Developing Effective Sitemaps

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All you need to know about using sitemaps effectively

A vital yet seemingly unattractive requirement for all websites is a sitemap. It is a requirement both for a human viewer and a search engine robot. The two visitors are served with different forms of sitemaps suitable for them. The sitemaps are encompassed of all the URLs within the site. They make it easier for all kinds of visitors, human or otherwise, to find their way through the site in a logical sequence. While the human eye is trained for attractiveness and easy readability, the engines require them to be in well-structured codes.

Humans love those maps that allow reading from the top to bottom and access the required web page. However, robots spend minimum time to glance at all the URLs and glean valuable information from each page. Humans are inquisitive and can reach the intended page even after much delay. However, search engines would rather abort the search, than spend excess time on each page. These variations in nature are the basis for designing effective sitemaps.

Search engine spiders crawl through every page irrespective of the quality of content or redundancy of information. While humans only look out for desired information at a single time, search engines profile the entire site in a single glance. The use of XML or text for preparing sitemaps depends on the volume of content. While, text is allowed for smaller content, XML is desired when it runs into thousands of pages. With the advent of XML file generators, it is easier and accurate to automatically prepare such sitemaps. These are placed in the root directory where they are easily accessible for updates.

There is no single format for developing perfect sitemaps. However, webmasters tend to lose the human angle while developing these. Sitemaps should be more than access providers. A good sitemap is the one that provides access to content by use of keywords and phrases in the appropriate context. The sitemap should have subject specific information and should not be vague. The main links on the sitemap should provide information regarding the type of data that is enclosed within. This helps the search engine robot to process faster and avoid unnecessary tours.

Humans like to be offered visual cues that may be graphical or images to indicate the nature of information within each URL. The sitemap is also an effective tool to display the segregation or distribution of information under the tabs. The organization of the information in terms of categories, products, and customer FAQs, testimonies etc. provide ample cues for clients to look for information in the right places. Sitemaps present a brief idea of the hierarchy of the web pages and the number of layers within each tab.

Apart from these, a website index may also be developed to enable alphabetical search across the site. However, this is not similar to the sitemap and does not provide a structured view of the site.

Well-developed sitemaps play a key role in enabling better chances of being picked up during a search. Also, the search engine robots find such sitemaps vital for analyzing the content of the site. They determine how easily deep-seated web pages are displayed on the web with respectable rankings. Hence, sitemaps are more than just an accessory but a vital cog in the processes that can determine the popularity of any web site.