What Is Xml Sitemap In Seo & HTML Sitemaps Any Website
Sitemaps are files that contain a listing of all of the content for your site.
In the case of xml sitemaps they also include additional information to help the search engines more accurately crawl and index your sites content.
For most web-masters they are tools used for planning, organizing and reporting the way a website is structured.
They do this by identifying the different url's and content within each section of your website.
HTML sitemaps (also referred to as a site index) are created to help users navigate your site quickly and easily. They are most often used like a table of content is used in a book or magazine to show the different categories and the different content contained within each category or section.
They can also be used to provide website visitors a big picture or top down view of all of the content contained on the site.
There primary function however is to provide your visitors with a quick and easy way of navigating from one page of your website, to any other page on that site.
HTML sitemaps can be in any document format type such as a word document used to plan the development of a new site or a webpage used for on site navigation by website visitors.
XML sitemaps 0.9 protocol was adopted in response to the increasing complexity and increasing number of pages, post and content contained within multiple sections of many blogs, forums and business websites.
They are created primarily to provide search engine bots with a list of all of the url's and pages on that site that are available to be crawled.
They also provide additional information such as how often updates are made, when the last change was made and the priority of importance for each page within the site.
This allows search engines to use this information to crawl your site faster and more efficiently.
XML sitemaps should conform to the xml sitemap 0.9 protocol.
Why You Need SiteMaps -
Web crawlers or search engine bots usually find new sites or content as a result of crawling a site that has a link to the new site or content on it.
This is why it is important to build links to all of your new content to ensure that all of your content is being crawled and indexed.
This could be done by using social media and bookmarking sites such as del.is.ous, digg, stumbleupon, etc to announce all of your new content to both the search engines and the world.
By creating and submitting an xml sitemap to the major search engines you are being more pro-active in informing the search engines about your site and its content.
Improve Indexing -
By creating and submitting a sitemap to Google, you are informing Google of all of the pages and content that you currently have on your site.
This greatly increases the odds that all of your content will be crawled and indexed.
This is very important when you have a large authority site with 100's (or more) pages because without submitting a sitemap some of your pages might get overlooked and that means that they would not show up in the search results.
Improved Visitor Experience -
Users have a short attention span and as a result many users already know what they are interested in and can quickly locate that information using your sitemap to go to the content that is important to them.
This also means that they will be spending more time on your site instead of clicking away and going to another site. This can also help to reduce your sites bounce rate.
How XML & HTML SiteMaps Are Used -
HTML sitemaps are most effectively used as a planning tool which can allow you to map out the different categories for your site along with the different pages or post that will be needed for each category.
In addition they are also primarily created to allow users quick and easy site navigation.
XTML Sitemaps
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is the newer formatting language used to encode data in a way that is readable by both humans and machines.
They are created primarily for the benefit of both the website owner (or webmaster) and the major search engines.
Ideally both html and xml sitemaps should be used in the following manner :
Step1.)Create a HTML sitemap as a flowchart to diagram all of the different aspects that you want to have included in your site creation.
You may want to duplicate an already completed site that is very similar to the site you have in mind to create.
An html sitemap can be created by creating a new page with the title HTML sitemap and listing all of your web-content with links to each piece of content.
If you choose to create your site first, you can then use a free online sitemap generator to crawl your site and create your sitemap. For wordpress users there are plugins available to automate this process.
Step2.)After your site has been created, update your html sitemap to include all of the completed sections, pages and content that you would like your visitors to have access to.
This can be done by updating your html sitemap page with a link using the title of the new content as your anchor text linking back to that content.
Step3.)Next create an XML sitemap using a xml sitemap generator, to submit to the major search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing.
One way to create your xml sitemap is to use a free automated sitemap creator like the one available at sitemaps.com
You will simply need to enter your sites url (along with optional data for better accuracy) and it will be crawled and an xml sitemap will be created that you can then submit to Google through your google webmaster account.
You can also monitor and manage your crawl stats in the diagnostics section of your account.
Step4.)Update your html sitemap as your content changes. This will ensure that your visitors will always be able to navigate and access all of your sites content.
You can update your html sitemap by listing your new post, page or content on your html sitemap page with a link to it.
Step5.)Monitor your google webmaster account in the diagnostic section to see if a new xml sitemap is needed. If you notice that all of your content is not being crawled you can then create and submit a new xml sitemap.
By creating and using both an html and an xml sitemap for each of your sites you will be ensuring that you are taking the necessary steps to maximize your sites crawl and use ability for both your users and the search engines.
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