Improve Your Rankings with a Sitemap That Works: The HTML - Creating Effective Sitemap HTML
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Do a quick search in any of the more high profile search engines for “site map.” The top ranking sites in each all share one thing in common; their site maps are all just simple pages full of links. They may be laid out in tables, un-ordered lists or simply as a long list of links, but the pages themselves are simple and effective. This gives the spiders information they can easily digest. It is important that you do the same.
Coding a sitemap in this way is extremely easy and has the benefits of being easy to maintain and easy to style. If done properly, the page will also degrade well when viewed with browsers that don’t support CSS. The example site map I have put together is for a fictional record store. While neither the site nor store exist in reality, I have done it in the way that I would for any site I was optimizing.
Let’s begin then with the site map. Create a basic HTML page with all of the default tags. As you’re obviously into SEO, you’d have a decent sized title and keyword flecked meta description included right?
<html>
<head>
<title>Site Map for Rouge Records - Providers of the best underground and UK imported vinyl and DJ accessories</title>
<meta name="description" content="Rogue Records, visit our store or buy online! Aimed at both the enthusiast and professional DJ, we sell everything that any turntablist could ever need, from the freshest records to industry standard turntables and mixers. We specialize in unreleased dance music imported from the UK from the baddest styles, including house, techno, break-beat, drum and bass, hardcore UK garage and hip hop. We also provide a selection of the hottest new tracks from all over the USA">
</head>
<body>
A short introduction is not necessary but it gives you a chance to blend in a few more keywords and makes it clear that this page links to your entire site:
<div>Welcome to the Rogue Records site map; browse through our vinyl or buy a top quality mixer, whatever you want to do, the page that will let you do it is listed here. We at Rogue Records think that navigating our site and finding what you want should be a simple task. The heading in each section corresponds directly with the top-level links of our navigation bar</div>
Next: Building the Sitemap Content >>
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