Drupal Basics-Improving SEO with a Sitemap

There are two main kinds of search engine optimization (SEO)--Off Page and On Page.  Off Page optimization relies on the links you get from others increasing your page rank.

On Page optimization can include:

• Ensuring that you have unique tiles and meta tags for your different pages and that they reflect the content of the page
• Using a robots.txt file to prevent search engine bots from indexing pages you don't want them to index
• Bulleted lists
• Using "static pages" for each of your pages (pathauto will do this nicely and automatically on your Drupal site)
• Creating a sitemap for the search engines to access

Creating a sitemap in Drupal is extraordinarily easy using the XML Sitemap Module.

1. Download the Module from Drupal.org
2. Place and unpack it in your /sites/all/modules/ directory
3. Enable the module at /admin/build/modules.  I would suggest, at a minimum, checking off XML Sitemap, XML Sitemap: Engines and XML Sitemap: Node
4. From /admin/settings/xmlsitemap/engines you can choose to have the sitemap submitted to search engines upon update, cron job, you can choose to log access, and which search engines you would like to target

Your sitemap will show up at /sitemap.xml

If you want to be proactive with your sitemap, you can submit it to Google using the Webmaster Tools.  From the dashboard add your site to your profile.  After your site has been added, then add your sitemap under Sitemaps -> Overview ->Add Sitemap.  A pulldown will allow you to identify what kind of site you are submitting.  Add sitemap.xml to the text box and click on the Add button.  Google will shortly download your sitemap and will begin processing it.

Sitemaps can be helpful if your site:

• has content that changes or updates on a regular basis like a blogging site
• Doesn't have very many links coming in
• has a large archive of content that isn't available directly through navigation