Create a simple sitemap page

You’ve just implemented a nice website JavaScript dropdown menu that consolidates all your webpages under specific categories. It looks real neat, you launch the website, the Googlebot visits – and 2 months later, none of your pages are indexed except for the homepage!

We come across this quite a lot and it’s a mistake that’s easy to make. Google and other search engines are not able to follow links within JavaScript menus. Therefore, search engines will not be able to find your other website pages. Doh!

The solution is simple. Create a sitemap page that lists all the other pages as regular links. Link to the sitemap page from a convenient part of the website – often the footer region, and Google/other search engines should then be able to find all your other pages. Sit back and wait for high search engine rankings. Well, there’s a bit more to it than that – but you get the idea.

You may even find that your ‘real’ website visitors (you know, those people you created the website for in the first place) will find the sitemap page useful as well (!)

TIP: You can also create an XML file for a Google Sitemaps submission – but this is quite different to the sitemap page described above.