March 29th, 2010 by Nick

People often get wrapped up with the fanfare of websites and forget about the little things that make a big difference not only to users but also to their search engine optimization strategy. A perfect example of this is site maps. Often hidden away in the depths, these unassuming pages can have a huge influence on making your site as user-friendly as possible and easy for search engines to index.

Yes, it’s true that they don’t have the eye-catching appeal of a fancy homepage or a product page with snazzy images, but the beauty of site maps is their pure, unadulterated simplicity, which makes them an incredibly useful tool for both users and the search engine spiders – ideal for SEO.

In terms of visitors to your site, many people drastically underestimate how often users will refer to a site map to find what they are looking for. Yes, you have installed a fancy navigation tool but what if users don’t know exactly what they are looking for? This renders the search option useless and without a site map it can lead to visitors quickly becoming frustrated and navigating away from the site to look for the information or products elsewhere.

Web users are renowned for their impatience, and can navigate away from a page, even if you are offering what they need, just because they couldn’t see it straight away. A site map enables them to quickly see a complete overview of all your pages to help them to find the information they need as fast as possible.

Sitemaps are also vital SEO tools in terms of engaging with the search engines themselves and play an important role in Internet reputation management and link building strategies.  Everyone likes an easy life, even search engine spiders and bots, so if you make it easy for them to see what you do they can rank you more quickly and easily, and a site map is a perfect way to do this.

We offer a site map as an integral part of all the SEO services we provide, because, in our view, it is as important as any other page. Even if you only have a small website, having a site map is crucial to fully optimise your web presence and attract a higher ranking. It is the one area of your site where search engines can see exactly what you do clearly and concisely so keep it as simple as possible.

A site map does what it says on the tin and is one of the most simple and effective search engine optimisation tools available, but because it just gets on with its job many people overlook it, which is why it is often wrongly ignored. It’s a great way to include a wider range of subject specific keywords and internal links in a straightforward and ethical way, so that both your users and the search engines will love your site, which all results in increased traffic and higher listings, i.e. a win-win situation!

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