Samuel Edwards

Meta descriptions are almost invisible. They’re typically only seen by search engine bots and by incoming users who see your content on SERPs, so many webmasters and marketers simply ignore them, or fill them with fluff for the sake of filling up space. And, in many cases, search engines even ignore them, replacing the description that they feel semantically meets the user’s search intent. The reality is meta descriptions are useful for more than just adding crawlable meta name description content to your site—they can actually make or break your ability to get users from SERPs to your website. With an effective meta description, you can convince a user to take the next step and click into your site. Without one, they might go somewhere else. What Are Meta Descriptions? When someone searches for a term on Google, they get pages of results with individual links that can be clicked to satisfy the answer for the query. This is known as a search engine results page, or SERP. Each result on one of these pages consists of three main elements: Title. The first element is the “title.” This is the bolded portion at the top of the result that tells you what the page is about. (If it’s a blog post, it’ll typically be the title of the post, followed by the name of the website or blog.) URL string. The second element is the “URL.” If the URL is short, it’ll show the entire web address. If the URL is on the longer end of the spectrum, it may be truncated to save space. Meta description. The third element is the “meta description.” In the simplest terms, a meta description tag is a concise section of text that appears directly below a link in the search results page. The purpose of the meta description is to describe what the page’s content is about. In other words, it helps people know what a page will be about before they click. Meta descriptions are written by the website owner, not Google. In other words, you get to decide what the meta description says. Google has the ability to truncate it if it’s too long, but they will never change the copy. Why Are Meta Descriptions Important? At first glance, meta descriptions seem like a tiny detail in the grand scheme of SEO and website optimization. But don’t mistake their small size with insignificance. They play an extremely important role in multiple areas of search. This includes: SEO benefits. While Google claims that meta descriptions do not count as a ranking factor within the Google ranking algorithm, it’s hard to believe this is 100 percent true. (And other search engines certainly use it as a ranking factor in their algorithms.) What we do know is that good meta descriptions increase click-throughs and average time on site. So, if nothing else, they have an indirect impact on search rankings. Click-through. When it comes to determining which result to click, a user only has a few select pieces of information to work with. Outside of placement on the SERP, there’s the link, title, and meta description. If your meta description is more compelling than the next one, you’re likely to earn the click. Organic ad exposure. Even if somebody doesn’t click on your search results, they may read it and/or subconsciously process the text. In this sense, it acts as organic ad exposure. (People pay top dollar to serve snippets via Google AdWords. The meta description of an organic result acts very much like an ad. Use it wisely!) When the topic of meta descriptions arises, we inevitably hear people ask about “meta keywords.” But the truth is that you don’t need to worry about them. They’re an outdated element of SEO and Google no longer looks at them. Focus your time and energy on meta description instead. 10 Tips for Writing Meta Descriptions That Spur Action Anyone can write a meta description. But if you want to stop using this element of search as filler and transform this valuable real estate into a powerful tool for your brand, you need to learn how to write a good meta description. Here are a few of our top tips and suggestions for writing meta descriptions: 1. Keep it to 156 Characters or Less This is a basic best practice you’ll have to follow if you want your meta descriptions to have the most impact. Technically, you can write a longer meta description without penalty, but Google is only going to look at the first 156 characters of your message. If your meta description appears cut off, it’s going to attract less people to your site. Therefore, it’s in your best interest to write your messages as close to 156 characters as possible without going over, maximizing the visual space you occupy without alienating your readers. It’s also important to note that in your attempt to write a compelling meta description, that the meta description tag itself isn’t too short. Again, you aren’t going to get dinged for it, but it might hurt your click-through rate. Generally speaking, somewhere between 135 and 156 characters is ideal. (But we’d recommend erring on the longer side of things.) On a related note, avoid using quotation marks in any way in the body of your meta description—Google will get rid of them. 2. Nix the Keyword Stuffing Since there is a correlation between meta descriptions and search engines, many people mistakenly assume that including many keywords in a meta description is a good idea. In actuality, search engines don’t use the content in a meta description to calculate rank. Instead, meta descriptions influence user click-through rates, and if your click-through rates are higher, you’ll rank higher. With this understanding, forget everything you know about optimizing text in conventional ways to please a search engine. Instead, focus only on what a user is going to want to see, and what’s going to make them click through to your site.

With the help of search engine optimization (SEO), your law firm can ascend to the top rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs). At the top rankings, you’ll get more visibility, more traffic, and more conversions, ultimately allowing you to trounce your fiercest competitors. But to see the rest of these dominoes fall, you need to be able to practice SEO effectively. And while you might be one of the best lawyers in your area, you probably don’t have the expertise to launch a pitch perfect SEO strategy. Even if you did, you wouldn’t have the time to do it. That’s where a law firm SEO expert comes into play. Why do you need a law firm SEO expert? And how do you choose the right SEO partner for your law firm? A Primer on SEO for Law Firms We’ve already introduced the goal of SEO for law firms: increasing your website’s rankings and visibility in search engines. How do you do it? We’d be lying if we said it was easy, but the gist of the topic is simple enough to understand. Google favors websites with high levels of trustworthiness and high levels of relevance for user searches. Our job as law firm SEO experts is to make your web presence extremely relevant and extremely trustworthy in the eyes of Google and other search engines. To do this, we focus on areas like the following: Keyword research and targeting. Before we can make your law firm website relevant to searchers, we need to know what they’re searching for. Through keyword research and targeting, we discover the most valuable keywords for your legal niche and create a plan for how to integrate them into your website. Onsite content development. From there, we want to produce high-quality onsite content. This is an opportunity to optimize for both relevance and trustworthiness, and the posts we create will be invaluable for our offsite strategy as well. Technical onsite SEO. Google won’t give you a chance to rank unless your website works properly, so we adjust it with tweaks like mobile optimization and page loading speed refinement. Link building (and offsite content). It’s almost impossible to build trustworthiness and credibility without inbound links. A big part of our strategy is building the natural, high-quality links necessary to boost your website authority without putting you in danger of a penalty. Data analytics and recursive updating. And of course, we need to look at the objective data to make sure we’re doing our jobs properly. Regular reporting allows us to identify and correct missteps, set a course for new opportunities, and prove our value. Of course, every client is different, so we do adjust our SEO approach based on the needs and goals of the law firm hiring us. How a Law Firm SEO Expert Can Get You More Clients Why do you need a law firm SEO expert? In short, we get you more clients for less money. With an effective SEO strategy in place, you’re almost guaranteed to get more traffic. You’ll get more organic traffic, since you’ll rank higher in search engines. You’ll get more referral traffic, since we’ll be building offsite links in major publications. And as your reputation grows, you’ll get more traffic from other areas as well. Keep in mind that all this new traffic is going to be highly relevant; these are people specifically searching for terms related to your legal niche. While not all of them will be perfectly qualified, these are going to be highly valuable streams of traffic. Even better, your website is going to be so technically optimized and full of high-quality content that it’s going to be much easier to convert visitors. Conversion optimization isn’t synonymous with SEO, but SEO does carry significant conversion optimization benefits. So why not do it on your own? Well, you can certainly try. SEO isn’t especially hard to learn, at least not at the fundamental level. But if you choose to practice it, the limitations of DIY SEO will quickly become apparent to you. If you choose to do all the work yourself, you’ll quickly run out of time. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re much more likely to earn a Google penalty, which can set you back months. And without years of experience behind you, you’ll find it much harder to interpret your reports and verify whether you’re doing things correctly. Even if you are satisfied with your results, you may never know how much of your potential you’re wasting, as a law firm SEO expert could likely help you grow faster and more reliably. Of course, another option is to hire SEO experts internally, but this is usually more expensive than working with a law firm SEO agency. How to Choose the Right Law Firm SEO Expert Working with a law firm SEO agency is the obvious choice for any law firm interested in improving the visibility of their web presence and attracting more clients. The real dilemma is choosing the right law firm SEO expert partner, since there are so many SEO agencies to choose from. These are some of the most important factors to consider: Budget. SEO services aren’t exactly cheap, but that’s because they usually involve significant, skill-intensive effort. Most law firm SEO agencies are less expensive than hiring staff members full-time, but you should still consider your overall marketing budget and shop for an option that fits it. Specialty. Not all SEO agencies specialize in serving law firms. And many SEO agencies that specialize in serving law firms won’t specialize in your area of focus. You may want to work with SEO experts in the realm of personal injury law, mass tort law, family law, estate planning and tax law, or even the emerging field of space law. Qualifications. Your law firm SEO expert should have years of experience under their belt and competent staff members with a diverse range of specialties. Past results. Law firm SEO experts should

Succeeding in search engine optimization is always the goal, but tracking it can be a challenge. So if you’re trying to get to the top of the search engines and are working with a skilled and experienced SEO service, here are the most vital keyword metrics they should be tracking. 1. Organic Traffic The most crucial goal of an SEO campaign is to get more qualified traffic to your website when users do Google searches. The idea is that organic traffic is free, so we want as much of it as possible. But how should you track your organic traffic? That’s where Google Analytics comes in! You should look under Acquisitions to the Organic Search menu and concentrate on Sessions. Sessions, according to Google, are the contacts that happen on your site within a period. To see how much organic traffic you’re getting, you should look at and compare various periods. For example, some SEO recommend looking at three time periods when seeing how successful an SEO campaign is: Data for week over week: This allows you to analyze web traffic that changed over a few weeks. You should check this metric when making significant changes on your site. For instance, if you publish five new blog posts per day, you should check performance by week to see if your content has an impact. Data for month over month: This is helpful information if you want to see how your SEO campaign performs over a more extended period. Search engine algorithms change every week, so just looking at weekly data may not give you enough information. Also, remember that SEO takes more than a few weeks to take effect, so looking longer term will help your analysis. Data for year over year: This allows you to compare apples to apples and tell you what you need to know about long-term SEO trends for your business. This information is even more critical if your business is seasonal. For instance, if your company sells beach clothes, you will want to look at yearly search volume; if you compare July to December, you will get the idea your traffic took a significant hit. 2. Organic Conversions So you see that you are enjoying a bump in organic traffic from your SEO. Great! Now, is this high-quality traffic? As most SEO people know, getting people to your site with organic search isn’t enough. You could get thousands of visitors per day from irrelevant search terms that will never produce a sale. To measure your site’s traffic quality, you’ll need to watch organic site conversions. You can do this by establishing a goal in Google in Google Analytics. For instance, you can track sales, email signups, telephone calls, or contact form submissions. Then, after you have your goal in mind, you can watch for it in Google Analytics. When you see your site conversions rise, it can be exciting and motivate you and your team to continue with the excellent work. 3. Keyword Ranking Keyword rank shows where your site appears in Google results for critical words and phrases. For instance, if you sell aftermarket Honda car parts, a search with the word ‘automobile’ may only give you a page two or page three result. But if you use SEO methods that focus on ‘car’ and ‘SUV’, your site may show up higher in the rankings. The higher your page rank, the more visible it is to your audience. However, to get better with this vital metric, your SEO team needs to research the phrases and terms your visitors want. One way to do this is with the popular Google Search Console if you have a small budget. But there are other popular options with scaling pricing, depending on what your company needs. 4. Backlinks Backlinks are when other sites link to yours. Many website owners have backlinks similar to old-fashioned citations, which show where they got their information. Google often gives preference to sites with many high-quality backlinks. Obtaining backlinks takes a lot of work because you cannot control everyone who links to you. The most important thing to know is a high-quality backlink from an authoritative site is much more critical than 10 links from a low-authority website. 5. Click-Through Rate Your CTR indicates how many visitors come to your site after they find your search terms in Google. So, if 500 Google searchers see one of your web pages in the results and 50 people click through, you have a 10% CTR for that page. If you have a low CTR for some of your pages, you may need to tweak your meta description or title. Or, perhaps your blog content isn’t attractive to your visitors. 6. Rate Of Exit This measures the last webpage that a site visitor looks at before exiting. The most popular exit pages are ones that make visitors lose interest and move on. These are parts of your site where interest wanes, so you should always watch exit pages. If many visitors per day exit from the same page, you may need to update that page’s content, or perhaps the navigation links are non-intuitive. 7. User Experience How easy and enjoyable is your site for visitors to use? Does it load fast? Does it look great on smartphones? You should look at bounce rate and dwell time to gauge how much users like your site. Of course, these aren’t the only ways that Google watches how people use your site, but they’re critical benchmarks. Some SEOs point out there’s a strong correlation between site visit time and getting on page 1. This is a good thing to measure in part because it’s easy to make better. You can get people to stay on your site by offering value, which often means providing them the most helpful content you can. If you measure each of these above metrics, you’ll have a much better idea of how people are using your site, leading you to higher Google rankings.

Google made an official announcement that they would be making a change to their ranking algorithm to favour pages with HTTPS encryption over those without it. While they described the change as “lightweight,” initially affecting less than one percent of all search queries, it’s an important change to note because it could signal an intensifying pattern of changes to come. If your site currently does not feature HTTPS/SSL encryption, or if you aren’t sure what that means, keep reading. It’s a perfect time to learn the benefits of upgrading your site’s security. If your site is already fully encrypted, you can sit back and enjoy the benefits of a significant—if initially lightweight—ranking boost. What Is HTTPS? You should be familiar with the https:// and https:// prefixes that signal the start of a URL. HTTP stands for “Hyper Text Transfer HTTPS protocol,” while HTTPS stands for “hypertext transfer protocol secure.” Without getting into too much detail, HTTP and HTTPS are both means of data transference between two locations. The “S” that distinguishes the two HTTPS protocol is what is important here. An HTTPS links connection uses a digital Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate to mask, or encrypt the user’s session. Seeing an “S” at the beginning of a URL is an indication to the user that they are on a secure site that is using SSL encryption (Firefox and Chrome also display a lock as an additional symbol of security). This SSL encryption works by hiding the data that is normally transferred between the website host/hosting provider and the Internet browser, preventing any interception of that data from outside sources. As a possibly oversimplified explanation, think of SSL encryption as a curtain that obscures an outsider’s vision while you change your clothes. So far, only about small percentage of websites are using this encryption. Until now, it wasn’t vital for every site. Websites that exchange vital information about a user, such as e-commerce platforms and banks, have always used HTTPS version/encryption as a standard, but less intrusive sites, like simple blogs, have found that level of encryption unnecessary. HTTPS, a marker of SSL encryption on a webpage, is getting more attention due to a recent announcement by Google that indicates a greater search engines preference toward HTTPS sites. SSL encryption is extremely important for certain sites on the web, and if you haven’t already considered enabling it on your site, it’s time to assess your situation. If you aren’t sure whether your site needs HTTPS version, or which pages of your site actually require SSL encryption, this article will point you in the right direction. Why HTTPS Is Important HTTPS is distinct from HTTP because of the way data is transferred between a user’s Internet browser and a website’s host. The “S” indicates the presence of an install SSL certificate, which is a purchasable add-on that encrypts information that is exchanged between different sources. It is extremely important for user privacy on the Internet, because without encryption, foreign users can view what data is being transmitted and steal it for their own purposes. In short, HTTPS URL/new HTTPS URLs and the SSL certificates that accompany it, exist in order to protect online users’ privacy by scrambling and masking their data. Sites that handle sensitive information, such as credit card numbers and other personal data, need SSL encryption to make their users feel safe and prevent the risk of a data breach. A New Impact on SEO HTTPS may be rising in importance, if you read into Google’s announcement that HTTPS is now a ranking signal in their search algorithms. For now, the impact on SEO is relatively minimal—according to the official statement, the change is only going to affect one percent of all search queries. But Google likes to roll things out slowly, and when they make a decision about a new web standard, they tend to stick with that decision. SSL encryption won’t give you a rank boost right away, at least not a significant one, but Google will likely increase the favoritism it gives to sites with SSL encryption in the coming months and years in an effort to improve user privacy and overall user experience online. Eventually, it’s reasonable to suspect that every site will need SSL encryption to meet Google’s standard, but for now, it’s a secondary priority unless your site already needs SSL encryption. Shameless plug: we take care of these important SEO pieces directly for our clients, including other agencies with white label SEO.  What Is Google Changing? Google doesn’t always like revealing the details of its algorithm changes, in an effort to reduce the number of people who might take advantage of the change to favor their personal ranks. But in this case, they’ve been surprisingly open. On August 6, 2014, Google openly disclosed that they were testing and implementing an algorithm feature that uses HTTPS links as a ranking signal. As mentioned above, this ranking signal will only affect about one percent of search queries—so other factors, like high-quality content, will still take precedent. So why is Google making this change? In short, they want to make the Internet a more secure place for the common user. They’re essentially setting a new web standard. By rolling out a change that only affects a small number of queries, Google is giving webmasters time to make the upgrade at their own pace. Google is a straightforward practitioner of its own philosophy. In recent months, they’ve already taken efforts to spruce up the security of their own products. Anybody using the basic Google search engines, their Gmail account, their Google+ account , or really anything associated with Google, can rest assured knowing their connection is secure or have asecure connection. Google has also taken measures to help website owners who have had their sites hacked. Google’s intentions are to make every website follow a similar “HTTPS by default” practice. Is It Important for My Website? This is the tricky part. HTTPS is already extremely important

Niche edits are one of the most powerful yet easiest link building techniques today, slightly different from the regular back linking approaches. Essentially, niche edit is a process in which a new link is placed or indexed within the old, established content or an existing blog post. This technique has been in practice for ages by the name of contextual link, and it has always played a significant role in SEO best practices. However, the significant difference is that the technique was used to link pages to credible and high-authority URLs like Wikipedia. Over time, link-building experts discovered new ways to use this technique as their regular link building strategy for better and instant results. This technique later became famous as “Niche Edits” or “Niche Edit Links.” Niche edits are powerful as they offer links to credible and authoritative posts or URLs. You can call it a shortcut for authoritative link building that provides more value than regular link building without consuming more time and effort. How Do Niche Edits Work? As a link-building expert, you know how links work and how you have to create new content every time to place new links. However, the niche edit backlinks are more robust as they typically provide efficient and instant results. Here, the builders have to look for credible content and request the owner for niche edits in exchange for a specific amount of money. What makes niche edits different from regular link building services is that the placements are paid. That is why it offers quick results. Due to its efficacy, it is one of the most popular link-building strategies that your successful competitors might have been investing in. However, to make it all work seamlessly, you need to look for content relevant to your anchor text and belong to your niche. Once you know how niche edits work, here are the three stages of the niche edits process that you need to know: Three stages of Niche Editing Stage 1: Reach out To Potential Blogging Sites You will have to look for the most credible sites from your relevant niche, have relevant content, and higher DA (Domain Authority). Web pages with all of these qualities are trusted by Google search engines and offer plenty of link juice (flowing link authority). Tip: Do not forget to evaluate appropriate opportunities before contacting the website owners to negotiate and get the best offer. Once you find such web pages, blogs, or content, y reach out to the owners and provide the anchor text you want to be indexed and the target URLs for niche edit links. Discuss the link placement opportunities and the price you will have to pay for the niche edit. Stage 2: Craft Additional Content This stage entails creating additional content to add value to the older one and ensuring that your anchor text fits best in the chosen part. This way, you can enhance the blog post and incorporate your link without disturbing the flow or tone of that content. Tip: Always keep the same tone, format, structure, and quality for the additional part used in the older version. Stage 3: Review Your Placements Once your request for the niche edit is accepted, and the link is placed, review the link, anchor text, and the placement. This will help you evaluate the link’s effectiveness. Ask for a snapshot of the Domain Authority metrics as the link was placed. Also, always export an unbranded CSV file for white label reporting. Some Factors That Come Into Play For Niche Editing It is crucial to understand a few ranking metrics before linking to a website that makes the process easier and faster. Here are some of the crucial factors that you should consider when niche editing along with the professional-grade tools to assess the metrics: Overall Domain Traffic – Semrush Domain & Page Authority – Moz Domain Backlink Profiles – Semrush Trust & Citation Flow – Majestic Spam Score – Moz C-Class IP Address – Chrome Plugin These metrics decide your links’ effectiveness and help you set the price you will pay to the webmasters. Benefits Of Niche Edits If used with niche edits appropriately with a robust strategy, Niche edits offer a great outcome. Here are a few benefits that you can reap by investing in niche edits. Increased Web Traffic Google loves old, highly valuable content that is informative and offers value to its readers. At the same time, niche editing requires high-performing posts and web pages. With that said, linking your article to web pages with high traffic ultimately increases your web traffic. Improved DA & Ranking On The SERP Linking your article to a page already indexed on the search engine is a hundred times better than linking to a guest post with no Page or Domain Authority. Older credible websites with well-built authority will direct more link juice to your article, resulting in improved rankings instantly. Genuine Outreach Niche edits allow you to increase your networking by reaching out to potential prospects. The process requires genuine outreach and communication to ensure maximum negotiation for getting the best offer. In addition, genuine outreach saves you from violating Google’s guidelines that forbid you to buy backlinks. Easy access The Niche edits technique is relatively easier to use as compared to guest posting. Most blogging websites are flooded with guest posting requests. We all know guest posting can take time and entails content creation that complies with quality standards. That is why web admins have to be extra careful when publishing content on their websites. Poor quality of content can affect the website’s credibility, and with a flooded inbox, blogging influencers choose the easy way out. They prioritize the niche edits and allow more collaborators to contribute to the platform providing easy access to its benefits. Instant Results The fact that you link your articles to already ranked pages, you get instant results. The authority from these pages flows to your links automatically. This increases your credibility in

This SEO guide for beginners is meant to provide high-level SEO basics for SEO newbies. The goal of SEO is to increase your search visibility, which in turn will increase your site traffic. Google (and other search engines) ranks sites based on a combination of two broad categories: relevance and authority. Relevance is how closely the content of a page is going to meet a user’s needs and expectations (known as matching search intent). Domain Authority is a measure of how trustworthy or authoritative the source of the content is. Google’s ranking system calls this the E-E-A-T framework: Experience Expertise Authoritativeness Trustworthiness Your search engine optimization (SEO) tactics will usually involve building your authority (aka E-E-A-T), increasing your relevance for targeted queries, or both, across three main areas of optimization: On-site optimization. On-site optimization is the process of making your site more visible, more authoritative, and easier for Google’s web crawlers to parse and understand. Many of these tweaks and strategies involve technical changes to your site, including adjustments to your backend code and other structural site changes. Ongoing content marketing. Content and search engine marketing is the best way to build your authority and relevance on-site over time; you’ll have the chance to choose topics and optimize for keyword phrases your target audience will use, and simultaneously create content that proves your authoritativeness on the subject. Off-site optimization (link building). Off-page optimization is a collection of tactics designed to promote your on-site content and improve your authority by building links yourself or hiring a link building service to build them for you. The quantity and quality of links pointing to your site has a direct influence on how much authority your site is perceived to have and, eventually, how you rank in search results. Technical SEO for Beginners Don’t worry. I’m going to make this as painless as possible. In this section, I’m going to cover most of the technical SEO elements that you’ll need to consider for your campaign. These SEO resources are not only presented to increase your SEO knowledge, but also provide you detailed, actionable steps so you can make appropriate changes to your site, understand the search engine ranking factors you’ll need to consider or monitor and potential shore-up any technical issues that could come up during your SEO efforts. I’m going to cover these SEO basics as simply and as thoroughly as possible—so you can understand them and use them, no matter how much technical experience you have. Search Engine Indexing When you go to a library for information, librarians can probably help you by finding a book. But no matter how relevant a book may be to your interests, it won’t matter if the book isn’t currently on the shelves. Libraries must acquire books as they’re released, updating old copies and adding new copies, to keep the most recent information on the shelves. Search indexing works similarly. To provide quality organic search results, Google (and other search engines) work to maintain shelves of “books,” in this case, a running archive of websites and web pages that are available on the web. Google uses automated search engine bots, sometimes known as “crawlers” or “spiders” to continually search the web for new web page entries, which it then logs in its central system. Why is Indexing Relevant for Ranking in the Search Engines?  If you want to be listed in search engines, and be listed accurately, you need to make sure your site is indexed correctly. There are three main approaches you can take for search indexing: Passive SEO & Website Management  The first approach is the easiest, and probably the best for SEO beginners. Search engines want to keep the books on its shelves updated, so it makes an effort to crawl sites completely on its own. In the passive approach, you’ll simply wait for search engines to index your site, and trust its best judgment when it comes to canonicalizing and optimizing your URL structures. For this method, you don’t have to do anything; you simply pass the reins to Google and let it take care of the indexing work. The only potential disadvantage here, other than forfeiting some degree of control, is that it sometimes takes more time for search engines to update its index—up to a few weeks for new sites and new material. Active SEO & Website Management  The active approach allows you to update the URL structures and hierarchies on your site using an on-site site map. Known as an HTML sitemap, this is easy to create (so long as you’re familiar with the process of creating new pages on your site). Create a web page called “Sitemap” and list all the pages on your site you want search engines to index, separated into categories and subcategories as appropriate, to provide hints to bots as to how your links interact with one another. You should also include descriptions to identify what each link is used for (briefly). This doesn’t guarantee SEO rankings or indexation, but can help clarify confusion and speed up the indexing process. The major disadvantage here is that you’ll need to adjust it every time you make changes to your site, unless you use an automatic sitemap solution which updates itself any time you publish new pages. There are WordPress plugins which offer this functionality. A clean, effective sitemap is critical to optimizing on page SEO and on site SEO. Direct Website Management  In the direct route, you’ll create an XML sitemap—which is different from an HTML sitemap. It’s essentially a txt file that contains a list of your site’s URLs, with descriptions that inform search engines how to consider and index your links, in relation to one another. Once done, you’ll upload it directly to Google. This is a fair bit more complex than an HTML sitemap, but is manageable if you take the time to read Google’s instructions properly. This isn’t necessary, but could be useful in speeding up the initial indexing process