My journey takes me along the path of a Web Entrepreneur.

My blog follows my journey and forces me to push my creative business ideas and mesh them with what I know about creating a successful website.

I’ve read article after article telling me I need to laser focus my blog’s niche crowd and write to them. These articles tell me if I write about web development, then only write about that. And if I write about entrepreneurship, only write about that. Consistency is key, otherwise, you’ll lose readership.

Don’t write about Google Sitemaps one day and then write about Unconventional Thinking the next, they say.

I don’t believe this is always the case.

To be a Web Entrepreneur, it’s not enough to only learn about popular web designs. It’s not good enough to only learn SEO techniques. And it’s definitely not good enough to only learn about marketing.

Googlebot reads websites, but not like you. Image by lauradahl

#1 on Google, and ok, maybe Yahoo!

That’s what Web Entrepreneurs want - and we all compete for it.

Here are some SEO guides I go by when optimizing a website.

Keep in mind though you should always first make sure your website is designed well for human navigation and readability; SEO is secondary. Googlebot doesn’t buy from you, humans do.

When thinking about search engine optimization, I always design with the notion that search engine algorithms change over time. Therefore, even if something today doesn’t have a huge impact on SEO but it seems logically it might, I use it when possible. I try not to assume, but always plan.

Please note this article has a lot of links. Ironically, I didn’t do this for SEO but rather educational purposes.

xml Sitemaps Are Quite Ugly Click image to view our Sitemap.

Is it necessary to have one? Will it affect my search engine rankings if I don’t have one? Will Google visit my website less because I don’t have one?

Let me see if I can clarify some of the questions people have when it comes to the widely known, but little understood, xml Sitemaps.

A xml Sitemap is a sitemap generated for your website that you have created for our buddy Googlebot to read and get to know your website.

There are some arguments out there as to whether or not a Sitemap is really beneficial to your website. The obvious advantage of having a Sitemap is to help Google index your site better, but does that really have any say in search engine optimization or PageRank?

Does Having A Sitemap Help My Search Engine Rankings?

It’s a crappy answer, but the answer is yes and no.

Imagine if you were the first company to own a printing press. What value could you bring to your customers? Courtesy of Wikipedia

Sean D’Souza wrote an article on Copyblogger entitled Why Urgency Succeeds Like Nothing Else In A Bad Economy.

While I agree with Sean that creating a sense of urgency is definitely a key factor in boosting sales during a slow economy, we also shouldn’t forget the power of adding company value to the list.

In marketing, you should always keep these 3 things in mind that your customer wants to know:

• So What?
• Why Now?
• Why Your Company?

Of course we should never forget the P’s of marketing and you should try your best to answer the above questions in your P’s.

The so what? factor isn’t necessarily a key to beating your competition, but rather simply shows potential customers the need of your product or service. “So What?” “Who Cares?” “Why Do I Need This?”