Build A Site Map

Building a sitemap is more an seo thing than a traffic thing. Good SEO is another great way to get a lot of traffic though so I have decided to include it here.

What is a site map?

"Overview of the navigational structure of a website, acting like a Table of Contents, and used to orient users and show them the scope of the site. Site maps can be textual or visual. Usually each location is an active link, enabling a user to move directly to that section. Site maps can also be important sources of links for search engine spiders to follow."

It is a good idea to have a navigational site map for your visitors. If you decide to create one, make sure you update it as your update your site.

We are going to create 2 sitemaps. One for your visitors and one for Google.

We will start with the sitemap for your visitors. If you use software like XSitePro, that program will create your sitemap for you as you go along. This is a huge time saver and that software comes very highly recommended. However, it isn't cheap so if you are on a tight budget, you will have to build your own sitemap. Don't worry, It's not hard.

Why do you need a sitemap?

When someone finds something on your website and thinks he will go back to that in a minute... Then he looks at a bunch of other stuff... Now he can't find that page he was going to go back to. If you have a sitemap, he can go there and find the page he wants.

A sitemap is just a list of all the viewing pages on your site. Some people break them down into categories and list the pages that way. Other people do an alphabetical listing of all page names. You decide what you like best and do that or do both and link them to each other.

You can see my sitemap here.

How do you create a sitemap?

1. Make a list of all titles of all the viewable pages on your website.
   
2. Create a hyperlink to each page using the title as the link.
   
3. Add a short description to each listing. This is usually the same as your meta tag description but you can write what ever you wish.
   
4. Save this page and call it sitemap.html or what ever extension you use.
   
5. Add a link to your sitemap in your main menu and your footer so it is easily found.

That's it, you are done and your visitors are happier. This will also help with your seo and ranking. Search Engine robots love a page that has all your pages listed in one place.

Google wants more though. So now you will create a Google sitemap.