Why Sitemaps are Important for Improving SEO on Car, Leisure Vehicle & Motorcycle Dealer Websites
A sitemap is a file, or set of files, that helps search engines crawl and index your website content. It also signals which pages are most important, helping you guide search engines towards the areas of your site that matter most.
There are two main types of sitemap:
- XML Sitemaps – Designed for search engines, providing a structured list of URLs along with update frequency and page priority.
- HTML Sitemaps – Designed for users, offering a “bird’s-eye view” of your site’s key pages for easier navigation.
Are Sitemaps Important for SEO?
Yes. XML sitemaps are recognised by all major search engines and can be a powerful SEO asset. Submitting a sitemap through tools like Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools ensures search engines are aware of all your important URLs in one go.
Automated sitemap generators make it easy to keep your sitemap up to date, refreshing whenever content is added, removed, or changed.
What URLs Should You Include?
Ask yourself two questions: “What pages do I want users to find?” and “What pages add value to users?” If the answer to both is the same, those are the URLs that belong in your sitemap — no more, no less.
Remember, omitting a page from your sitemap doesn’t guarantee it won’t be indexed. If you truly don’t want a page to appear in search results, use noindex directives or update your robots.txt file to disallow it during crawling.
Sitemap Best Practice Checklist
- Always keep your XML sitemap up to date with current, live URLs.
- Only include pages you want indexed in search results.
- Update your sitemap automatically whenever content changes.
- Ensure your sitemap is accessible at
/sitemap.xmland linked in your robots.txt file. - Use HTML sitemaps to improve user navigation for large websites.
- Submit your XML sitemap to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.