How to create a sitemap
A sitemap of a website is similar to the table of contents of a book. Sitemaps are important because it guides web surfers to the particular part of the website they have a point of interest in. With it they would save time following links and get right to the point instead.
Sitemaps are also where search engines look at if somebody is looking for a particular keyword or phrase. If you have a site map, you can most likely be searched.
Creating a sitemap, now with software technology surging in, is relatively easier than before. You need not be a programming guru to be one. All need is a notepad, a program editor, and some patience. Here's how you do it:
Create the listing on a
notepad.
It doesn't necessarily have to be
a notepad. Any word processing
program will do. First off, make
sure to type in all the parts and
pieces of your website. Include
all pages and all links you have.
Create it as if you listing the
contents of your book. Make a
draft first. You池e sure no to miss
something out this way.
Create a new page for
your sitemap.
You can insert the sitemap on your
website on one of its pages or you
can create an entirely different
page for it. Using your notepad,
incorporate all tags necessary to
it to make another webpage. Open
up your website creator program
and tag your sitemap using it. If
you have created your website on
your own, this will be easy for
you.
Create a link for the
sitemap.
You won't be able to view the
sitemap if you won't put a link
for it, of course. Create the link
on the front page of your website
so that visitors can view it right
away and be directed
appropriately.
Check your
work.
It is important to validate the
functionality of the links you
created on the sitemap. Test each
and every one in there and if you
get an error, be sure to fix it
accurately. Run through every
single page to make sure that all
are accounted for.
Upload your
work.
Place the sitemap now on your live
browser and double check it. It
should function as smoothly as the
dry run. Error should be minimal
at this stage since you already
have verified it locally.
The steps provided herewith is the manual way of creating a sitemap. These days, if you search hard enough on the web, you will find online programs that will do all these work for you. All you have to do it type in the URL or the link of your website and they will create the sitemap with click of a button.
Of course that method is generic. All of you who have created their sitemap that way will have an end product that is all the same, plus there's that possibility that something else will be inserted in there too. Then again, the process is less taxing and way, way simpler.
But if you want a more personalized output, and you are pretty good with computers and programming yourself, better make one of your own. And since you made your website anyway, creating sitemap is just like creating any other page on the website. Other than you'll know for sure the links are accurate, you can organize the links the way you prefer it to be. Major parts of the site are emphasized compared to less significant. This is important especially if you are selling products or offering services online.
Sitemap is vital to a website. People search the web a lot for something. If your website has what that particular person is looking for, and your sitemap reports it, then you have a new customer looking at your items. Not only that, they will see some other things up for sale that they might be interested in as well.
Sitemaps, be it generated by a program automatically or you made it yourself, presents the same purpose. That is to lead your visitors to where they've likely headed, and for you to be seen on the World Wide Web through search spiders. So with these, make sure your website has a sitemap of its own, lest make one.
