Sitemap Options for Business Websites

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Almost all businesses now have a seemingly watertight digital marketing strategy. Unfortunately, very few are getting the touted benefits of online marketing. This is primarily because they choose to invest in social media marketing and forget the place where all the traffic they have harnessed from these avenues converge; their website. Though search engine optimization was a buzzword in the past, most now believe it is not as important and would rather invest in social media marketing that is all the rage.

While digital marketing experts in Melbourne will employ tactics on your social media pages to get your brand noticed, they will also focus on the experience people have on your website. It, after all, is futile to shout about your products then lose clients when they have already decided to invest in them. Part of the aspect that determines whether or not a client will take the desired action on your site lies in the ease of navigating it. To this end, sitemaps are essential for the easy navigation of the elements on your website and their organization. Moreover, they are vital for the easy crawling and indexing of your website by search engines. The following are the sitemap alternatives available for online marketing sites.

HTML Sitemaps

These can be used on virtually all types of browsers and allow search engines to crawl your site and index it effortlessly. They are nonetheless mostly designed for use by human visitors. HTML sitemaps should contain only a few links that should be well organized for your clients to find.  Generally, they are used on your main or hub pages and then connected to internal links.

XML Sitemaps

These are roadmaps for search engines to use when indexing your site and primarily serve to improve indexing. XML sitemaps will enable search engines to identify the pages on your websites and their relative significance. They are thus an essential component of all sites aiming for online visibility.

Mobile Sitemaps

In most cases nowadays, your website will be viewed by a client on a mobile device rather than a desktop computer. Once you invest in a mobile-friendly website, your next step is getting a mobile sitemap. This will be submitted separately to search engines to cater for searches that are requested on mobile devices. You nonetheless should keep in mind that a mobile sitemap will only include links to the pages that have mobile content. If you do not have this content, therefore, you can stick to the XML sitemap.

RSS Feed Sitemaps

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While not all search engines will use RSS sitemaps, Yahoo! and Google support them and will use them. It is thus prudent to include an RSS feed sitemap if your website contains a large RSS feed. Moreover, an RSS feed sitemap is the best choice for attracting search engines if you regularly post new content.

The above tidbits seem easy to handle, and most people might see little need for a digital marketing expert. In house teams left by some companies to handle digital marketing, however, come with limited knowhow of the trends in online marketing. Outsourcing this crucial task to the right agency makes a significant difference in your digital marketing profits.

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