There are a number of important SEO considerations you have to factor into your XML sitemaps in order to achieve success and be noticed. Every company wants to achieve online success, they want to be at the top of search results, they want to increase visits to their page and they want to increase their revenue.
As with everything you do online, you have to take SEO (search engine optimization) into consideration. SEO is constantly changing and Google is constantly launching new algorithms to ensure that they keep their users experience positive. This means that in addition to knowing the new algorithms and what they pose to your site, you have to stay on top of other trends, including SEO practices for XML sitemaps.
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Best SEO Practices for XML Sitemaps[/caption]The first thing you need to take into consideration is your URL. Your URL should be easily identifiable by Googlebot. This means that you cannot include duplicate pages, you need to focus on keyword based and informative URL's which are easily identifiable by customers and the search engine.
It is also essential that you identify your last modification time. Search engines are looking for those who regularly update their information, ensuring it is current and up to date. Identifying your modification time ensures that Googlebot can identify when you have made any changes and locate those changes accordingly.
Remember that the search engine also searches based on size. This means that you have to pay very careful attention to your file sizes. XML sitemaps are larger in size than RSS feeds and therefore it's advisable to break your sitemap into categories, breaking down the size considerably and making it more appealing to the search engine.
Bear in mind that RSS feeds are smaller and therefore are downloaded more than the XML sitemaps, but the sitemaps can provide outstanding online results. It's working a way to reduce the file size to ensure that it is picked up by Googlebot and made available to your audience in an easy and effective way to increase your online visibility and success.
You also want to ensure that Googlebot knows where to find the information. This is why you want to show your links in all your robots.txt files. This can help point the search engine in the right direction without them having to go through the entire sitemap each and every time. It speeds up the process for the search engine and your user, thereby making your sitemap more user friendly and appealing for SEO.
Go through your site and eliminate any broken links, ensure you remove them from your sitemap. Having broken links can significantly reduce the pace in which search engines can crawl the information. This immediately makes Googlebot assume that your site is slow and lagging, which can significantly effect your SEO efforts in a negative light. Remember search engines focus on user experience, they are looking for fast and easy to use, ensure your site ticks all these boxes moving forward.
If you have any redirected pages, such as 301 redirected pages, remove them as soon as possible. These are also going to have a negative impact on your SEO. Finding these is relatively easy, go through your site, click on all the links, visit all the pages and then make note of pages that have redirects, eliminating them from your XML sitemap.
Finally, your last two steps when it comes to SEO practices for XML sitemaps is to submit your sitemap to the search engine tools, this will enable you to identify problem areas and ensure that it meets all the requirements. The final step is to monitor the progress, updating the sitemap as and when needed to ensure you get the best results.
Guest Post By Anoop K Krishnan
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