A site map for a website is actually a map of numerous links and navigation paths within the site. The primary function of adding a sitemap to any website is to make it possible for the Googlebots (Google Spider) to crawl the websites. By doing so, the various pages that make up your website get indexed in the Google search engine and become searchable by others. Instead of having to search and find all the links that connect your pages, your site map makes the job much easier and there is less risk of any pages that you want indexed being missed. In addition, your site map will enhance the crawling time and speed of the Googlebot gets through your site.
A few other benefits of having a site map include:
- It can be made use of as a navigation map for your visitors, much like a road map for a tourist. They can always visit your sitemap page and navigate to any page they want to visit within a click.
- If a visitor types in the incorrect URL, they may, if you’re lucky, still end up on your website, but not the page they were looking for. By navigating to the site map on your site, he or she can then look through the list of pages on your site to find the correct one they initially wanted.
A good tip would be for you to create the layout of your site before you set about designing your website. If you know the structure you wish to follow, you will know which pages need to be created, and how you want to lead your visitors from page to page.
If you want to submit a sitemap to directly to Google’s Webmaster Tool, then you will require a sitemap in what is called an XML format, which will send the URL to the Google database, every time you update your website with a new material. If your web pages contain video, then you can also create and submit a video site map directly to Google so they can index your video inside the appropriate search section.
