« Selecting Search Terms Is Easier with Fathom SEO’s New Keyword Refinery Tool | Home | Twitter redesigns, but is the microblogging war over? »
Want More Usability and Visibility? Check Your Sitemap
By Paul Richlovsky | September 17, 2008
People only use them 7% of the time. 7 years ago the number was at 27%. Despite the low numbers, Jakob Nielsen’s latest usability study on sitemaps states that having them done right is a good thing because they “don’t hurt,” “cost very little” and “do help a few people.”
I would add a 4th reason to do them right: search engines. As Bradley Leese has written (see Part 6), sitemaps:
- offer search bots “an additional point of access” for the individual pages of your site
- “document the physical directory structure” of your site
One component of top search results and Google PageRank is Google’s ability to explore and comprehend your site. The easier it can find and categorize your site, the greater your chances will be of getting listed high on its result pages.
Read the rest of Jakob Nielsen’s article or download the entire 176-pg. study for detailed instruction on proper sitemap structuring.
Do you have a sitemap? When was the last time you checked yours?
Don’t leave your visitors–human or robot–out in the cold.
Photo courtesy of QTea via Flickr.
Want to know more about search?Visit our search engine marketing forum.
Want to know more about online videos?
Stop by our Internet video marketing forum.
September 17th, 2008 at 9:13 am
There are so many usability practices that go hand-in-hand with SEO. I’m glad to see you post about these topics. In my experience, leads, conversions and bounce rates seem to remain stagnant if website usability is ignored.
September 17th, 2008 at 10:06 am
…and remember to update the sitemap if you add or remove pages!
It is not necessary to have every single page in your sitemap, but it easy to forget to update it when adding content.
You would also hate to have too many broken links to your own site by neglecting to update it as pages are removed or renamed.
September 19th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
One of the main challenges in our industry is how to make a website both human friendly and robot friendly. Adding a sitemap page is a perfect example of accomplishing both of those goals.
September 30th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Why won’t you use a sitemap? It is a map of your site and tell the search engine all your pages. It never hurt to have the search engine know all your pages on website.