Help Businesses Find Your Website With HTML Sitemaps and XML Sitemaps

Having a website is a huge part of doing business these days. But just putting up a website doesn’t cut it. That business you are trying to sell your products and services to is going to search using Google, Yahoo, MS Search, etc. to find your website. So if you haven’t done the work to get listed with the search engines, your competition is going to get the business.

Now there are a lot of methods to boost your listing with the search engines not one of which will accomplish what you need alone, so consider HTML Sitemaps and XML Sitemaps one of many things on your To Do list.


Create an HTML SiteMap

An HTML sitemap is nothing more than a landing page (web page) on your website, where viewers can find all of the pages you want them to find. You can think about this as a family tree or file manager as in Microsoft Windows®. While large websites may dictate multiple pages for an HTML sitemap it is better to put everything on a single web page if you can. Many may be asking why in the world do I need this extra page when I already have a navigation bar? From a viewer perspective if your navigation bar has depth, meaning a single page goes several pages deep, this can be a pain for viewers to get to the page they really want. An HTML sitemap gives an overview that lets viewers cut to the chase. However there is more benefit to this approach than just pleasing the viewers. Setting up an HTML sitemap helps the search engines find all of your pages. The search engines like HTML sitemaps because all the links can be picked up from one page plus you gain valuable additional links to your pages. It is important to understand that links on your website to other areas of your website help your search engine ranking. So get it out of your head that you only need one link to your “products” or “services” page. Also, don’t forget to update your HTML sitemap when you add new content to your website. This is a great way to direct site visitors to new content and it lets the search engine spiders know there are additional pages to index.

XML Sitemap

An XML sitemap on the other hand is not for the viewer. It is a file specifically designed for a search engine spiders. This is one of many tools you need for search engine optimization (SEO) of your site. In order to ensure that the search engines can find all of your content, you want to post an XML sitemap that lists all of the pages you have listed on the HTML sitemap. This too is an important file to keep updated so the search engine spiders find your new pages. It is a roadmap to your content and the search engines look to see if and when you’ve made changes. The more new content you have the more important your site appears to the search engine.

Eye on the competition

If you are just starting a website or have one that you have neglected in the way of building links, you may be wondering where to start.

There are lots of ways to gain backlinks to your site such as paid links, blog comments, directory’s, social bookmarks, forums, but you need to find the sites to start building your backlinks. This is where your competitors become your best friend. By researching your competitors backlinks you can gain hundreds, even thousands of linking possibilities. One nice clean way to do this is to go to Yahoo.com and search by site:http://www.your-competitors-name.com. As of this writing the results of the type of search you will see a tab for "pages" (their pages) and "inlinks" (links to their website). Inlinks will show you a pattern whether its directories, blogs, paid links or press releases. Now you have the information and information is power. Follow these sites back and investigate how you can get a link back to your website.

Make no mistake this takes time. You will find some sites that let you submit your website address for free and others have a fee. Submitting to blogs and forums or writing articles and press release will take even more time. Keep steady pressure on building links to your site and you will start to see results.