An XML sitemap is a feed to the search engine of where all the pages on your website reside. It includes information like, the address of your webpages, the date the pages were changed, and the importance of the pages related to other pages on your site. An XML sitemap is the best way for Google to index and crawl your site deeply. Every website owner that is committed to search engine optimization should have an XML sitemap on their website.
You can read more about XML sitemap protocol here – http://sitemap.org
If you’d like to have a sitemap generated for you, you can go here.
My recommendation would be to have your website on a content management system. Make sure that your content management system includes the ability to generate and XML sitemap for you. If the content management system cannot generate a sitemap, I would be suspicious about the system’s capability of producing a search engine friendly website.
We use Ubertor to host our website. It is designed for Real Estate Agents, but is flexible enough for small – medium size businesses and non-profits. If you are using WordPress for your website, be sure that you use this wordpress plugin to generate an XML sitemap.
1 Response to “What is an XML Sitemap & Why should you care?”