The Missing Link - Themes Sitemap Pages: Increase Your Search Engine Rankings

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Imagine the same Barbie Doll Themed sitemap page we discussed above. By its very nature, it will have everything that a search engine looks for in a high-ranking web page. It has keyword rich text. It has keyword rich links to highly related pages. All you need to do to make this great spider food is add title tag, meta description, a header and some introductory text and bingo – search engines will love the page and rank it well for a range of keywords. So, a sitemap can be more than a way for you to tell a search engine about your pages. It can be used as a navigation system by visitors, as well as spider food for the hungry spiders. This can get your sitemap pages great rankings in the search engines. 

Building Site Maps

There is nothing to stop you from building a sitemap by hand. Especially if your site is quite small.

1. Create a webpage for your sitemap.
2. Add keyword rich links, and keyword rich descriptions for each web page you want to link to.
3. Upload it to your server.
4. Add a link to your sitemap from your homepage.
5. As you add more pages, remember to add these pages to the sitemap.
6. As the sitemap gets bigger, you will need to split the sitemap into separate pages.
7. Consider theming your sitemap pages.

These sitemaps will take up more and more time as your site gets bigger and bigger. Fortunately, a software solution is available. Sitemap Creator takes the work out of building Type I sitemaps. Imagine entering a few details about your site, clicking a few buttons, and having a type I sitemap on your server and ready for visitors and spiders within minutes of starting the software.

Sitemap Creator has many benefits:

• It builds pages for you and uploads them to your server using the built in FTP feature.
  
  
• It automatically uses the web page titles for the link text. Let's face it, we all know that our titles should be keyword rich, so if we are designing for good positioning in the search engines anyway, what better than the web page title for the link text?
  
  
• It automatically creates the description for each link. If a META Description tag is present, it can use that. If not, it will use the first x number (x is defined by webmaster) of characters from the visible web page for the description. You can default to using visible text instead of META description if you prefer.
  
  
• You define where your files are located, Sitemap Creator will rebuild sites for you as the site grows.
  
  
• You define how many links per page, Sitemap Creator will follow your instructions.
  
  
• You can easily select individual files to be included in a site map – ideal for themed sitemaps.
  
  
• It provides you with the link you need to place on your homepage.
  
  
• It puts links to every other sitemap page on every sitemap page.
  
  
• Sitemap Creator uses your templates. You make sure your templates look like your site, with your logo etc, Sitemap Creator will make your sitemap pages using that template.
  
  
• Use of variables allow quick and easy insertion of details like homepage links, page numbers etc., where you want them.
  
  
• You can name your sitemap pages with the .shtml extension if you wish. That way you can use server side includes (SSI) on your pages.
  
  
• Probably the best benefit (besides producing site maps that you can be proud of, that your visitors and search engines will love), is the fact that this software will save you hours, if not days for every sitemap you create. How much is that worth to you?

Next: Appendix 1: Linking Strategies >>
 

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