Success on the Internet

Since this chapter in the SEO eCourse was first published, site maps have taken on a whole new meaning. Google sitemaps have been introduced and we’ll be talking about them in the future, but for the sake of this discussion, we’re talking about the site map that not only helps the spiders find your pages, but also the all important human visitors.

You should be very selective about linking from your home page.

After all, your home page probably has the highest PageRank value, because most of the inbound links are probably coming to it, instead of to the deeper pages.

At the same time, since the crawlers start at your home page you need a way for them to find the rest of your pages. Some people put links to the rest of their site on the home page, but there’s a better way.

I highly recommend the use of a site map. A site map should be a page that allows your visitors (including the search engine spiders) to easily find the rest of your site. It should be organized so that human eyes can quickly find where they want to go.

The site map should be linked to from your home page, of course. By doing so, you will transfer a large amount of PageRank value to the site map, which in turn can transfer smaller shares to your other pages in your site. Most importantly, it gives the search engines a direct route so that they can find the other pages without problems.

I’m not saying that your home page should only have one link out, to your site map. I’m saying that it should link only when beneficial to you. I like to link my home pages to the main product category pages that need the PR boost, plus the site map.

Here’s the deal. Every site needs pages such as contact information, privacy policy, FAQ’s, international terms, etc. Personally I couldn’t care less if those pages have any PageRank, because they aren’t pages that I want ranked in the search engine results.

So, don’t give away home page PR to them. Put them on the site map, and only on the site map. By doing so your home page can preserve as much PR as possible, because remember, if it has 1000 points to transfer, each outgoing link gets the same percentage as the all the other outging links.

This is another reason to never link externally from your home page, except in very special situations.

Also, every page on your site should link back to both the home page and the site map. Make sure that the anchor text that you link back with has keywords in it. Not “Home”, not “Return”, not “Back”. You get the idea, especially if you read the chapter on anchor text already. If not, I suggest you check out the archives links on the right hand side of this blog entry and read them now.

Rembember, a link to a page is a vote for it. All votes are not created equally. A link from an important page is an important vote. Give important votes very sparingly and with great thought, and you’ll be one step ahead of your competition who isn’t quite so aware or careful.

For an example of a site map of our merchandise site, look at the WholesaleCases.com site map.