|
Screwed: Is this an inevitability in the SEO World?
By about 2pm everyday, each of my team members has spoken to a good handful of clients and potential clients who have been speaking with other SEO firms. This an absolutely wonderful thing to see, as in the past in our industry, not enough of our...
SEO For Dummies; How to Choose the right Firm for You.
Ok, so you’ve finished your web site. Now you just submit your web site to a couple of search engines, sit back, relax and wait to see your bank account grow. Yeah, that’s what I thought as well. You wait and wait and wait... nothing. No hits. No...
SEO Success: Step One is Good Web Design
Creating a well-designed website is the first step in your internet marketing strategy. Once the website has been created and optimized, there are further techniques to employ that will drive traffic to your website for successful, long-term...
SEO: The Fixer Upper
Most entrepreneurs are clueless. Most of them are lost. Most of them have no idea what a SEO can do for you and, of course, your website. Most businessmen, like me, were lost because they did not have the right material, the experience, and the...
The SEO Journey:
Working in the fast-paced search engine marketing industry, I have often been faced with the question: “Where exactly does SEO fit into web site development?” The relevance of SEO cannot be overestimated. Increasingly, webmasters and site owners...
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sitemaps 101 - Back To SEO School
Sitemaps are without doubt one of the most often ignored and undervalued aspects of search engine optimization. You've probably spent a huge amount of time working on pages of original content, keyword density and getting incoming links but never once spared a thought for a sitemap for your new creation.
What is a sitemap?
Put simply it's a page or pages that contain a list of and link to all the other documents on your site. This is useful on two levels:
1. Your visitor can quickly reference all the documents on your site to find exactly what they're looking for.
2. Search engine spiders can also quickly find and index every single page of your site in the least amount of time. The SEO benefits of using a sitemap far considerable and should not be ignored.
This is a win-win situation for you, your website visitors and the search engines. Put simply you're nuts if you've not included a sitemap as part of your overall website promotion strategy.
The good news is that it's never too late to start. You can create a sitemap page today but there are some rules to creating an effective sitemap that you need to follow:
Your sitemap must only be linked to from your homepage and no other page. Why? You want the search engine spiders to find this link directly from your homepage and follow it from there. Your sitemap MUST NOT be linked to from every other page of your site. Also from a Google Pagerank point of view only linking to your sitemap from your homepage can also "funnel" PR quickly to pages all over your site.
If you have a large website of 50 pages or more limit the number of pages listed on your sitemap to a maximum of 30. This is to prevent your sitemap from being misinterpreted as a link farm by the search engines. It also makes the sitemap a lot easier for real human visitors to read through. Limiting the number of pages listed on each sitemap to 30 might mean splitting
your sitemap over 5, 10 or 20 pages. This has to be done and the long term benefits are worth it. Bear in mind that if you do create a 20 page sitemap you've just created an extra 20 pages of content for your website!
Make absolutely sure that each of your sitemap pages links to the next. If you have 10 sitemap pages in total then each of those needs to link to every other sitemap page. Otherwise both visitors and search engine spiders will find a broken link, lose interest and go away.
Test your sitemap thoroughly. Make sure all the links works. Make sure it's easy to read and navigate through. Your sitemap is there to assist your visitor and not confuse them.
How should you structure your sitemap? The following tips must be adhered to in order for your site to gain the maximum possible benefit from having a sitemap.
1. The title of each sitemap link should be keyword rich and link directly back to the original page.
2. Include 10 - 20 words of text from the original page of content underneath the relevant sitemap link. This creates more content for search engine spiders and human visitors can see exactly what each page is about in advance of clicking.
uman visitor benefit is that they can see what the pages is about in advance.
3. Ensure that the look and feel of your sitemap page is consistent with the rest of your site. Use the same basic HTML template you used for every other page of your site.
So now you understand the importance of building a sitemap for your website. There is work involved but the long term benefits for your websites far outweigh any effort you have to make right now.
About the Author
This article was provided courtesy of Search-Engine-Fuel.com where you'll find tons of information on search engine optimization. Check out our page on sitemap creation.
|
|
|
|
|
| Search Engine Optimization, Google Optimization - SEO Chat |
| Search Engine Optimization, Google Optimization - SEO Chat. |
| www.seochat.com |
|
| Search engine optimization - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
| Search engine optimization (SEO) is a subset of search engine marketing, and deals with ... The term SEO can also refer to "search engine optimizers", ... |
| en.wikipedia.org |
|
| SEO Home |
| Mentor an SEO Scholar! 8/7/2006. Click here to learn more. ... 55 Exchange Place New York, NY 10005 (212) 979-2040 info@seo-usa.org ... |
| www.seo-ny.org |
|
| Webmaster Help Center - What's an SEO? Does Google recommend ... |
| Ask your SEO firm if it reports every spam abuse that it finds to Google ... Ethical SEO firms report deceptive sites that violate Google's spam guidelines. ... |
| www.google.com |
|
| Aaron Wall's SEO Book.com |
| Aaron Wall offers search engine news, reviews of tools, and an ebook for sale. |
| www.seobook.com |
|
| SEO Today |
| Provides articles and information about the search engine optimization and marketing industry. Latest articles can be sent via email. |
| www.seotoday.com |
|
| SEO: See what people are saying right now on Technorati |
| See all blog posts tagged with SEO on Technorati. ... This page shows everything that has been tagged with SEO. To contribute to this page include this code ... |
| www.technorati.com |
|
| Seo: See what people are saying right now on Technorati |
| See all blog posts tagged with seo on Technorati. ... Professional SEO Marketing Firm www.cherryoneweb.com - Cherryone is a SEO firm that gets results for ... |
| www.technorati.com |
|
| Pages tagged with "seo" on del.icio.us |
| 秋元@サイボウズラボ・プログラマー・ブログ: あのライバルは SEO で抜けるのか? ... L'aggiornamento di un SEO | Articoli Webmarketing | Webmarketing.HTML.it ... |
| del.icio.us |
|
| Seo Administrator - seo tools, seo software, optimization software ... |
| Seo Administrator is an integrated suite of web promotion utilities that cover all aspects of website optimization and promotion. |
| www.seoadministrator.com |
|
| Search Engine Watch: Tips About Internet Search Engines & Search ... |
| Search Engine Watch is the authoritative guide to searching at Internet search engines and search engine registration and ranking issues. |
| searchenginewatch.com |
|
| AddMe, Search Engine Optimization Submission Free Site Promotion ... |
| A leader since 1996, search engine submission, search engine optimization, free search engine submission, site submission, and website promotion. |
| www.addme.com |
|
| What is SEO? - A Word Definition From the Webopedia Computer ... |
| This page describes the term SEO and lists other pages on the Web where you can find additional information. |
| www.webopedia.com |
|
| SEO: Search Engine Optimisation. SEO copyright advice. FREE SEO ... |
| Provides free search engine keyword reports for UK websites and strategies for unlisted websites. |
| www.ihaveawebsite-nowwhat.co.uk |
|
| Search Engine Roundtable ::: The Pulse Of The Search Marketing ... |
| A well-rounded view on search engines and search engine marketing from five segments of the Web population represented by senior members of the major ... |
| www.seroundtable.com |
|
| Search Engine Optimisation Marketing & Pay per Click Advertising ... |
| Offers search engine marketing and paid search engine advertising. Australia. |
| www.foundagency.com.au |
|
| Submit Express - Search Engine Placement, Optimization, SEO Marketing |
| Search engine optimization services with guaranteed Top 10 results. Submit your website URL to 40 major search engines for FREE ! |
| www.submitexpress.com |
|
| SEO Analyzer - SEO Tools - Nashville SEO, SEM, Internet Strategy ... |
| The SEO Analyzer is a FREE tool that uses a sophisticated algorithm that detects how optimized your web design is for search engines. |
| sitening.com |
|
| SEO Company For Search Engine Optimization |
| Weblinx Limited - SEO Company for UK Search Engine Optimization. |
| www.weblinx.biz |
|
| Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO |
| I believe that Google is the only search engine that will confirm to webmasters ... If you pick a bad search engine optimizer (SEO) and they make a ton of ... |
| www.mattcutts.com |
|