This article was heard on the radio program "The Computer Report,"
which is broadcast live on WCAP in Lowell, Mass., and is syndicated on
WBNW in Boston and WPLM in Plymouth, Mass. For details, see www.thereport.com
Please visit our online store at http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat
At my own site, my aim is to make it easy for visitors to get to whatever they want with a minimum of clicks. In fact, unless I've blundered, you should be able to get from any page to any other page in just two clicks.
To make this possible I have a comprehensive sitemap page, with links to all the hundreds of pages at my site. (It would take over 60 pieces of paper to print out that "page".)
Basically, a sitemap should be the table of contents for your site. If you have a couple dozen pages or less, your home page can and should serve as your sitemap. But if you have more pages than that, you should build a separate sitemap page.
A sitemap is a hyperlinked list of each and every file at your site, consisting of the titles of the pages and whatever other info you'd like to include, organized by subject/category. Keep it simple -- without graphics or distractions. The folks who choose to use a sitemap typically know what they want and want to get there with a minimum of hassle.
You should link to your sitemap from all your pages. Then from any page at your site, anyone can quickly go to the sitemap and then go to any other page at the site in just one more click.
Your sitemap can also help search engine crawlers find all the pages at your site quickly, meaning that you will be better represented in search engine indexes and hence get more traffic. Just submit your sitemap page instead of your home page at all the search engines. (NB -- Search engine crawlers typically do not check every page at your site. They presume that the pages you link to directly from the page you submit are more important than ones several clicks away. Different crawlers stop automatically at different depths. NB -- Lycos says they only go one level down. "The Lycos spider will try to travel through links contained in the webpage you submit. A good rule of thumb is to count on the spider traveling down one level from the page you submit." By submitting your sitemap page -- with links to all your pages -- you should get maximum coverage.)
No matter how large your site is, you should make every effort to keep your sitemap complete and up to date and to include all the necessary information and links on a single page. If your site is large, you should organize your sitemap by category, and at the top of the page list your major headings with internal links to those portions of the page. Keep it simple.
Remember your aim isn't to keep your visitors at your site for a long time, but rather to help them get what they want quickly and effectively, so they'll to come back again and again.
This site is Published by B&R Samizdat Express, 33 Gould St., West Roxbury, MA 02132. (617) 469-2269. seltzer@samizdat.com
Please visit our online store at http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat
Return to B&R Samizdat Express
For a thorough discussion of this topic, buy Richard's book Web Business
Bootcamp (published by Wiley) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471164194/brsamizdatexpres
Check our sitemap page www.samizdat.com/sitemap.html from which you can get to any other page at this site in one click.
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