It’s important to have a sitemap to allow the search engines to properly index your full site. It gives them a roadmap to your content, lays it out in a clear, concise manner, and helps to allow the search engines to index all pages you want them to. .XML is a protocol now supported by the major search engines, and allows them to read your sitemap faster and more efficiently.
If you have a WordPress blog, there is a nifty plug-in that will automatically create an updated .XML Sitemap for you, you can read more about it here. Otherwise, you should create one, or have one created for you. Check out XML-Sitemaps.com, they will create one for you free. You can enter your site address, click a button and they will crawl your site and create an .XML Sitemap for you.
Once you have an .XML Sitemap created, you need to upload it to your site. Use your FTP program and put it in the public_html folder. Next, go to Google and upload your sitemap. This is an important step, especially if you have a new site. Instead of waiting for Google to come find your site, you tell them “here it is”. Google will find your site by following links. With a new site and not many links, submitting a sitemap will help to speed up the Google process.
Hopefully this has been helpful to you, come visit me at www.makingmoneyresources.com/blog/ for more great articles!
