The Site Map - Important or Not?

Posted by rimel - 16/07/07 at 03:07:15 am

Is a site map an archaic tool or a must have for an e-commerce site. The answer may surprise you. Have you ever visited a web site and noticed the “Site Map” button jammed somewhere near the bottom of the page?

Have you ever visited a web site and noticed the “Site Map” button jammed somewhere near the bottom of the page? Ever click on it? Probably not. So, why do sites have site maps?

The Site Map – Very Important

In the old days of the net [about three years ago], experts proclaimed every site should have a site map. From their ivory tower, they proclaimed the site map as the extraordinary method to assure potential customers could easily navigate the site and find what they needed. Once they found it, they would buy it and you would be rich, rich, rich!

As is typical with such universally accepted proclamations, this one was wrong. Anyone remotely paying attention to server statistics realized very few people were visiting site maps. The proclamation stopped being shouted and evolved into criticisms of sites which still have site maps. These criticisms, of course, also miss the mark.

HTML site maps are archaic. Visitors to your site will almost never use them. You may even forget you have one. You will certainly forget to update it as often as you should. Still, the site map is a critical component of the site.

The first thing to realize is there is a specific purpose for having a site map. The purpose is to make it is as simple as possible for search engine robots to crawl your site. The more pages indexed by the search engines, the better off you are.

To create a site map, just make a page with the meta tag of “site map”. Add hyperlinked text to each fulcrum page of the site. A fulcrum page is simply a gateway page to a particular section of the site. For example, you may have a centralized article page with links to each article. The centralized article page is a fulcrum page and should be included on the site map. Once completed, make sure that every page you want included in the search engine has a hyperlinked text headline on at least one of the fulcrum pages.

A quick word about Google. Google has a new xml feature you can use for a site map. You can use it or forgo it as you see fit. Still, make sure to make an html site map for the other search engines.

Once you have the site map page up, don’t wait for the search engine robots to find it. Publish the link in an article byline or blog as soon as possible. Within a week or so, you should see pages from your site being added to the search engine indexes. This is true for Google even if you don’t use the xml site map tool.

Why Your Site May Not Be Fully Indexed by Google

Posted by rimel - 12/06/07 at 01:06:10 pm

Traditional methods of link exchange and buying links is not the answer. The answer is knowing how to get people to link to you voluntarily. You need to view your site as another site owner would and ask yourself if you would want to link to your site? Is your site stuffed with poorly written content simply for the purpose of placing adsense ads on it? Before SEO became a must, people relied heavily on the originality and uniqueness of their sites to draw traffic. Today, that seems to be a lost artform for most. Google is starting to tell web site owners that they need to do more than exchange and buy links and that fancy methods of linking won’t hold much weight. In actuality, continuing to adhere to outdated link methods may result in your site not being fully indexed.

Matt Cutts recently stated on his blog that “if you were getting crawled more before and you’re trading a bunch of reciprocal links, don’t be surprised if the new crawler has different crawl priorities and doesn’t crawl as much”. Back in 2004, link exchanges were the “in” thing to do. Now, however, Google is aware of the possible arrangements (including the “triangle” exchange) and as a result, they hold little merit. Linking to bad neighbors or unrelated sites can have a negative effect on your site. Matt stated that owners should be careful regarding link exchange policies as it can be a risky practice that could affect your sites value in the long term. The same goes for buying links on related sites. When buying links, you should be using the no follow tag. This will help ensure the link will not be counted in a negative way. especially if buying from sites that are not related to yours. Fact: The Bigdaddy crawl looks more at inbound than outbound links. The quality of the links will determine how deep to crawl a site or if a site should be crawled at all!

What Makes Your Site Hard to Crawl?

* Using Cookies
* Using Session Id’s
* Frameset can be indexed but there is room for improvement so be careful, not the best solution.
* Flash still should be accompanied with HTML text

How to Make Sure Your Site is Indexed Correctly?

* Use Google sitemaps
* Stay away from free hosting
* Using too much Java
* Mouseovers
* Over-designing your site

To see how your site looks to spiders, use a text based browser. If you can’t make out what is on the page, neither will the spiders. Making sites clean and useful is the goal. Too many effects, Java, flash and other fancy features can hinder your sites indexing.

Google has also stated they want to align themselves with sites that offer useful content to get links, so content is still king. Quality is more important than quantity.

Google is doing its best to make it so that webmasters cannot control the linking process. They want people to naturally want to link to you, whether it’s because you have a great message board, informative articles or quality related content. Google is trying to push sites that are relevant as it will positively affect the public’s view of their engine. So, before you buy a link, sell a link or try to find a sneaky way to build backlinks, try good old fashion web site marketing 101. When creating a site, give people a reason to want to come back! Too many marketers worry about bringing in visitors for that one time sale or visit. If they took the time to separate their site from the competition with helpful content, a great layout and easy navigation, they would have little trouble establishing links. If your site is informative and resourceful, people will find you and so will the search engines

How to Make a Sitemap For Your Website In Five Steps.

Posted by rimel - 12/06/07 at 01:06:41 pm

A website’s sitemap can be compared to the table of contents of a book. The sitemap is important because it guides visitors to the parts of the website in which they are interested. The sitemap allows surfers to reach their destination without wasting time.

Sitemaps are also important from the point of view of search engines. If the search engine finds a sitemap it is much more likely that your page will be fully visited (spidered) and indexed; allowing web surfers to find your pages in their searches.

Creating a sitemap is now easier than it used to be as software and online sitemap generation has become more common. It is worthwhile though to know how the process works and so this article will describe how to build your own sitemap using Notepad, a webpage creator and a little patience.

1) Create the site’s listing on using Notepad.
It is not necesary to use Notepad, any wordprocessing software will work, but all Windows PCs have the program. Firstly, type in all pages and all links you have on the site. Create it as though you were listing the contents of a book. Make a draft version first and then go through the site again; in this way you are less likely to miss anything out.

2) Make a new web page for the sitemap.
You can insert the sitemap in your website on an existing page or create an entirely new page. Take the listing of pages and links that you made previously and copy/paste them into your website creator program and lay out the pages and links. If you made the site you are working on by yourself this part will be easy!

3) Insert a link to the sitemap.
You won’t be able to aee the sitemap if you don’t have a link for it. Create a link on the front page of the site so that visitors can see it as soon as they land on your index/home page and be directed appropriately.

4) Check your the sitemap!
It is important to check that the map works. Test every link on the page, if you get any errors, fix it accurately (and immediately so you do not forget!). Run through every page to make sure that all are accounted for - no missing pages.

5) Upload the sitemap.
Place the sitemap and modified home/index page on your webhost and double check it. It should work as smoothly as it did the final dry run. Errors should be absent at this stage since you already checked it locally (but do check!).

The steps provided above are the manual way to create a sitemap. If you search on the web, you will find online programs that can do all this work for you. All you need do is type in the URL of your website and the sitemap will be created with the click of a button.

The problem with on-line sitemap makers is that the results are generic. All who create their sitemap that way will have a result that that is very similar, unless you customise the appearance yourself. Worse still is the possibility that something else will be inserted in there too; advertising, or links back to the software maker’s site. Then again though, the process is less hard work and much simpler.

If you want a more personal result and appearance and you are OK with computers, better make one of your own. Since you made your own site anyway, creating a sitemap is just the same as creating any other page on your site. Other advantages are that you will know for sure that the links are accurate and you can organize the the layout of the links the way you prefer. You can emphasize major parts of the site compared to less significant parts, you have a hand in controlling how the user users your website. This element of control is paticularly important if you are selling products or services online.

A sitemap is a vital part of a website. People search the web looking for something. If your website has what the searcher is looking for, and your sitemap tells the searcher, then you may well have a new customer looking at your items. Not only that, they might just see some other items that they might be interested in as well.

A sitemap, whether it is generated by a program or made by yourself, has the same purpose - to lead your visitors to where they want to go, and for you to be seen on the internet through search engines. So make sure your website has a sitemap and be seen!

How Sitemaps Can Improve Your Search Engine Rankings

Posted by rimel - 12/06/07 at 01:06:17 pm

The structure of your website plays a key role in obtaining search engine rankings. If your website structure is too complex, the search engines may not be able to find the pages you want ranked. Fortunately, there exists a sitemap strategy that will provide an open door to search engines for just about any website, ultimately increasing your odds for ranking success. The strategy is to provide a standard sitemap web page as well as a search engine sitemap to glean the benefits of both applications.

Step 1: Create a Sitemap Web Page

The purpose of a sitemap is to provide visitors with an alternative and perhaps faster method of finding a specific page or section within your website. The secondary purpose is to provide a single page where a search engine can reach every page within your website. Here are some considerations when creating or optimizing your website’s sitemap for best results:

Begin creating the sitemap with a link to the home page and then work your way down listing the links to each of the main sections of your website.

Next, under each main section create another tier to list the links from that page to further pages deeper within the section. Ultimately, the sitemap will end up looking like a book’s table of contents.

Once you have created this link-based table of contents, go back to the top of the page and then convert each link into text links using the title of the linked page (or good page-descriptive text). For example, on the home page you would add the title tag and then make those words into a link to the home page. Do this for all links on the page.

Once the sitemap is complete, add a link to it from the footer of every page within your website.

Congratulations, now you have an effective sitemap which will allow visitors and search engines alike to find pages deep within your website.

Step 2: Create a Sitemap Specifically for Search Engines

A search engine sitemap (meant only for search engines to see) is a tool provided by Google, Yahoo!, and MSN to allow webmasters to suggest how often, and in what order, a search engine should spider each page within their websites.

Creating a search engine sitemap is quite simple thanks to a free online tool at XML-Sitemaps.com that will automatically spider your website and create the sitemap for you. They offer up to 500 webpages maximum spidered for free. More than 500 webpages is $14.95 for the standalone version. The site even provides step-by-step instructions on how to add the sitemap to your website. I am not going to cover the specifics of creating a search engine sitemap here because it may be technical enough that you should have your webmaster handle it for you. If, however, you want to handle this yourself, it is explained well at the above URL. Once the sitemap is complete, there are further instructions on the website on how to submit the sitemap to the search engines for spidering. | Alternative SiteMap Generator |

Conclusion

So why do I recommend having two kinds of sitemaps? The first sitemap you created added a beneficial resource for your site visitors as well as the search engines. It also provided the additional benefit of adding keyword weight to the linked pages.

The search engine sitemap provides you with the knowledge that the search engines know, without a doubt, which pages you want them to add to their databases, how often, and in what order — a most comforting fact.

Google Sitemaps Explained - How To Use Google Sitemaps

Posted by rimel - 12/06/07 at 01:06:45 pm

Three Ways To Index Your Site With Google Sitemaps [Difficult, Hard, And Easy]

Google has recently implemented a program where any webmaster can create a Sitemap of their Site and submit it for indexing by Google. It is a quick and easy way for you to keep your site constantly indexed and updated in Google.

The program is appropriately called Google Sitemaps.

In order for you to best use Sitemaps, you must have an XML generated file on your site that will transmit or send any updates, changes, and data to Google. XML (Extensible Markup Language) is everywhere these days, you have probably seen the orange XML logo on many web sites and its often associated with Blogging because Blogs use XML/RSS feeds to syndicate their content.

Today RSS is known mostly as ‘Really Simple Syndication’ but its original acronym stood for ‘Rich Site Summary’. XML is only simple code like HTML and it is used to syndicate your content to all interested parties.

And the interested party in this case is Google. By creating Sitemaps Google is really asking webmasters to take charge of the indexing and updating of their sites. Basically, doing the Googlebot’s job!

This is a ‘Good’ thing! With the steady influx of new web sites growing rapidly, indexing all this material will become a challenge, even with the resources of Google. With Sitemaps, webmasters can now take charge and make sure
their site is crawled and indexed.

Please note, indexing your site with Sitemaps WON’T improve your rankings in Google. You will still be competing with the other sites in Google for top positions. But with Sitemaps you can make sure all your pages are crawled and indexed quickly by Google.

There are some other big advantages of using Google’s Sitemaps - mainly you have control over a few key variables, attributes or tags. To explain this as simply as possible, your XML powered sitemap file will have this simple code for each page of your site:


< loc >http://www.yoursite.com/< /loc >
< priority >1.0< /priority >
< lastmod >2005-07-03T16:18:09+00:00< /lastmod >
< changefreq >daily< /changefreq >
< /url >

Along with ‘urlset’ tags at the beginning and end of your code, and an XML version indication - that’s basically your XML file! File size will depend on the number of webpages you have.

Taking a closer look at this XML file:

location - http://www.yoursite.com - name of your webpage priority - you set the priority you want Google to place on that page in your site. You can prioritize your pages: 0.0 being the least, 1.0 being the highest, 0.5 is in the middle. This is ONLY relative to your site. It will not affect your rankings. Why is this important? You have certain pages on your site that are more important than others, (home page, high profit page, opt-in page, etc.) by placing high priority on these pages, you will increase their importance in Google.

last modified - when you last modified that page, this timestamp allows crawlers to avoid recrawling pages that haven’t changed.

change frequency - you can tell Google how often you change that particular page. Never, weekly, daily, hourly, and so on - if you frequently update your page this could be extremely important.

Why do I need a XML Generator?

In order for this XML sitemap file on your site to be constantly updated, you need a Generator that will spider your site, list all the urls and automatically feed them to Google. Thus constantly updating your site in Google’s massive index or database. Keep in mind, Google also gives you the option of submitting a simple text file with all your URLs.

Now there is already a flood of these generators popping up! Different ways of generating your XML powered sitemap file. More are probably appearing as you read this. For your convenience, three ways to generate your XML Sitemaps file are listed below:

Difficult - Google’s Python Generator

That’s a relative term, if you know your server like the back of your hand and installing scripts doesn’t scare the bejesus out of you, you’re probably smiling at the word difficult. Google supplies a link to a generator which you can download and set up on your server. It will cough up your sitemap XML file and automatically feed it to Google.

In order for this Generator to work, Python version 2.2 must be installed on your web server - many servers don’t have this. If you know what you’re doing, this will probably be a good choice.

You don’t need a Google Account to use Sitemaps but it’s encouraged because you can track your sitemap’s progress and view diagnostic information. If you already have another Google Account - gmail, Google Alerts, etc. just use that one to sign in and follow directions from there.

To submit your Sitemap using an HTTP request, issue your request to the following URL: http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=sitemap_url

Hard - A PHP Code Generator

This is a php generator that you can place on your server. This generator will spider your site, and produce your XML sitemap file. Download the phpSitemapNG and upload it your server. Run the generator to get your XML sitemap file and send it to Google.

Again, this is only hard to do if you don’t know your way around PHP files or scripts.

Easy - Free Online Generator

These Generators are popping up everywhere, and Google now keeps a list of these ‘third party suppliers’ of generators on their site. Find them here: http://code.google.com/sm_thirdparty.html

One of the easiest to use is http://www.xml-sitemaps.com , and you can index up to 500 pages with this online Generator very quickly and it will give you the sitemap XML file Google needs to index your site. It will go into your site, spider it and index all your pages into an XML sitemap of your site. You can download this file, Compressed or Non- compressed and make minor changes such as setting the priority, changing frequency, etc.

Then upload this file to your site as sitemap.xml to the root directory of your server i.e. where you have your homepage. Then notify Google Sitemaps of your XML file and you’re in business.

Of course, the only drawback, if you constantly add pages to your site you will need to also add these pages to your XML sitemap file. This won’t be much of a problem unless you’re daily adding pages to your site - then you will need something like the PHP or Python generator to do all this for you automatically.

Google is still the major search engine on the web so getting your pages indexed and updated quickly is the major reason to use Google Sitemaps. If you want your site to remain competitive it’s probably the wisest route to take.

The Importance of a Sitemap

Posted by rimel - 09/06/07 at 07:06:46 am

A sitemap is often considered redundant in the process of building a website, and that is indeed the fact if you made a sitemap for the sake of having one. By highlighting the importance of having a well constructed sitemap, you will be able to tailor your own sitemap to suit your own needs.

1) Navigation purposes

A sitemap literally acts as a map of your site. If your visitors browses your site and gets lost between the thousands of pages on your site, they can always refer to your sitemap to see where they are, and navigate through your pages with the utmost ease.

2) Conveying your site’s theme

When your visitors load up your sitemap, they will get the gist of your site within a very short amount of time. There is no need to get the “big picture” of your site by reading through each page, and by doing that you will be saving your visitors’ time.

3) Site optimization purposes

When you create a sitemap, you are actually creating a single page which contains links to every single page on your site. Imagine what happens when search engine robots hit this page — they will follow the links on the sitemap and naturally every single page of your site gets indexed by search engines! It is also for this purpose that a link to the sitemap has to be placed prominently on the front page of your website.

4) Organization and relevance

A sitemap enables you to have a complete bird’s eye view of your site structure, and whenever you need to add new content or new sections, you will be able to take the existing hierarchy into consideration just by glancing at the sitemap. As a result, you will have a perfectly organized site with everything sorted according to their relevance.

From the above reasons, it is most important to implement a sitemap for website projects with a considerable size. Through this way, you will be able to keep your website easily accessible and neatly organized for everyone.

Sitemaps 101 – Benefits of and Tips on Designing a Sitemap

Posted by admin - 27/05/07 at 07:05:16 pm

Have you ever wondered how a search engine works? It must be fascinating figuring out how this search tool could direct you to several websites that are relevant to your keywords. Or, have you experienced instances where the link that supposedly contains your keywords is not exactly what you have in mind? You would probably think that there must be something wrong with the search engine that it generated irrelevant results.

How does a search engine work?
Two things figure greatly in making search engines work effectively and efficiently: the electronic search spider and the sitemap.

What is a sitemap?
A sitemap is basically a page or pages that serve/s as a directory by listing all the links to all documents and files found in a website. It is not merely a random listing of links, but organized in such a way that it gives the web user an idea of how all the information that can be found in the site fits into an outline or framework. It is like viewing the table of contents of a book, or viewing the “concept map� of the site’s content.

What is a spider?
In SEO language, spider is not an animal found in your closet. This electronic search spider is actually a bot which collects data and copies content to be stored in the search engine’s database when keywords are fed into the search dialogue box. The spider reads the content of the site and sends another bot to follow the links and copy the content contained in them.

What purpose does a sitemap serve?
A sitemap like any other map gives directions to a navigator. It primarily targets search engine spiders so that they are properly directed to your site and to the links where keywords entered in the search dialogue appears. As such, it is actually a useful tool in search engine optimization. A well organized site map would guide the spider to find the information it needs when keywords are entered during a search operation.

As an additional beneficial consequence, sitemaps have proven to be useful even to web users. Since a sitemap displays all the links to information found in a website, it helps the user to search for a particular topic in mind. Many users also use the sitemap to navigate between pages in a site.

What are the benefits of having a sitemap for my website?

1. No page would be left unturned
Going back to the purpose of sitemaps, having one would mean faster and easier tracking and crawling of spiders all over your site. As a result, search engines would surely get to the view all the pages of your site and not just the pages containing random keywords.

2. Easier navigation for site visitors
Once a web user has accessed your sitemap, they need not go back to the search engine page to look for what they need. If what they are looking for is in your site, then they would have an easier and faster way of locating it.

3. Potential advertising value
If it so happens that a relevant product or service company reaches your site, then it would be easier for them to see how best they can position themselves in the different pages of your site as a paid page advertisement.

4. Encourage greater traffic to your site
If your company website has a sitemap then potential buyers would have an easier time in accessing your latest products and services. Moreover, they would not miss out on any product that might be off future interest to them since the sitemap would display all information found the site.

How are sitemaps formatted?
There are at least three major types of sitemaps: indexed, full categorical, and restricted categorical. An indexed site map appears as an alphabetical listing or directory.
A full categorical map displays all links classified into categories; while a restricted categorical sitemap displays all links listed in a chosen category at a time. The full and restricted sitemaps are very similar except that the former displays all links in all categories all at once in a page, while the latter focuses only the links under the selected category for easier and less eye-straining viewing.

The most widely used format is the full categorical. Based on the results of a 1999 SURL study on sitemap designs, the full categorical format is most preferred by users since it is easier to search for topics within the site and it allows easier comparison between and among categories.

Some tips in setting up your sitemap

1. Link the sitemap only to your homepage.
This is to ensure that the spider starts searching from your homepage down to all the pages listed in your sitemap. In this way, no page would be left unvisited by the spider.

2. Do not go beyond 30 pages for a sitemap.
Large websites having 50 or more pages should not go beyond 30 since this adds more pages to the site, and might make search engines think that the sitemap is a link farm. Also, this prevents overcrowding of links which could be tiring to view.

3. Check all the links listed in your sitemap.

Benefits of a generator sitemap

Posted by admin - 27/05/07 at 07:05:26 pm

Generator sitemap programs can be downloaded from various sources on the Internet. Generator sitemap programs have two fundamental purposes. Generator sitemap programs help surfers navigate a site effectively. At the same time, a generator sitemap program encourages search engine spiders. Google offers one of the most popular generator sitemap programs ever to hit the Internet.

The generator sitemap of google makes it possible for a website to get listed and get updated by the google search engine. Setting up the generator sitemap helps speed up the addition of the web pages of a site to the google listing. The generator sitemap also makes it easier for a site to get noticed by online surfers. In addition, any changes made to a website that has a generator sitemap is immediately picked up by google. The generator sitemap also helps keep online information fresh and up-to-date for users.

Visibility is key to generator sitemap

Visibility is a major concern when using a generator sitemap. A website that is completely indexed has better chances of getting top search engine placement in page results. Many of the popular browsers used by searchers and that support java recognize generator sitemap programs. These include firefox and Internet explorer.

An online consumer that searches for a specific content on the web can immediately be directed to any one of the web pages of a particular site. The generator sitemap makes it easier for a search engine to provide accurate results from web pages they are familiar with.

Who can benefit from a generator sitemap?

A generator sitemap is highly recommended for websites that often do repeated modification of their web pages. A generator sitemap can be used for websites of any size, regardless of the number of web pages a site may contain.

Although using a generator sitemap is not a guarantee of increased site rankings, it does however provide a website a better opportunity of getting listed on a search engine.

Working with a generator sitemap

Most of the available generator sitemap programs available on the web make use of extensible markup language or XML. Similar to hypertext markup language or HTML, XML is used widely in blogs and syndicated feeds on the Internet. Each line of a XML code for a generator sitemap has a specific purpose.

The location or <.loc> identifies the name of the web page of a website. The line <.lastmod> indicates when the web page was last modified. The format for <.lastmod> can either be dd.mm.yyyy, dd.mm.yyyy hh:mm, dd/mm/yyyy or dd/mm/yyyy hh:mm. Shortcuts can also be used to simply the assignment of dates to the cell.

<.changefreq> advises the search engine of a specific time frame when the web page is regularly updated. This can either be done on an hourly, daily, weekly, monthly or yearly basis. For web pages that are not updated, the value ‘never’ is used. <.priority> indicates the level of priority that a search engine should give a particular web page of a website. These levels range from 0.0 for least priority to 1.0 for high priority.

Creating a dynamic generator sitemap

Creating a dynamic generator sitemap is useful for websites containing various web pages. The google search engine makes it easy for users to adapt their google sitemap with the help of a python script.

The python script generates a sitemap using sitemap protocol. This creates a sitemap from either access logs, URL lists or from web server directories.

Tips for using a generator sitemap from google

As one of more popular search engines offering a generator sitemap for websites on the Internet, google offers a few tips for its loyal users. Using the google sitemap url encoder/decoder is helpful for submitting sitemaps to google. For websites that have numerous web pages, creating a sitemap can be a tremendous task. For this situation it is best to click on the column title in order to make it easier for a URL list to get sorted.

The google generator sitemap allows users to save their settings after creating a sitemap. Users can use these saved settings as a guideline for succeeding generator sitemap updates. The generator sitemap also recognizes the use of robots.txt files.

Using a generator sitemap is a positive move in getting top ranking on the Internet’s top search engines as well as high visibility among online users.

Tips on Online Marketing

Posted by admin - 27/05/07 at 07:05:16 pm

Marketing in a traditional sense has always been done by putting an ad either in the newspaper, the radio and the television.

Being in the digital age, efforts done by marketing to get the message across is not that different. It has just become a little more high tech which continues to help drive sales.

Businesses that want to sell something in the market need 2 things. The first is the product to be sold which later on will be distributed. The second is marketing which is the vehicle that is used to carry that message across to the consumer so that people are aware of its existence then it is purchased.

One way of the fastest ways of doing marketing today is building a website. Should one decide to shift and decide to do this, here are some tips one needs to know to get started.

1. The first thing to do is to determine what the person wants to do. The product has to fill a need that the customers want right now. It should provide a solution of some kind that will make that will improve the quality of life either at home or at work.

2. The next is to do the proper research. If the business is done with a group of people or a single proprietorship, it is best to brainstorm for the best domain name for the business. It should be catchy and will easily be remembered by people. Given that there are probably other people who have been in the business longer and that it is possible that the domain name has already been taken, it is best to think of several names in case it can no longer be used.

There are sites in the web that have search engines to look for a specific subject and using popular keywords for ones website will easily help people find it. These sites also allow one to make a site map which can be downloaded in minutes for a small fee.

Another good example is the various email sites and by doing a tie-up with these companies, one can get exposure as well as free service since people who do not have an account can also sign up and be an active member.

3. A product of good quality should be sold at a decent price. Sometimes, the product one makes is already available in the market. To be competitive, one must figure out a way to convince people as to why this product is better than the other leading brands available. What features does it have that the competitor doesn’t? What makes it unique which is not only about the product on hand but the service that this can give as well?

4. Just like having a normal business, one must acquire the right equipment and machines for the job. These could be merchandise that is either physical or electronic and an online ordering system.

To be successful, one should be sure that the goods that a customer will order can be delivered on time. If there are any problems, a customer support staff or system should be ready to cater to that.

5. It takes money to make more money so one should be careful with what needs to be spent. By putting in tight controls in terms of expenditures and keeping track of the current balance while maintaining the same level of quality saves money which can be used for other things.

To avoid falling in this predicament, the first thing one must do is manage the expenses. It is always good to carry a notebook around to log whatever expenses have been made or have a logbook to keep track how much balance is left. That way, a person can stay within a budget on a monthly basis.

6. With everything in place, it is now time to promote the site. One can email to friends about the site and what it offers then this too will also be forwarded and advertised to others. Another is showcasing ones website in E-zines or electronic magazines to get more customer traffic.

Any business big or small must have the right resources available to get the message across to the people and building a web site or a site map takes time. One can do it alone if that person knows how to do it, get professional help or simply start from the basics and learn it from the ground up.

SEO Sitemaps Give Websites a Boost

Posted by admin - 27/05/07 at 07:05:01 pm

A lot of web pages will find an SEO sitemap useful in improving their performance. SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization�, the process that aims to create or revise Internet sites so that it can be better found by search engines. The objective of SEO campaigns is to have websites appear in the top listing or first results page of search engines.

Internet search engines, such as Google and A9, maintain a very large database of Web pages and available files. To do this, they devise a program called a web crawler, or spider. This software automatically and continuously surfs and hunts content in the Web. Pages that the spider finds are retrieved and indexed according to text content, giving more weight to titles and paragraph headers. Spiders never stop navigating the web from page to page, to index the relevant content of the Internet. Besides looking at the text of titles and headers, some programs are able to identify default tags and keep a library of these page keywords or key phrases in the index.

When a user connects to the Internet types a query, which is automatically interpreted as keywords, the search engine scans the saved index and creates a list of web pages that is most appropriate to what the user is searching for.

SEO will use all the combined techniques of keyword analysis, smart code, good content literature, link popularity study and website organization to place the subject web page as high as possible in the list of search results in search engines. Web pages displayed on the top of results pages are assumed to get the most attention, and therefore, opportunity for earnings for web businesses and pages with sponsor links.

Search engines usually return a list of results ranking pages according to the number of Internet sites linked to them. Results can be classified as organic, or sponsored links. Sponsored links are shown prominently because their creators or agents paid the search engine. Sponsored links are the main source of income of search engines. “Organic� search results are the lists of actual results from the engines index and are directly related to the keyword typed in the request.
One of the more effective techniques of SEO is the creation of a well-organized site map in a website. Since the site’s main page and other content are directly linked to a site map, spiders can more easily move through the website, identify the key words of the content, and index these for a search engine. This is where the SEO sitemap helps the website creator or administrator.

Site maps are usually pages filled with links. These are shown as tables or lists, although lists are generally more effective. Writing code for SEO sitemaps is very easy and simple to format and maintain. These are ideally basic HTML pages with default tags, logical titles and keywords scattered in the Meta description. Introduction areas can contain more of the keywords. The site should have a main heading for every directory.

A simple list layout helps reduce unnecessary tags that might “hide� your keywords. Some spiders give more weight to the following, than text in the normal body of the webpage: heading text, content within link elements, text nearer the top of the page and the text written for a link. Therefore, writing the keywords and links in these areas could somehow move up the web page’s ranking. This goes for SEO sitemaps as well.

Web sites should be designed consistently, so navigation models should follow the flow of the site map. Therefore, the first section in the site map should be the first link in the navigation bar.

In an SEO Sitemap, and most pages, the headings contain title attributes where more key phrases in the site map can be added. Keywords are generally well chosen and written in the body of a webpage. However, in an SEO site map with little text, key words should be added as much as possible. As much as possible, web links should follow web page titles, and must undergo SEO during coding. Care must be exercised not to cram the page with keywords and links, or the page will be interpreted as blatant spamming and not receive any traffic at all.

There is no way to guarantee that a website will be shown in the topmost ranking of “organic” search results for an extended period of time. However, smart and responsible SEO sitemap techniques can be used to place the website high up in the search position. Regular monitoring and adjustment of the SEO Sitemap and search results would ensure that a website is kept near the top ranking and receiving lots of web user traffic.

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