Sitemaps for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

No. 1. Submit all your pages to the Google Index - for free.

Let's start off with a quick look at what Google Sitemaps is and is not. Google Sitemaps is a service that allows you to submit ALL your pages to the Google index. It's particularly useful for making sure that dynamically generated URLs or pages that are not adequately linked to on your site are getting indexed. By submitting your URLs in a Sitemap, you help Google's web crawler do a more complete and efficient job of crawling your site.

A Sitemap is simply a file with a list of all the URLs that you want crawled on your site. You can create it manually or use Google's Sitemap Generator or another third-party programme.

But it's important to note that submitting a Sitemap will not guarantee inclusion or influence your PageRank. It should act as a complement to compelling and useful content instead of a replacement of your SEO activities.

To create and submit a Sitemap, just go to https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps?hl=en-GB and sign in to your Google account (the same account and password you use for Google Analytics, Google Mail and other Google services). Type your website URL into the blank field next to "Add Site", then press "OK". On the Webmaster Tools page, the site appears in the Site column. Click on the Verify link beside the site and verify site ownership to see detailed statistics and errors for it.

You don't have to submit a Sitemap to use Google Sitemaps. Even without a Sitemap, you can still get reports that provide insight into your site's visibility on Google and how to make your pages more crawler-friendly. Simply sign in and add your site.

No. 2. Find out how you rank on the top search queries.

You can use the Search Engines report in Google Analytics to find out your total visits, pages viewed per visit, conversion rates and other metrics for each of your organic keywords. What you cannot see is how you ranked for those keywords. This is where Sitemaps reporting can help.

When you sign in to Sitemaps from the My Sites overview page click on your website URL then click on the Statistics tab. The right-hand column of the report shows how you rank organically for the top searches to your site. You can put this ranking information together with click-through information from Google Analytics to understand how visibility for specific keywords has translated into conversions.

Again, you don't need to submit a Sitemap to see this information. Just sign in to Sitemaps and add your site.

No. 3. Find out how Google sees your site.

See common anchor words; the common words used to link to your pages and see the common words that Google sees on your site. Click "Page analysis" in the Statistics tab to view trends related to your site's content and the keywords that others are externally linking to your site.

No. 4. Unblock your site.

If your site has a robots.txt file, you may be blocking Google from crawling some of the pages you want to be included in Google search results. Sitemaps provides a robots.txt tool where you can enter a list of URLs to see if your robots.txt file is blocking them from being crawled. Click on "robots.txt analysis" under the Tools section of the Diagnostics tab to start using this tool. You can also test changes to your robots.txt file by typing in the new changes and then testing them against the Googlebot. We recommend you do this before changing your file because you can check for errors in the file and experiment with changes to see how they would influence the crawl of your site.

No. 5. Get re-included.

If your site has disappeared from the search results, you may have been penalised for violating the Google quality guidelines. Once you have corrected the problems on your site, you can request re-inclusion from your Sitemaps account. Simply sign in to the Webmaster Tools page (https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps?hl=en-GB) and click "Submit a reinclusion request" under the Tools section. Fill out the form and click "Submit reinclusion" to complete your request. This form is also available on the Summary page for sites that display violations. Remember, if your site has not violated the webmaster guidelines, there's no need to submit a reinclusion request.

The reinclusion request form is only available to Sitemaps users. Although, you can send an email to Google user support requesting reinclusion, a request from a registered, identifiable Sitemaps user is generally given more priority.
There is more.

Google Sitemaps is an evolving product with frequently added features. Stay up to date by visiting the Sitemaps blog (http://www.sitemaps.blogspot.com/) and post questions answered on the Google Sitemaps discussion group (http://groups.google.com/group/google-sitemaps).

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