Anatomy of a Search Engine Friendly Sitemap

By Gary Harvey
Posted Sunday, September 19, 2004

Search engine optimization (SEO) expert Dr. Andy Williams has written a 21 page report called "Sitemaps: The Missing Link of Search Engine Optimization".

In it, he identifies the key features you'll need in your website's site map if you want to get the maximum mileage out of it.

FIRST... WHO IS ANDY WILLIAMS?

He's the creator of the highly regarded Sitemap Creator which automatically generates themed site maps. For the linking text, his software uses the title of each web pages and it creates a description for each link using your meta description tags (or your visible text if there's no meta description). Then, before you upload the newly created pages, you can change the order of the listings so as to create themed sitemap pages if you wish.

Fascinating software indeed!

But you can also create effective sitemaps BY HAND -- if you know what you're doing. So let's get into it.

YOUR TWO VISITOR TYPES

You have TWO types of visitors to your site: search engine spiders and human visitors. And BOTH are important.

The spiders must visit your new web pages before they can be listed in their indexes.

And the people? -- aha, they're the ones with the credit cards who will buy your products or services.

So your site map needs to appeal to BOTH groups.

After reading through Andy's report, here is my "profile of the ideal sitemap".

- How does your site measure up?
- And what changes can you change to get better results?

ANATOMY OF A SEARCH-ENGINE FRIENDLY SITEMAP

* It contains the links. No surprise here, of course! For example: (http://eProfitNews.com/2tier-affiliate-programs.html)

* Your new page's keywords are hyperlinked. Include the most important keywords in clickable text links. My example above shows how I did this. Yes, text is better than graphics for links purposes.

* You can add value to your human visitors by adding a description of the linked page. Andy's report illustrates how best to do that on page 11.

* All the links on the sitemap page are theme-related. So you may need several sitemaps, one for each cluster of themed pages. You connect all of these themed sitemaps together by having one overall sitemap for your site.

* Link to your overall sitemap page from your home page, so the search engine spiders will be able to identify all your new pages quickly.

Note: it's better NOT to submit your new web pages directly to the search engines. Let Mr. Spider find'em on his own!

* By adding a little more information to your overall sitemap, you've created a page that the search engines will just love. On page 13 of his report, Andy explains what else to add.

FREE COPY OF THE SITEMAP REPORT

If you would like to know more, you can download a copy of Dr. Andy Williams 21-page report called "Sitemaps: The Missing Link of Search Engine Optimization". It's in PDF format and is available by subscribing to eProfitNews. No charge, of course.

(http://eProfitNews.com/m)

The report explains in non-technical jargon why sitemaps are important to your success, and how to do them properly.

GET THE EDGE

When you look at many sites, you'll probably agree with Andy that the humble sitemap is one of the "most under-rated SEO weapons". And that's great news for you, because now you know how to transform your sitemap into the powerful weapon it can be.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gary Harvey is the driving force behind the amazing "HOTTEST eProfit Strategies". This incredible asset outlines PROVEN techniques that deliver MORE TRAFFIC and MORE MONEY. You'll be amazed at what you don't know. (http://eProfitNews.com/HOTTEST)