For webmaster looking to optimize his or her site for search engines, there are many good resources on internet to learn basics. This basics will cover use of title tag, headers (H1/H2 etc), keyword density, metatags, choice of domain name, link and site architecture and link naming, and probably most important aspect, link popularity. Link popularity refers to how many sites link to a given website. Link popularity and text used in actual links are very important to many search engines in terms of way they rank sites.

A good base to start from is to create a website that has interesting content. This is because this may encourage people to link to your site from their sites, because they find your site a useful resource. One way links to your site are generally powerful rank helpers. So, if you want to encourage people to link to you, start with your site's content.

Make absolutely sure that each of your sitemap pages links to next. If you have 10 sitemap pages in total then each of those needs to link to every other sitemap page. Otherwise both visitors and search engine spiders will find a broken link, lose interest and go away.

Test your sitemap thoroughly. Make sure all links works. Make sure it's easy to read and navigate through. Your sitemap is there to assist your visitor and not confuse them.

How should you structure your sitemap? The following tips must be adhered to in order for your site to gain maximum possible benefit from having a sitemap.

1. The title of each sitemap link should be keyword rich and link directly back to original page.

2. Include 10 - 20 words of text from original page of content underneath relevant sitemap link. This creates more content for search engine spiders and human visitors can see exactly what each page is about in advance of clicking. uman visitor benefit is that they can see what pages is about in advance.

3. Ensure that look and feel of your sitemap page is consistent with rest of your site. Use same basic HTML template you used for every other page of your site.

So now you understand importance of building a sitemap for your website. There is work involved but long term benefits for your websites far outweigh any effort you have to make right now.