sitemap submission service through Webmaster Tools.

There are a number of free sitemap creation tools on the web, just create a search on ‘free sitemap tools’ and select one you are comfortable with. They will guide you through the process of creating your sitemap. Most blogs have plugins/modules/addins that will create sitemaps for you.

When it comes to building a website, the final step in your onsite SEO processes should be the creation of a sitemap – it brings everything together to make spidering your site so much easier.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 at 12:57 pm and is filed under SEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.