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Today’s Volusion blog post discusses the concept of a sitemap – a file that helps customers and search engines better navigate your site. You’ll learn why sitemaps are important, discover the various types and see how to create and submit your sitemap to major search engines.

The mystery of getting your online store noticed by search engines has grown into a full-blown profession with thousands of experts working to optimize websites for search. We’ve written several articles on the topic and there is a plethora of information on ways to climb the rankings. But despite all of the advanced practices and billions of dollars spent worldwide, there is one simple (and free) tactic your business can use to achieve quick results – submit your sitemap to search engines.

Now we’re all ears, right? But what exactly is a sitemap? In essence, a traditional sitemap is pretty self explanatory – it’s a map of your site that shows the overall structure, sections and links of your site, all on one page. We call this a traditional sitemap because it is truly intended for your customers to use to navigate your site more easily. There is another type of sitemap, a robots.txt file. Although not technically a sitemap by definition, this robots.txt file is considered to be a sitemap specifically for search engines. Take a look at the major differences here:

There are several benefits of creating and submitting your sitemap – so many that it’s become a default standard for all search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. Here’s just a few of them:

• Google has specifically stated that using sitemaps will never lead to a ranking penalty for your website.
• Sitemaps offer the opportunity for search engines to know about any changes on your site much faster than not having a sitemap at all (this also means it’s important to resubmit your sitemap when there are major additions or changes to your site).
• Sitemaps allow you to rely less on external links, which is critical for brand new websites and online stores – since your presence is young, you haven’t had the opportunity to build external links. This is recommended for any new online business.
• If you have messy internal links, a sitemap can help clarify these

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Okay, it’s clear that this tactic is pretty powerful, so the next step is to generate your sitemap. Fortunately, if you’re using Volusion’s shopping cart software, there is a built-in tool to do so. Take a look at these articles to learn more. And if you’re not currently with us, there are several free sitemap generators out there. Simply type in “sitemap generator” into any search engine and you’ll be hit with several options.

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The final step is to submit your sitemap to the appropriate search engines. Here are direct links for the top three engines: Google, Yahoo and Bing.

• Google: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home?hl=en
• Yahoo: https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit
• Bing: http://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmasters/

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So there you have it! You’re fully equipped to master your sitemap and see some SEO benefits. Of course there are hundreds of other tactics out there to learn and utilize, but this is definitely a great start. The mystery of search results is slowly beginning to unravel…

Happy Selling!
-Matt Winn, Marketing Associate

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How do you go about generating your sitemap? What do you think about the importance of having both types available? Are you familiar with a robots.txt file? Have you ever built your own sitemap? Where do you recommend placing the link? Any questions or thoughts? Share with us below!