What is A SiteMap?
An XML sitemap is one of the most important features of your website. Although our sitemap isn’t something that visitors to your site will see, the URLs in your sitemap are something that will be used by search engines to determine which pages are associated with your site and which pages are most important. There are many different types of sitemap that may be associated with a website over and above the typical XML sitemap. Video content, images, and news all have their own sitemaps which is why it’s imperative that your sitemap index file be properly optimized for maximum SEO value which will ultimately get you the website traffic that you need and want.
Why SiteMaps Are Important
A sitemap index is something that can have a direct impact on your search appearance. Therefore, if you want to improve your SEO, it’s important that you take the time to do a site audit and ensure that your sitemap is up to par. SEO best practices dictate that you should do a period site audit not only to review your sitemaps but to review your website architecture overall and confirm that search engines are crawling your website correctly.
Best Practice For Creating An SEO Optimized SiteMap
There are several SEO best practices when it comes to putting together a sitemap to improve your SEO. Having a clear SEO plan from the beginning will help you to avoid stress when it comes to developing a sitemap. For example, before you create a sitemap, you need to develop your keyword research and content marketing strategy. This is important due to the fact that Google will use these factors when it comes to ranking your website. If your keyword research or content marketing strategy is lacking in any way, you will see this in your ranking results regardless of how many times you submit a sitemap.
The first thing that you will want to do is activate a plug-in called Yoast SEO if you’re using a WordPress site. Yoast SEO will generate sitemap XML files for you automatically. However, if you aren’t using a WordPress site, there are several external links that offer a sitemap generator that you can use to create a sitemap.
From there, you will want to submit your sitemap to Google Search Console. Taking this step will tell Google Search Console which site pages you want to be indexed and trigger web crawlers to crawl your page. If you successfully submitted a sitemap, GSC will tell you that it’s been successfully submitted or tell you if there has been an error. Every SEO strategy should always include periodically submitting a sitemap.
Before you do this, however, it’s important that you review your website. Issues such as duplicate content or subpar meta tags are something that can impact search results. Although a sitemap to your website is something that can help you get ranked in positive ways, it can also be a detriment if your website is lacking when it comes to a search engine optimization strategy.
Technical SEO Experts at Blue Interactive Agency
If you have questions about your website’s SEO or you’re concerned that search engines are not crawling your website correctly, we encourage you to get in touch with the technical SEO experts at Blue Interactive Agency. With years of experience in the industry, you can rest assured that our SEO experts will help you to develop a strategy with a sitemap that will get you the website traffic that you need to grow your business. If you would like to learn more about our services, we encourage you to get in touch with us today.
