subject: Website Sitemaps Vs. Image Sitemaps [print this page] Site mapping is an important thing for you to do if you have a website that you want the google search engines to find. By listing the pages or the images of your site, you make it easier for Google, Bing, or any other reputable google search engine to know what is on your site ahead of time. And the bots love it when you make their job easier. That's what makes this aspect of your life internet so important. But which is better or more effective - website site maps or image site maps? While a large number of the experts will try to tell you one is more effective than the other, you should seriously be doing both of them. How come? Because it's all about the digital footprint that you leave internet. The more that you have - and the more accurately that it is described - the easier it is for people to discover you. And when people discover you, your popularity will propel your google search engine rankings.
Why website Sitemaps are Important
The more descriptive that a website is, the better. Therefore, when you get your website going, you should have a listing of all the links that one can discover therein. The more specific that you can be with your content, the better as well. You may have 150 pages on your site, but if they are not adequately tagged and named, bots and visitors will have a hard time deciding whether or not they are worthwhile. And attention spans - mechanical or human - do not last a very long time on the Internet. So make sure you take the guesswork out of things; it'll make your website that much more appealing.
Why Image Sitemaps are Important
A picture is truly worth 1,000 words from time to time. But even with imagery, the web needs words to correctly categorize and describe the relevancy of the object to users. By using relevant tags on your images and then listing the links for all your images in sitemap form, it is much easier to grow organic traffic. And you really should be paying attention to this area, because, again, attention spans are very short on the World Wide Web, and so any visual that you can put out there, which will grab someone's attention, you have a much better chance of attracting them to your site. And if the content is great, those visitors will stay longer.
So never believe anyone, who tells you that you should be doing either one or the other. You want your site to have the best chance possible of getting discovered, and the only way it will, is if you embrace all of the tools that you have at your fingertips.
