Don't Neglect HTML Sitemaps
Today I want to talk with about the importance of having an HTML sitemap on your websites. It can do wonders to your search engine optimization.
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First things first, what is an HTML sitemap? It is an actual page of your website that outlines the complete structure of your site, and that links to all the important pages on your site.
I call it "Archives", but that is nothing more than an HTML sitemap, because it outlines the structure of all the posts I have published there month by month, and it also links to all of them.
Now it is important to not confuse an HTML sitemap with an XML one. An XML sitemap also outlines the structures of your site, but the XML format is understood by search engine bots only. If you visit an XML sitemap you will just see a bunch of code.
XML sitemaps are useful if you are having crawling problems on your site. That is, if search engine bots are not indexing your pages correctly. If you are not having such problems, however, having an XML sitemap is not necessary.
The HTML sitemap, on the other had, can be very useful no matter what. First of all because it is useful for human visitors, as it allows them to find any page within your site quickly.
Second, and most important, HTML sitemaps represent a very good way to distribute your link juice and PageRank among the pages of your site.
Ideally you want to have all the pages linking to the HTML sitemap and the HTML sitemap linking back to all the pages (you can exclude non important pages like your Privacy Policy or contact page if you want). One way to accomplish this is to put a link to the HTML sitemap on the main navigation menu or on the footer of your site.
Finally, here is a hot tip that very few people know: getting external backlinks pointing to your HTML sitemap is very good for SEO. Why? Because that link juice will pass directly to all
the pages on your site. If you get a backlink pointing to an internal page (e.g., a blog post) it will need to pass through at least one hop before it passes juice to other pages. Links to the HTML sitemap, on the other hand, pass juice directly to all other pages on your site.
The next time you do a guest post, therefore, consider pointing the byline link to your HTML sitemap instead of your homepage.
If you are using WordPress and want to create an HTML sitemap like mine, just search on Google for "SGR Clean Archives." That is the name of the plugin that creates the sitemap for you.
If you want to become a master of search engine optimization you should check my Online Profits training program. We have two SEO modules there, covering the A to Z of search engines. The lessons were written by two world-class SEOs too: Michael Gray and Hamlet Batista. Here is the link if you want to join:
http://www.onlineprofits.com
Talk to you soon
HTML Sitemaps
10:10 AM By anes