SEO Tip #9: Feed Search Engines Static and XML Site Maps

Optimizing Your Static Site Map

PageRank is relative and shared throughout a website by a unique voting system created by Google. I could spend two days trying to explain how PageRank^™ works, but what it comes down to is having efficient navigation throughout your site. That where a site map page comes in. Since every page on the website will be linked to the site map, it allows webcrawlers (and users) to quickly and easily find content. This SEO tip is one of my favorite of top 10 SEO tips.
It used to take 4 clicks to get to a product page at www.questinc.com. By creating a site map, users and search engines can now access any page on the site with only two clicks. The PageRank from these deep pages went from 0 to 2 in about 3 months and the ranking went from virtually not existent to #1 almost across the board for nearly 2,000 pages on their site.

Feel free to search Google for any of the terms on this catalog page, such as MITSUBISHI Monitor Repair. See how powerful a static site map can truly be.

Using XML Site Maps

Though you may feel like it is impossible to get listed high in Google's search engine result page, believe it or not that isn't Google's intention. They simply want to insure that their viewers get the most relevant results possible. In fact, they've even created a program just for webmasters to help insure that your pages get cached in their index as quickly as possible. They call the program Google Sitemaps. In this tool, you'll also find a great new linking tool to help discover who is linking to your website.
For Google, these two pieces in the top 10 SEO tips would be to read the tutorial entitled How Do I Create a Sitemap File and to create your own. To view the one on this page, website simply right-click this SEO Tips Sitemap.xml file and save it to your desktop. Open the file with a text editor such as Notepad.
Effective 11/06, Google, Yahoo!, and Bing will be using one standard for site maps. Below is a snippet of the standard code as listed at Sitemaps.org. Optional fields are lastmod, changefreq, and priority.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">

   <url>

      <loc>http://www.example.com/</loc>

      <lastmod>2005-01-01</lastmod>

      <changefreq>monthly</changefreq>

      <priority>0.8</priority> 

   </url>

</urlset> 

SEO Tip #10: Use Checklists and Validators

There are several ways to validate the accuracy of your website's source code. The four most important, in my opinion, are validating your search engine optimization, HTML, CSS and insuring that you have no broken links or images.
Start by analyzing broken links. One of the W3C's Top 10 SEO Tips would be for you to use their tool to validate links. If you have a lot of links on your website, this could take awhile, so I recommend trying Xenu's Link Sleuth, which you can find on our SEO Software page.
Next, revisit the W3C to analyze HTML and CSS. Here is a link to the W3C's HTML Validation Tool and to their CSS Validation Tool. A new, unbelievable tool just came out that does much better than some of these older ones, and that is the Qualidator Site Analyzer tool, which you can also find listed in our SEO Software page.
The final step in the last of my Top 10 SEO Tips is to validate your search engine optimization. Without having to purchase software, the best online tool I know of for this (now) is my own SEO Audit List, which contains website-level SEO validation, webpage-level SEO structure and keyword optimization, and off-page SEO strategies you should have in your arsenal. You can also use WebsiteGrader.com and other online tools. However, they aren't as inclusive (yet) as my Audit Checklist.

Other SEO Tips

If you liked the SEO tips above, you're going to love my newest Free SEO eBook, entitled: SEO in a Day. It's packed full of more tips and tutorials, was well as some great ideas for developing incoming links. You may also enjoy our blog at SEOSteve.com.
Thanks for stopping by!

About the Author of These SEO Tips

Steve Wiideman, is the author of many popular online publications, including his Free SEO eBook, SEO in a Day. His prior work included The Four Layers of the SEO Model: How to Rank Higher in the Search Engines. Wiideman holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in E-Business Management and was one of five students to win the Career College Association's GREAT Award in 2006 (Graduate Recognition for Excellence, Achievement, and Talent). He has also earned Congressional recognition for representing California as one of 5 national winners of the award and for the work he has done helping entrepreneurs transition to the Internet. Wiideman still plays a major role in helping students understand ecommerce and internet marketing best practices.
Over the last decade, Wiideman has written dozens of articles, eBooks, and online publications. He has been featured as an SEO Expert in many popular magazines and has worked with an enormous portfolio of large, medium and small business clients.

Beyond the Top 10 SEO Tips

• Come to one of our SEO workshops in Orange County
• Check out Viralogy's new tool, the first Ecommerce Grader
• Study the History of Search Engine Optimization
• Attend SEO seminars, summits, and conferences
• Subscribe to GoogleWebmasterHelp on YouTube
• Read link building articles from Link Building Expert, Eric Ward
• Learn Video SEO with Mark Robertson of ReelSEO.com
• Study and practice the top Local Ranking Factors by David Mihm
• Follow all the gurus and hastags of search (#seo #sem #ppc)
• Listen to Webmaster Radio
• Live by the Best SEO Audit List at BlogMarketingToolkit.com
• Subscribe to MattCutts.com (Principle Engineer at Google)
• Become an AdWords Qualified Professional
• Join SEMPO, SEOMoz, and Search Engine Watch
• Take Warren Whitlock's advice on how to write a book & set goals