Content-rich websites are not easy to navigate. This is especially true in cases where chunks of content are uploaded daily, a situation that may result in some content not being indexed as expected. On the other hand, it is important to note that research indicates that web surfers only spare a couple of seconds on a website before moving on to the next site, especially if they find navigation tricky. Therefore, sitemaps are used to simplify the navigation of a website. They contain a website’s structure, complete with links to all important sections and subsections of the website. It is therefore paramount that every webmaster creates a sitemap for every website that they manage.

In business, return clients are the pillars on which successful ventures thrive. Therefore, getting out of the way to ensure that your users don’t get lost in their search for content on your site will encourage them to come back for more. If you are running an ecommerce site, this will translate into more conversions, and for SEO purposes, you will improve your position in the SERPs.

Sitemaps have been in existence for close to ten years now. Unfortunately, many webmasters, designers and bloggers are yet to exploit their full potential. Some are comfortable with the fact that their pages can be indexed. However, it is much more important to enable visitors to find required information fast and generally add value to the website through a myriad of SEO benefits. Things are in fact easier today because you can use a sitemap creator to generate a map in a few minutes.

Characteristics of a Good Sitemap

Whether you do it manually or use a sitemap creator, it is important to ensure that every link is accompanied by a suitable description. Doing this ensures that visitors understand the content of the page beforehand and simplifies navigation from one page to another. A descriptive listing is not only important in helpings users easily find their way on your website, but also helps boost your rank in the search engines results pages.

All links to pages with related content should be placed on each sitemap page. The resultant page is known as a themed page, derived from a shared theme. Doing this is important for SEO because it will result in keyword-rich content, which is one of the most important factors search engines use to rank websites.

Finally, it is very important to prioritize the pages, especially for websites with lots of content. Include the values for each URL so that the search engines will know what information you deem more important than another. This shouldn’t be difficult to do, even with a sitemap creator. Bear in mind that your sitemap will require constant updates.

There you have it. There are many other attributes of a good sitemap. Just ensure that you keep updating it whenever new content is uploaded on your website. You should also take into consideration the crawling report by the search engines like errors, key phrases and sources of traffic. This way, you will improve the overall user experience as well as the crawling process. 

Signup for a free 14 day trial of the DYNO Mapper visual sitemap generator and start creating sitemaps today.