Google LOVES sitemaps! Every site should have a sitemap, especially the big ones with lots of pages. A sitemap is a complete resource guide for readers and search engines including a list and description of each page on a site. If your homepage lands a search result and you have a sitemap on your site and it was indexed then each individual page within your site will automatically be indexed for you. How wonderful is that? The use of a sitemap doesn’t guarantee that a page will be indexed immediately after you hit that save button, but the use of a sitemap provides hints for web crawlers to find new and changed content on your site.

Think about this, a reader comes to your page looking for information and begins to get very frustrated not being able to find anything, what do they do? They leave! Three, that’s the average number of clicks a reader will follow until they leave your page when looking for information. Having a sitemap could lessen that number by one. Visitors click the link to your sitemap, then they find the article they are looking for and click on that and they are done. The point is to keep readers on your page not let them go elsewhere for information you have on your site, so get started.

Why should you get a sitemap today?

• ·     Improve search engine optimization by making sure that all pages can be found easily.

• ·     Simple to use for readers to locate information they are looking for quickly without leaving your site.

• ·     Sitemaps are key to visibility.

• ·     It’s an easy way for search engines to be notified of any changes or new content.

The list isn’t that big, but the reasons given are more than enough for you to go and get your sitemap today! Google offers a sitemap tool which is now part of Google Webmaster Tools. You can use Google Sitemaps for sites that don’t include a sitemap or that have a sitemap that is not of good quality. This tool will allow you to create your own sitemap, submit it to Google, and keep track of stats.

Remember keep your site simple; make it easy for readers visually and navigationally.

Read Also: The Importance of Sitemaps

An auto-generated sitemap is simply a sitemap that automatically updates every time new content is submitted to a site or changes are made. Take a look at what is called an auto-generated sitemap: Sitemap 

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