Creating & Submitting XML Sitemaps
Getting listed on search engines can take a lot of time. In the past it could take about 2 years to get indexed on Google. Google's theory was that, in the waiting time it would give the site owner the chance to increase the quality and quantity of information on the site! Waiting is now a thing of the past with the introduction of Sitemaps.
A lot of people feel that it takes a lot of money to get listed on the search engines. Not true! With good search engine optimization, great unique content and an xml sitemap you could be listed by the search engines in less than two weeks.
Step One: Create your Sitemap
There are many free sites (providing you have less than 500 pages to be indexed) that will generate a sitemap for you. The one we will use today is at http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ once there; just follow my four simple steps to generate your new sitemap! After it has been generated simply save it to your computer, upload the file to your web server and move on to step two.
Step Two: Create a Webmaster account with Google, Bing and Yahoo
The major search engines have tools for webmasters to allow them to add sitemaps and notify the search engine if any changes have been made. Below is links to sign up to these search engines as a webmaster.
Some people overlook major search engines, focusing their efforts into getting page one Google results. Big mistake! Search engines are constantly competing with each other. If one of your pages gets listed in Bing or Yahoo, it will definitely speed up the chances of Google also listing it.
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Google, being by far the most popular search engine has some of the coolest tools for webmasters, allowing you to submit your sitemap and explore possible issues with site pages. It also has a nifty feature to show you what keywords rank high in Google for your site.
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Bing (formally MSN) may not be as feature rich as Google in the way of features, but it is still a very popular search engine. We can all use more traffic, right?
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Yahoo is very similar to Bing's webmaster tools. However in terms of checking what back links you have pointing to your site, Yahoo's Site Explorer dominates, picking up many that Google just doesn't display!
Once the account has been activated, simply navigate to the feed or sitemap area and point to where your sitemap is located. E.g. http://www.jezhug.com/sitemap.xml
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Step Three: Watch your traffic Increase
With more pages indexed, you should notice more visitors coming your way. If not, maybe you need to add a bit more content or improve your search engine optimization techniques.
If your site sells a product, try to use selling keywords in your content. E.g. if you are selling motorbikes, people looking to buy one may not type into Google, "information about motorbikes" but they may type "motorbike prices". By putting yourself in the place of your visitors you will get a much better conversion of visitors to customers and improve your bounce rate.
Step Four: Lather, Rinse & Repeat
If your site changes dramatically, repeat the steps. If your site has a few typos, fix them then repeat. There is nothing worse than submitting your site with typo's and finding out visitors can't find your site due to misspelled keywords.
Sometimes commonly misspelled words can work in your favor, getting traffic that you would not have normally got. This strategy could be used if you have heavy competition for certain keywords, but otherwise should not be used. Sure, it may be great to dominate page one of Google for a misspelled word, but to most visitors it will just look unprofessional.
Content is King. People spend so much time on search engines optimization they often overlook the most important aspect of the page, the content!