Helping Google find non-homepages

Question

Hi all,
I know this question has been dealt with before in different ways, but I was wondering if someone could help me out with it given the following circumstances:
I’ve made a couple of sites in iWeb, hosted to Godaddy.
Google has no trouble finding my home pages. I google my site and voila, there it is.
However, I take it that because I use iWeb’s navigation bar, Google knows only about my homepage.
I have another site, not done with iWeb (made by pros), and every page on it is returned with a search of a relevant word. If I search for a topic on one of its subpages, for example, Google will return the URL of that subpage in its results. I’d like the same thing to occur with my iWeb sites, so all their pages are visible to search engines.
So here’s the thing. I’m not concerned about my iWeb homepages getting noticed by Google since that happens on its own (actually, other sites will link to my site when they know I’ve thrown something up). Also, I don’t want to turn off iWeb’s navigation bar. I think it looks great, and I’d rather not replace it.
So… is a sitemap what I need? If so, where do I start? What should be my strategy given that:
• I make my site in iWeb
• I like using iWeb's nav bar
• I use Fetch to FTP my site to Godaddy for hosting
• I’m not worried about Google finding my homepage
• I am worried about Google finding all the other pages
• Outside of making sites in iWeb and FTP’ing to Godaddy, I’m a noob.
Are there alternatives to doing a sitemap, or is that exactly what I need?
Many thanks in advance!

Answer 1

ragesw wrote:
In addition to what Roddy suggested I can provide you with some additional information as one of the developers of Sitemap Automator;
Thanks for all your feedback and advice.
1) A text based navigation bar at the bottom of your page is a very good idea. The text you use to link to each page is important as Google will use it rank your website, so I suggest you link to your most important pages using consistent anchor text (anchor text is the clickable text that links to other pages).
Is there an advantage to bringing the nav bar to every page, or doesn't it make a difference? Also, I would imagine most nav text is generic, e.g. "contact us" although some is obviously unique, e.g. "iWeb_09"
Without an XML sitemap it is certainly possible to have all your pages indexed by search engines. XML Sitemaps were invented for websites built using FLASH, hard to index javascript (like iWeb sites), complex frames, forms etc... to help search engines find all content. However, they provide many more benefits which I will describe in more detail below.
I appreciate all the sitemap benefits you enumerate. In fact, I'm pretty much convinced and figure I'll build one eventually! However, to answer my original question directly and unambiguously, I take it from your response that:
THERE IS NO ADVANTAGE WHATSOEVER IN USING A SITEMAP OVER TRADITIONAL HTML PAGE LINK NAVIGATION IN HELPING A SEARCH ENGINE FIND AND CATALOG CONTENT ON NON-HOMEPAGES.
Again, I believe I understand all the other benefits of sitemaps. But, as I understand it, if you include text links to your other pages, search engines will find them every bit as much as if you use a sitemap.
2) Your sitemap needs to be in your root directory (under certain circumstances it doesn't have to be, but generally this is the case). Sitemap Automator puts it there for you.
What if you have a hosting account with different sites in subfolders off of your root folder?
3) The trial version of Sitemap Automator limits the number of links you can include in your sitemap and does not allow you to notify all search engines about it.
How many links and search engines does the trial software allow?
*Advantages of an XML Sitemap*
1) As you said, a sitemap will let you make sure that search engines know about your website without you having to change your site
I'm not sure what that means. Search engines know about my site even if I don't change it.
4) When you have a Google Webmaster Tools account you get a wealth of information about your website including;
a) reasons why certain pages may not be able to be indexed by search engines
b) The top search keywords that your website appears for AND the top searched keywords that send you traffic to your site (including recent trends)
c) Who links to your site and what anchor text they use (anchor text is important for search engines to help rank your website for certain keywords)
d) Lots more... I highly suggest you create a Google Webmaster Tools account because of all the interesting info you get
Those are compelling reasons.
If you provide a link to your website, I would be happy to provide specific advice for you.
Thanks! However, regarding specific advice, I'd feel more comfortable contacting you privately.
(also: apologies to you and everyone else who offered helpful advice. I wanted to mark all the responses as helpful, but apparently Apple's forum software only lets me identify a max of 2 comments as helpful!)