Whenever Search Engine Marketing is mentioned, terms which readily come to mind (apart from Google that is) include;  meta tags/page content optimization, Link Building, and Site Submission.

Most people tend to focus more on Link Building. Of course you can’t blame them- as it is a well known fact that Google’s ranking algorithm (Page Rank or PR as it is now widely known as) places a lot of value on the number of inbound links to a site.

The down side to this however is that in the pursuit of PR glory, SEO’s often neglect some other vital and equally important aspects of Search Marketing.

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What am I talking about?

Content, Content, Content!!!

This just CANNOT be overemphasized, and has been debated over and over again by many pundits, some playing down the significance of content vis-à-vis links and PR, but the truth remains that “Content Is Still King”.

“Some webmasters are strong proponents of non-content SEO strategies. These technical experts rely very heavily on meta-title and other HTML or code-based SEO strategies for sites that are less content oriented.”

“Purists on both sides of the argument will say their approach is far superior to the other.”

I don’t belong to either. I am an advocate for both, as I have even
seen a PR 3 site outrank a PR 6 site for relative keywords.

Don’t worry, this isn’t just another “Content Is King” article (so you can wipe that smirk off your face now). Urr Umm!! Where was I? Ah yes! Content;

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So what is it that makes content so special?

What most people often seem to forget is that “Search Engines” as their name implies, were originally designed to help people find what they are searching for on a world wide web containing large volumes of information.

Naturally, any, and indeed all kinds of services are actually meant to solve a problem

Google, Yahoo, AOL, Ask, and the rest exist for the sole purpose of solving the problem of narrowing what would have otherwise been a daunting task of searching through the millions, billions, and possibly trillions of pages which exist on the web.

To effectively do this, these Search Engines maintain huge, categorized databases of World Wide Websites, classified according to the information contained in the pages which make up each of these sites. The job of the site owner, then becomes the (not so) simple and straightfoward task of;

providing as much information as possible about their sites to the Search Engines

This normally begins with optimizing the meta (title, keyword, and description) tags of each web page, all the way through to submitting the site’s pages to the Search Engines for indexing. Then comes the undending process of searching for quality inbound links to build the highly coveted PR, which most webmasters embark on- completey forgetting about their site’s content.

Needless to say this is a completely bad move, as Search Engines, like humans, are highly attracted to “Fresh Content”

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So How do you keep you site content “Fresh”?

The general idea is to keep the Search Engines updated with changes made to your website as much as possible. Most Search Engines allow you submit your site’s content for free, though it sometimes takes forever to have them indexed.

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Your Secret Weapon

Your Site Map, like a physical map, provides information about your website’s content. According to Wikipedia;

“A site map (or sitemap) is a representation of the architecture of a web site. It can be either a document in any form used as a planning tool for web design, or a web page that lists the pages on a web site, typically organized in hierarchical fashion. This helps visitors and search engine bots find pages on the site”.

There are mainly two kinds of SiteMaps, an XHTML Site Map meant for human visitors, and an XML Site Map for Search Engine robots. Most Search Engines, like Google for instance allow you submit an XML Site Map for your website.

Your Site Map, however, isn’t just a tool for providing information about your site, but is also a “Secret Weapon” for keeping your site’s content fresh.

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How So?

A standard XML Site Map has the following format;

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
   <url>
      <loc>http://www.example.com/</loc>
      <lastmod>2005-01-01</lastmod>
      <changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
      <priority>0.8</priority>
   </url>
</urlset>

The <urlset> tag encapsulates the file and references the current protocol standard.

The <url>is the parent tag for each URL entry. The remaining tags are children of this tag.

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The other tags basically provide additional information about each individual <url> entry.

The <loc> tag represents the URL of the page. This URL must begin with the protocol (such as http) and end with a trailing slash, if your web server requires it. This value must be less than 2,048 characters.

The <lastmod> represents the date of last modification of the file. This date should be in W3C Datetime format. This format allows you to omit the time portion, if desired, and use YYYY-MM-DD.

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Using a SiteMap, updating the information Google (for instance) has about your website is completely seamless. You simply change the value of the <lastmod> tag whenever a particular page has been modified, and resubmit your SiteMap with Google’s Webmaster Tools. This tells Googlebot that the page was modified on
<lastmod>this date</lastmod>

You would notice that content submitted in this manner are re-indexed
much faster than the regular manual submissions.

This techinque is particularly useful for Site’s such as blogs whose content are updated regularly, as well as sites which broadcast RSS feeds. Google’s Webmaster Tools provides additional options, such as submitting an RSS SiteMap for your Website.

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