I’ve had a sitemap on this blog for a while, but I’ve never been completely happy with it. Recently, my good friend Adnan at Blogtrepreneur posted a great little article about adding both XHTML and XML sitemaps to your site. His post includes some basic instructions on downloading and installing a simple XML sitemap plugin as well as a link to Chris Pearson’s excellent article on installing and using an XHTML sitemap.
I installed both in just a few minutes today and I’m well pleased with the look and functionality. I had to tweak the PHP code a little bit for Chris’s sitemap files to make the template work properly with my WordPress theme, but it wasn’t any big deal and it works great now.
The reason I bothered with these additions to my blog at all is twofold: First, having a sitemap at all is a good way for visitors to look over your blog and get a feel for the contents or find something quickly that they might be interested in reading. Secondly, sitemaps are great for SEO. Google loves sitemaps and apparently now, so do Yahoo and MSN. Chris’s sitemap file automatically updates when you post and then pings Google. I’ll have to look into submitting my sitemap now to the other search engines. If you don’t yet have a sitemap on your blog, go check out Adnan’s article and then Chris’s.
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Thanks for the link love Ray – I hope the sitemaps work for you (and for me!).
But really most of the credit must go to Mr. Pearson – I was just relaying the message.
Cheers,
Adnan
No problem, Adnan. You deserve the credit for pointing me to Chris’s article at just the right time, though. That’s another great thing about the blogging community: We can all benefit from sharing links to great information.