What Is a Sitemap and Why Do I Need One?
A sitemap shows the structure of a website, its sections, and the links between them. This helps users navigate the website more easily and is also important for improving SEO rankings.
Sitemaps enhance SEO by making all sub-pages easily accessible. This is especially useful for websites using Adobe Flash or JavaScript menus that do not include HTML links.
Additionally, when a page is updated, the sitemap notifies search engines. A sitemap is useful for two types of audiences: visitors and search engines. Accordingly, there are two types of sitemaps: HTML and XML.
An HTML sitemap helps visitors find the information they need more easily. It is usually located at the bottom of the web page.
An XML sitemap helps search engines by specifying which parts of the website should be indexed. It also provides valuable information about the page hierarchy and the relative importance of different content.
Tips and Tricks
- Before creating a sitemap, ensure that all links are working properly.
- Each page on the sitemap should have a link back to the sitemap itself.
- According to most SEO experts, a sitemap should contain between 25 and 40 links to maintain a user-friendly and transparent structure.
- The link to the sitemap should be accessible from the main page. If it can only be accessed from another page, search bots may consider it a dead end and stop indexing.
- The anchor text for each link should contain at least one keyword and point to the correct page.
- For smaller sites, it is possible to include all links in the sitemap. However, for larger sites, this is not recommended, as scanning too many links could make the site appear as a link farm, which may negatively affect its SEO.