Google Sitemaps

This is not your regular site map, which is essentially a page on a site that lists all internal site links. A site map of this type exists for ease of visitor navigation. A Google Sitemap, on the other hand, is an XML document that you submit to Google. It’s basically a list of pages that you’re telling Google you’d like them to recognize and index.

With WordPress sites, my method of choice is installing the Google XML Sitemaps plugin. Before letting the script build your sitemap for the first time, check go over all of the settings. For most Themes, you’ll want to select “Do not use automatic priority calculation” (unless you’re an active blogger), have your Sitemap content include homepage, posts, and static pages, modify change frequencies according to your best estimate (if in doubt, select monthly for all except “Older archives”), and set the priority level of your home page, posts, and static pages to be 1.0. Once these settings are configured, click on Update options. Then click on the link at the top of the page to build your sitemap. You will receive a success message after your sitemap is built.

For non-WP sites, building your own Sitemap can be very simple. You can do it yourself or have a free service generate it for you. You can Google to find one or use this one: http://www.xml-sitemaps.com. After your Sitemap is built, all it takes is access to your hosting account to upload your Sitemap. That’s it.

You could let it rest there but let’s go a step further. If you don’t have a Gmail account, create one. This opens up the world of Google Webmaster Tools to you.

The first thing you should do after you sign up for Webmaster Tools is submit your site. Google guides you painlessly through this process. You will be required to verify ownership of a site before Google accepts your site into your Webmaster account. My preferred method of verification is uploading a very small file Google provides to the root directory of a site. It’s really simple to do if you’re comfortable working with cPanel File Manager or an FTP account. Another method is to add a meta tag Google provides to your site header. On WP sites, you can do this directly through your administration interface. For help with either of these verification methods, anyone who has purchased an ANA Theme or WP Installation package can contact me.

Once your site is verified, you can check the status of your Sitemap along with a ton of other goodies. Find out what keywords are bringing traffic to your site, see how many inbound links you have (the more the merrier as far as SEO is concerned), check for any errors Google’s crawlers might find, etc. Anyone who has a website should keep an eye on these things or employ a webmaster to deal with it. This is, in my eyes, part of the responsibility of having a site on the web.