Most people will look for similarity in design and colors or images. Try and look beyond the obvious if you can. It isn’t that easy to find or locate but it is one of the most powerful tools that will help you get listed on search results pages. Yes, I am talking about the sitemap. It might be hidden amidst banners and links and text and flash. It might be right at the bottom of the page or it might be right at the top but it surely will be present on each and every website on the first search results page. What is it about the sitemap that makes it so powerful? Does it mean that a website without a sitemap will never get indexed?

What a sitemap is all about

An XML sitemap is a guide for search engines. It tells the search engines about each URL in your website and when it has been last updated. This gives the search engine robots a pretty good idea about how frequently a page is updated and how frequently, they should be scanning it. It is almost like helping the search engines with a more precise and intelligent approach towards scanning your website.

How to Create a sitemap & Submit into Search Engines

This isn’t very difficult. All web hosting providers have a section in their user control panel which allows you to create an XML sitemap. If you have any doubts about it, then you can always get in touch with your hosting provider. Other than this, there are tools on the internet which let you create a sitemap for free. Xml-sitemaps.com is one such website with a wonderful utility that creates a sitemap in as less as one minute. There are other tools as well on the same website which will help you with sitemaps.

Firstly, you need to have an account with Google. In case you do not have it, I recommend that you sign up for one. It hardly takes a couple of minutes but it gives you access to a huge load of webmaster tools that will prove to be crucial in the long run.