Eat my site map!
Site map, the unsung hero of the website.
Most of us have heard of a sitemap and to most of us it really doesn’t mean anything other than another link on a website that nobody really uses that much.
THEY ARE PROBABLY THE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT OF ANY WEBSITE PROJECT!!
There, I said it. I had to get it in soon.
Apart from the web standards and accessibility purposes that a site map fulfills, at pure emerald we have a few thoughts on the whole site map topic that we thought we might share with anybody sad enough to read!
Firstly, a correctly delivered site map offers the benefit of a very effective method of informing the search engines that you have updated your site.
Using third party analysis tools you can easily detect activity from our less carbon and protein visitors and to the more SEO versed this is important data.
Secondly, and quite possibly more importantly, it enhances and helps manage project efficiency and client expectation.
When we embark on a new project and before we even think about the longer term SEO strategy we are busily trying to get a site map and engage the client; quite often we know nothing about a clients business processes therefore it is essential that we discuss, ask, question and learn.
The key to any successful project outcome is efficiency. This doesn’t mean cutting corners it simply means doing thing correctly along the way. A website project doesn’t stop once launched and this is why a well planned site map is gold dust to us. Planned correctly your site map will not only act as a solid base of reference throughout the initial development, it will also be the first port of call for updating and evolving your website.
Back in the day, the main battle at hand as a web development company was not the ridiculously cramping software and web capabilities, it was trying to convince and reassure prospective clients that a website would be beneficial to them. We are over that now and these days our biggest headache is helping them not to write on the dotted line but to write anything at all – content!
Site maps help us so much but not half as much as they help our clients. They understand the need and benefits of a good website what they don’t understand, in the majority of scenarios, is the process of the website project itself.
We have spent hours with our clients talking about ideas, looking, dissecting, preaching the world of web and ploughing through pro-page semantic population. And with feel good factors reaching an all time high they leave the meeting ready to put pen to paper to deliver that oh so important content.
What we are trying to get at here is that client visualisation doesn’t very often occur this way.
Yes, you’ve guessed it, super sitemap saves the day. With a sitemap they can visualise the content required and it helps us too as we now have a “blueprint” or sitemap for want of a better expression!
A sitemap isn’t set in stone, nothing is in the business world, things change and we have to adapt but having a sitemap helps to work on and reference as we go. Things will change no doubt, but in those early stages of a project when client involvement, education, task delegation and visualisation is so important Mr.Sitemap can hold their hand.
He can hold ours too because whilst our clients are busy developing the copy, we have the plan for keyword research, menu structures and the resulting page formatting and eye candy required, ready for all that lovely rich content.
At pure emerald we encourage the use of sitemaps for clients; we have even developed our own “Hard Hat” approach from the lovely, rich experiences that we have enjoyed and we are more than happy to discuss them with you.
So as we hit the accelerator, site map slicks burning and race to the launch day horizon, eat my sitemap!
