Google Sitemap Schema - correct syntax - SEO article

Google Sitemap Schema

I've recently noticed that the schema used on Google Site Maps has changed.

It used to be:


Notice the google.com and sitemap/0.84 have changed to sitemaps.org and sitemap/0.9.

I believe it's merely part of a growing standardisation of the growing popularity and widespread use of the Google Sitemaps program.

Now, whilst looking into this change/update on Google's Webmaster Tools page, I've read on one or two websites where they've insisted that to make sure your Sitemap validates, apart from using the correct xml syntax (which is completely correct), they also mention that the sitemap file should have a capital S e.g: Sitemap.xml.

Now I've never been keen on anything other than all lower case for file names - no spaces etc and this intrigued me - could it be true? My own Sitemap and several I have created for other websites have always used a lower case s in the filename and they've always verified ok.

So I went in search of an answer from a higher authority. Here's what I found on the Sitemaps.org website (surely there can be no higher authority on this one?) -
You've guessed it! All references and code snippets they use show the Sitemap filename spelt with a lower case s e.g: sitemap.xml.

So where some of these other sites are getting their upper-case S information from I don't know. All I do know is the lower-case s is shown on Sitemaps.org website.

And whilst they validate - that's good enough for my Sitemaps.

Creating a Google Sitemap for Blogger Blogs - How to.

Google Sitemap for Blogger - how to create one.

For a long time now, I've been looking for a way to create a Sitemap for the Fabulous Photo Gifts Blogger blog to submit to Google's Sitemaps program. The idea being that doing so will increase Google's awareness of my posts, and therefore hopefully return them in search results a bit more often and higher up the listings.

This of course would lead to more visitors. Well we can dream can't we?

So when I finally stumbled across the method, I - A) kicked myself that I hadn't spotted it sooner... and B) decided to put digit to keyboard and share my findings before any more of you loose anymore sleep.

So, here's how I added a Google Sitemap to my Blogger Blog.

Firstly, you need to get a Google Account. It's completely free and easy to set up. Once you've done that, then you need to go to Webmaster Tools and click on 'add a site'.

Add your site (blog URL) and then you'll need to verify it - verify that you 'own' the blog or website in question, and that you have the means (and therefore the permission) to submit it in the first place.

You can usually do this by adding a metatag or by uploading a html file to your top level www directory folder. OK if you have a full website with ftp (File Transfer Protocol) access, but for most blogs, you won't so you'll need to select 'add metatag'.

Copy the metatag Google gives you, then go back to your Blogger Blog (I find it useful to have two windows open so you don't loose where you got up to), open the layout and expand the widgets (tick box) and save a back up (in case it all goes horribly wrong).

Then in-between the other metatags e.g (meta = title) your title (/meta) (these should be fairly near the top of your layout code, paste the metatag you copied from Google.

Check to see you haven't missed any closing brackets - I'm terrible for highlighting, copying and pasting only to discover I missed the first character -- and then save layout.

Check to see your Blog still appears OK and if so, you've successfully added the new 'tag'.

Now go back to the Google Webmaster Tools and click on 'verify'. Google will check your URL and see that the verification method has been carried out.

This can take a while so you can exit and check back later by logging into your Google Account, Webmaster Tools, Sitemaps and seeing if its verified.

Creating the Sitemap URL itself:

Now to create the URL itself that you're going to submit to Google as your Blogger Blogs sitemap url, you're going to need this URL:

http://my-blog-name-here.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?orderby=updated
 
What you will actually enter is: feeds/posts/default?orderby=updated
as Google prefills the first bit - the blog name - from the information you've entered when starting the initial submission.

I hope that helps you - it certainly did me. I'd got some crazy idea in my head that i'd got to create some very complicated URL to submit as the sitemap but in the end, Blogger already does that for you.

So everytime you post a new blog, your sitemap should update itself ready for Google to re-crawl. Hopefully you'll see an improvement in your search result positioning - it's early days yet of course but we watch the outcome with interest.

I'd love to know how you get on - do leave some feedback - any problems you experience implementing the above etc and I'll help if I can or if you have a success story or find the method slightly different for your blog.

Jonathan - Fabulous Photo Gifts.

Create a Google Sitemap

Hi.

Over on Blog Catalog, there's an interesting discussion about Google submission. I've found it helpful to create a Google Site Map and take part in Googles Site Map program.

One member asked about creating a site map for Google, so here's an example to follow:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap/0.84">

<url>
<loc>http://www.fabulousphotogifts.co.uk/</loc>
<lastmod>2007-07-15</lastmod>
<changefreq>weekly</changefreq>
<priority>1.0</priority>
</url>

(add other url's here in the above format)

</urlset>

Once you've created your sitemap .xml file, save as sitemap.xml and then you need to upload it to the home directory of your website e.g http://www.fabulousphotogifts.co.uk/sitemap.xml

You'll probably have to verify your url as part of the submission process, and you can do this either by adding a meta tag to your index page or uploading a .htm page with a title Google will generate for you.

I've found the easiest way is the uploading a .htm file.

The frequency - weekly / monthly etc needs to be in the correct syntax and the priority is between 1.0 and 0.1 (0.1 being least priority). DOn't rate all your pages as 1.0 and be honest when appraising the priority - a contact us page would have less priority than a product page etc. You may decide to assign all your products the same priority which is fine but don't make them all 1.0.

Finally - don't forget to update your sitemap as you add/remove pages or amend pages (change last mod date)
Hope that helps.

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Have you neglected your internal links? an SEO guide for small businesses

Have you neglected the internal page links of your website?

Whilst the buzz is incoming links from other websites and blogs that share a common theme with your topic, did you know that how your website internally links also plays a part?

Site maps - click here to see site map example - (no not the Google Site Maps – I'll get to those another day) – no website should be without one.

Many sites use flash banners and buttons as a means for visitors to navigate around the website. All well and good if you're a human but not so good if your a search engine spider.

Of course, you can remedy this oversight easily and if you haven't, then start straight away, simply by adding html text links as a back up to your pretty buttons. Have you noticed that many sites have both image and text links to a page? That's the reason. That way, both sorts of visitors – the human and non-human will be able to navigate with equal ease.

Next, you want to get yourself a site map.

Again, you'll be appealing to both human and machine so its important to spend a little bit of time on this. Firstly, it wants to be a plain html page – no fancy inclusive files here. In fact any file name that has a ? in the url should be avoided for this page. Why? Well we know that some search engines struggle to get past a ? in a url, and for this reason many database websites will suffer or find it harder to get crawled.

Plain text links within a html environment will help overcome this.

Another important aspect of using a site map is that you can use specific key-worded text as the anchor text for the link to a particular page. Let me give you an example:

Instead of “jigsaw puzzles” (linking to the jigsaw puzzle page), why not consider ““Personalised photo jigsaw puzzles”? You see, just by adding those few extra keywords in there, your already creating a much more desirable link for both spiders and people alike.

Even better if you can copy the title or description tag of the particular page your linking to, which should already be heavily optimised as this re-enforces things from a spiders point of view.

This is where you'll have to be careful though that you don't create a site map that looks a bit gibberish.

You'll need to strike a balance between over keyword stuffing (never advisable) and not being specific enough.

So how should you structure your site map? Logically and thoroughly.

First list all your pages including the really deep seated ones e.g a fuller description of a product or point on its own pop up window etc.

Then put them into a logical order. Start with your main pages and then filter outwards. If you have 7 products leading from the product page, then try to give this layout a bit of form – remember you're trying to appeal to human visitors and this is your chance.

At the beginning, I said it was about how your own site pages interlink with each other. If you have the opportunity, then link back to other pages but try to be specific. Use anchor points to go back to a particular point on a particular page and this will help the spiders crawl your site more deeply.

Of course, these links shouldn't be hidden so no css style sheets making links appear as undecorated text. This is not a good idea! Seach Engines will penalise if they think you're using underhand tactics to disguise links etc. Try an underline when mouseover or a different colour text. It doesn't have to be underlined all the time.

So your SEO checklist should now read:
Create Site Map html document
Create interlinks between internal pages

Once those two tasks are complete, if you haven't already, then now is the perfect time to create a Google Site Map and submit it to their site map program, based on your own internal site map, you've just created or ammended.

Finally – it's important to keep up to date with Site Maps. Neglect them – fail to update new pages or remove old ones no longer live and you'll do your site and your visitors a disservice.

Jonathan C Crouch

About the author – Jonathan is webmaster for “Fabulous Photo Gifts – personalised photo gifts. In between, tasks, he writes a number of SEO articles aimed at smaller businesses which are published and socially bookmarked across a variety of directories.
If you would like a website designing, or feel that your present site could perform better, then contact Jonathan at “Fabulous Photo Gifts.

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