First of all there are two types of sitemaps. One sitemap for users and one for Search engines. A sitemap for users may be beneficial in that it allows you to put every page on your web site just one click away for end users. Fewer clicks tend to help conversions, and on large web sites they may provide for an easy way for users to find exactly what they are looking for with the fewest clicks.

Sitemaps for search engines are another matter entirely. Originally the xml sitemap, as proposed by Google, was designed to help their spider crawl complex URLs that might have been missed by their spiders. These URLs tended to be in shopping cart systems and database driven sites developed by programmers that had little regard for the real world needs of a modern web site. Urls like domain.com/id7734&ask?whyam-i:like&this made deep crawls by spiders nearly impossible.

Since then having an xml sitemap has been trotted out as the solution to a long list of problems with websites when it comes to them not ranking well, or not having as many pages in the Google index . And for the vast majority of sites this isn’t true.

One of the deep indexing factors that Google does rely on is linking. On Matt Cutt’s blog in 2006 a discussion was raging about the supplemental index and Matt mentioned that the number of links pointing toward a site was a factor in how often it was crawled and how deeply the site was indexed. No mention of the, by then, 1 year old sitemap.xml.

Google itself even says “We don’t guarantee that we’ll crawl or index all of your URLs¹” and that the sitemap is just used to learn about your site’s structure¹.

One of the major reasons that I recommend against xml sitemaps is that they require constant updating every time you update your website. And while there are tools available to help automate the process², that in itself is reason enough not to do it, more work for questionable benefits. The only time an xml sitemap might be justified is when your site navigation is less than useful and is a challenge for search engine spiders to crawl. Unfortunately this may mean that your site navigation is a challenge to follow for end users as well, so it should be dealt with by fixing the navigation, not slapping a sitemap on it and calling it “fixed”.

Another reason that I don’t recommend xml sitemaps, in most cases, is that Google has had a long standing policy that we should build web sites for our users and not for the search engines. Unless their spider isn’t advanced enough to do the job, then webmasters are expected to step up and make things easier for them. Xml sitemaps and nofollow are just a couple of examples of building something for search engines only that has no benefit as all for the user viewing your website.

So to answer the question, Do I really need a sitemap?, no, you don’t. You need clean navigation on a well structured web site. However, if you have complex URLs on an incredibly large web site with lousy navigation, it can’t hurt, but it also probably won’t help much either.

1. From Will Google crawl and index all of the URLs in my Sitemap?
2. Free Sitemap Generators

So, what did I fail at? A couple people knew that this was coming, but I bet that most haven’t noticed that this blog is now running on a new domain name and under a new operating name. Yup, I picked a business name without doing enough research, I let myself make an assumption that could have potentially turned in to wee bit ‘o drama in the future.

The name I had originally chosen was Large Orange Pop. I have a thing for the 50s even though I was born in the 60s, and the idea of looking for a name that had more potential as a brand than as a description of some services I may offer appealed to me. It appealed to me so much that I simply assumed that I was the only one to think of it. As usual, assumptions can go wrong. There is another company out there that had a similar idea, Orange Soda, only they had it several years ago.

So what’s a guy to do? The obvious, move on quickly and put it behind me. I found a new name that I like that also lends itself toward branding, and when I finally have the time to work on it, a new look and feel featuring my favorite 50s villains and heroes, robots. Hopefully the rebuild won’t take too long, but fortunately I am heavy with client work at the moment that may keep me from working on my own site.

Takeaway?

Do your research! You may have a great idea that you think is completely unique, but odds are you would be wrong.

Normally I stay “at” the casino because I don’t really gamble all that much and love the ease of going up to the room and catching a nap. But the only rooms available were $350/night.. I’m not exactly cheap, but $350/night for a casino room? I can go to Vegas for that much money. So the quest was on to find a nice place to stay, for a fair price, close to New Buffalo. Who knew that it would be such a challenge?

If you are running just about anything in New Buffalo local search is wide open for you. It took far too long to find a nice bed and breakfast reasonably close to the casino, well, not really, but if it weren’t for the new maps in Google we would have never found the place we wound up staying. Sans Souci Euro Inn and Cottages (yeah, it’s their title and it’s on every page). Angie and Sue run an amazing little operation on 50 acres with a small private lake just full of fish. It’s quiet, it’s well furnished, it’s 3 miles from the casino, and it’s incredibly reasonably priced. We already have reservations for a full week later in the summer.

So what’s the point of this long post? Am I just trying to rub in the fact that I found a great place to stay? Well, yeah, sorta. But more importantly it’s about how few people are taking advantage of promoting their local business on the internet. And more specifically, on Google. A simple search for new buffalo michigan bed and breakfast on Google returns just 85,000 results, and barring the map, and just “one” real bed and breakfast, ranked #7. There is a B&B that is closed, it even says so on their website, that ranks #5. If it weren’t for the fact that Angie is looking to retire I’d offer to rebuild her site for her. I may still make an offer, but it might be to just buy the place and change careers!

While looking for something to do other than the casino I did a search for charter fishing new buffalo michigan. Not a single charter boat based in New Buffalo has a tag on the Google local map. Not one. Any SEO in New Buffalo Michigan may want to take a drive around the docks and look for a few new clients. Or maybe not, I may be up there in August fishing and could use the work.

To recap,

• Casino getaway = great!
• Quiet B&B to relax at = fabulous!
• Have a website for a business and not taking advantage of local search = epic fail

Maybe I’m wired wrong, but every time I see that PSA the only thing running through my head is, how is that poor salesman supposed to feed his kids? As a bit of marketing it does seem to grab your attention, but it does a terrible job at actually providing a solution. Buy me, don’t buy me, why should I want this? It doesn’t trigger a call to action response like it should.

Americans have been notorious for not saving money over the last couple of decades, the current economic issues lend a lot of support to this. The me economy of get it now pay for it later has hurt a lot of people. People that should have known better. If you make $30,000 a year you should not be buying a $600,000 house no matter how much you want it. The same can be said for many businesses out there.

Everyone wants to be the next Blue Nile or Amazon. And they seem to approach it from one of two directions.

1. They open up their wallets, dig a hole, and start filling the hole until they get what they think they want. This approach never works because you are competing with other companies with bigger wallets, bigger holes, and are just as crazy as you are.

2. They hire little Jimmy, their golf buddies high school kid that “builds web sites” for $10 an hour and then wonder why the world isn’t beating a path to their door.

Just like the Feed The Pig PSA’s, there never really seems to be a good plan in place for getting where they want to be, a stable economy with financially responsible people helping it recover. They have an idea, think it’s a great idea, and charge full speed ahead without taking the time to really think over their options and possible solutions and problems that the plan can introduce. The problem with the Feed the Pig commercials is that they say “Don’t spend money” without explaining why, or how to be more financially responsible. There is no plan, no solution, just a dressed up pig.

There is another commercial out there where the family decides to buy a new TV and you see the husband looking at the mega screen plasma super TVs, yet when they get home they have a reasonably sized TV that we assume they can afford comfortably. Reasoned and responsible spending.

What about your web site? Has it be reasoned out? Is there a plan, a goal, a solution? Or is it just a dressed up pig and you are hoping that your viewers “get it”??

Or maybe not.

Without a doubt the web has become a very crowded place. With almost every commercial business having at least some presence online, some businesses having multiple websites, and then the top of the heap, the megalithic websites like Amazon, Blue Nile, and eBay. We won’t even get in to the topic of affiliate programs that create hundreds, even thousands, of websites all selling the same product. With that level of competition why would anyone want to get involved with adding a second business to their already full plate?

Why do I need a website?

For me, the number one reason for a company, especially a small company, to have a website today is that fewer and fewer people are using the phone book to find what they are looking for. When someone picks up a phone book they are looking for a phone number. They already know what they want, pizza, movie times, how late are you open, and other similar questions. As people become more and more internet savvy they want more than a phone book can give them, they want to shop.

But what if you offer a product or service that has seen its market eaten up by outsourcing overseas like software development, or turned in to a commodity sold from lists in a database rather than as an actual product like diamonds? You can still compete. It’s been said by the people at Wal-Mart that you can’t out Amazon Amazon, but you can find an angle where you can compete on a local level, and as you grow in to your web presence you can begin to expand in to larger markets, or new products that will help differentiate you from the Amazon’s and Blue Nile’s of the world. And if you can pick up a piece of the global market on your way up, that’s just a little more icing on the cake.

Local Search to the rescue!

The easiest and usually best way to start elbowing your way in to internet millions is to stake out your local market. There may be thousands of people online selling Peeps but how many people are selling Peeps in Flathead County, Montana? I don’t know about you, but when I get a craving for pink bunny peeps I need them now, not 3 days from now via FedEx.

It doesn’t have to be Peeps. Maybe you run a small printing company, or you have a baseball card shop, or even a tanning salon. Whatever it is, the internet makes for the best phone book ad ever. It has everything a normal phone book ad has, phone number, address, etc., but it can also have your store hours, a list of products or services, maybe even an interactive way for your local clients to get what they need without even getting in their car.

So what do we do now?

The first step is to build a website that not only focuses on your product or service, but one that focuses on your local community. A site that is just as likely to rank well for your city’s name is it is to rank for your product.

Fortunately for both of us I have just signed up a new old client. I originally built their first website more than 7 years ago, and since it was built it has seen almost no effort put in to it. A common problem for small businesses with a lot of work to do and not enough time to think about that “web thing”. As long as the email works, they are happy. I’ll let you in on who this client is in a few weeks once we get things back on track for them.

I can tell you that they are in a very competitive industry that has seen it’s profit margins eaten away by advancing technology and cheaper labor costs in Asia. But it is still an industry that can, and should, have strong ties with the local community and should leverage that involvement in to a profitable website that serves as more than just a place to get their email from. We’ll find out together if it can be turned around and made in to a profit center rather than an expense.