You want your web site to rank high in the search engine results. You’ve done your best to optimize each page. You’ve got plans for backlinks and for adding fresh content on a regular basis. You think you have all of your bases covered. But you might be leaving off one important detail: a page on your site that could make a huge difference in your success.

That page is a site map. While you might be thinking, “My site is too small to need a site map” think again. Site maps are a very important element to your site for SEO purposes and here’s why.

Search engine spiders can use the site map to easily locate all of the pages on your site. They follow the links and they locate them. Without a site map, there’s a good chance many of your pages won’t even be viewed by the spiders and that makes much of your work on the site a waste of time.

Putting together a site map is also easy and convenient for your visitors. You’ve probably gone to web sites before and tried to find some type of information only to get lost without the help of a site map.

You can find tools available that will make the site map for you. If you have lots of pages this might be a good idea. If you have someone designing your site, be sure to ask them to include a site map in the package.

Of course, the site map is no replacement for all of the other search engine optimisation work you’ll need to do to keep your site at the top of the rankings. The site map just helps give all of that work a little boost in the success department.