What is Sitemap & Why are they Important to SEO?

When thinking about implementing an SEO strategy for your website, you would find many experts telling you that you need a sitemap. As one of the leading digital agencies in Malaysia, let us share with you our own two cents. So, what is a sitemap, and why is it important for SEO?

Rank Higher on Search Results by Implementing Sitemaps to your SEO Strategy

A sitemap is a file filled with important website pages to tell search engine crawlers to find them. These files are a list of URLs containing information about the pages. The sitemap lets search engines understand the website’s structure and make it easier to browse. 

Type of Sitemap

XML Sitemap

An XML sitemap is a list in a file with all of the most important pages of your website so that Google can find and crawl it. An XML file gives Google and other search engines a better understanding of your website structure while speeding up content discovery.

An XML Sitemap Acts as a Navigation Aid for Web Crawlers

HTML Sitemap

HTML sitemaps are helpful for both users and search engines when seeking something on your web page. It is a web page containing href tags that link to other pages. It’s like a table of contents for your website. These crawlers discover it by looking through each link until no more can be found.

Why are HTML and XML Sitemaps Important for SEO?

Having Large Websites

If your site contains many pages, it is not as efficient to be crawled by Google. However, implementing a sitemap can help deeper pages get indexed faster. If your website is large, it most likely needs frequent updating. This is especially important if you are running SEO for your e-commerce website, where there could be thousands of unique product pages.  A well set up XML sitemap can make sure your most important web pages are crawled and indexed. 

Bad Internal Linking Strategy

It becomes harder for search engine bots to crawl your website if you aren’t regularly creating internal links between your pages. At first, crawlers try to come across your website naturally. Even if they discover your page through your sitemap, the lack of backlinks will deem it unimportant.

A Sitemap File Can Help a Webpage with a Bad Internal Link Strategy

Fewer Backlinks

As websites are discovered from each link, external links are essential to signal crawlers of your site’s existence. It’s hard to get people to link your blog posts to their websites, so sitemaps might be your solution. Submitting your sitemap to the Google search console, crawlers can discover your website without existing backlinks.

Implementing sitemaps to your SEO strategy is essential, however difficult and time-consuming to execute. You might want to head to a professional for the easiest and best results. Primal is Malaysia’s leading SEO agency and can get more SEO traffic to your site in just 90 days. Click here for a free SEO Audit.