Posted by Adam T. Sutton in Driving Website Traffic	June 22, 2007

Google's Sitelinks can turn your 1 link into 6 on results pages

By Adam T. Sutton, Managing Editor, Mequoda Group, LLC

Google is constantly changing its algorithms, features and included media, so staying on top of your page rankings requires vigilance.

Just last month we reported that Google added images and video to its Web search results, pushing down some websites' rankings.

The struggle for rank can be tiresome, but 65 percent of all searching is done through Google. How can you afford to ignore that?

Today's Google news, luckily, is not bad, but it is another challenge.

Opportunity Knocks

To illustrate: search "yahoo" or "apple" in Google. You'll see the top results are links to the companies' websites, followed by links to five subdomains.

That means if you can appease the Google Gods you can turn your one page result into six links, which should make you very happy.

Thankfully this feature—called Sitelinks—is not pushing other results down. The five subdomain links are in addition to the other 10 results on the page.

Google explains that the system for choosing which websites get Sitelinks is totally automated, but there are ways to help your chances.

Organizing your website would help.

"If the structure of your site doesn't allow our algorithms to find good Sitelinks, or we don't think that the Sitelinks for your site are relevant for the user's query, we won't show them," according to Google's Webmaster Help Center.

Seizing Opportunity

One way you can help Google's algorithms wriggle their way into your subdomains (so Google can consider awarding you Sitelinks) is to give your website a good sitemap.

Sitemaps are XML files that list your website's URLs and metadata so that search engines can easily crawl your subdomains, according to Sitemaps.org.

Confused?

If so, go get your resident coders and send them here, to Sitemaps.org. That page should have everything a competent coder needs to start making your sitemap.

A good sitemap will organize your website's information so that Google, or any search engine, will have no trouble analyzing its deeper pages and marking them.

So get the coders cranking and get five more links from Google!

Using a sitemap to attract more search engine traffic is only one in a long list ways to help drive traffic to your website.

And after traffic arrives at your website, you need to monetize it.

To do both takes time and patience, and that's why we are offering the Mequoda Summit Boston 2007.

Come with us to Boston for two information packed days that will turn your publication into an online revenue machine.