Creating a Sitemap for Your Blog

One of the most important (and overlooked) elements of any blog is the sitemap. Initially it may not seem important because almost every blog contains a section of recent posts and archives where visitors can find information, either past or present. Any blogger may feel this is enough - but for a visitor, it may be hard to find what they are looking for, especially if the blog has hundreds of postings. For example, have you ever visited a blog with great information, but have hundreds of archive posts? There may information that is beneficial to your somewhere in there, but you have no way of finding it. Sitemaps are easy to create, and are very beneficial for your blog and your blogs growth.

What is a sitemap?
Essentially a sitemap is a summary and table of contents for your blog. Every posting you have made will be linked to your sitemap. However, you can not set-up a sitemap randomly. Instead of listing the blog posting links in the order they were written, categories and subcategories need to be created. The more order and structure you give to your sitemap, the easier it will be for visitors to use.

Why should I have one?
Because of the nature of the internet, most people are not willing to search or click through any number of links to find information. By adding a sitemap to your blog, you are reducing the number of clicks it takes to find information and making your blog easier to use. As a result, visitors will remain on your site longer and are more likely to click on advertisements if you are creating a paid blog.

Also, sitemaps are great when it comes to site optimization and indexing information from your blog into search engines. When a spider crawls your website they will find links to all of your posting in your blog and index them accordingly. This will save you some time having to socially bookmark all of your postings in order to have them indexed on the web.

How do I add a sitemap to my blog?
Adding a sitemap is very simple, and as long as you are willing to take a little extra time it can be added relatively quickly.

Step One: Create a New Page
Most blogging platforms make it very easy to add a new page to your blog. You should add your sitemap page next to the homepage tab, so it can be easily seen and referenced.

Step Two: Create a Link
Now you need to create a link on your front page to your sitemap. On most websites and blogs the sitemap link location is in or above the footer, but place it where you think it will work best.

Step Three: Create Your Map
This is where most of the hard work takes place, go back through your posts and write down all the titles. When you write down each title, make sure to grab the link, activate it, and verify the link works. Blogs that are older or have more postings can pose some difficulty when it comes to creating a sitemap due to the amount of information you need to create links too. If you need too, take breaks and divide the work into sections.

Figuring out how to structure your sitemap can be a difficult decision, and one you will want to figure it out as you are working. Place each title in a category or subcategory. You may want to use a similar outline structure as the category listings you created on the home page of your blog. This adds consistency to your site, and makes it easier for visitors to follow.

Keep in mind the easiest place to perform this structuring is in a word processing program. The reason for this is twofold. It allows you to save your work, and edit information easily and quickly. The last thing you want to happen is to have a sitemap created and then loose it to a program or computer that freezes up!

Step Four: Transfer the Information
Once your sitemap is completed, you need to transfer it too the page you created. There are two ways of completing this task depending on the program you are using. Either you can upload the information or copy and paste the information, and verify the links work after the transfer. It is essential you verify the links several times for functionality, there is nothing worse than having a broken link on your site, and in particular your sitemap. The final step is to save the information - and now you have a functioning sitemap!

Step Five: Update
Every time you add a post, add a link to that post in your sitemap. This makes updates quick and easy for you. Otherwise you will have to set aside a regular weekly or monthly time to update your sitemap, and you may end up missing something by doing updates this way.