Website 101: The Sitemap

A sitemap is a structured list of all pages within a website. It is the table of contents for your web presence and is crucial both during the planning phase of a website and for the end user experience. The sitemap foundation becomes the page navigation that dictates the user experience. If your content is not organized in a clear and standardized way, the user will leave your site frustrated and uninterested in your brand.

Often, a sitemap is completely separate from the look and feel of a business website.  So, while the sitemap is a critical starting place to get you thinking about your web project, it doesn’t dictate that your site will be “boring”. On the flip side, a website that is graphically appealing or full of pizazz may still come off as a smoke and mirrors magic trick if the user does not know what information is available or how to find what they are looking for.

Visualization

A sitemap can be viewed in two ways:

1. A list format – this is like a table of contents in a book.

   Think text book:  the information is grouped by chapter and each chapter has a few subsections.  In the web world, we call the chapters ’superpages” and the sections “subpages”.

2. A graphical map format – this is more like a mind map.

   Surprising, this can be dangerous. It looks great to present the end user with a visual map of your website, but during the planning phase of a website, it might become too easy to leave areas of your map too vague or to navigate a user through a series of pages without providing them a “map back” to main content.

Most important for anyone planning a website creation or redesign:  Not throughly planning out your website beforehand is an expensive disaster waiting to happen. Even when you are using great CMS technology.

Users love a new and engaging experience, but from the business world they expect a few constants:

• An “About Us” page: This should always be near a top-level page if not a superpage. It can be named something more clever as long as users will understand that the page is about your company.
• At least one top-level superpage devoted to your company’s products or services.
• A “Contact Us” page: Many times, users only go to your website to get up-to-date contact information. Remember, younger people are much less likely to use a phone book. Make this easy: don’t put up walls around the information your readers are looking for.

A Conceptual Template

• Home
• About Us
  • Our History
  • Our Staff
• Our Services
  • Service A
  • Service B
  • Get A Quote
• Submit Your Order
• Latest News
• Contact Us

Search engines have become increasingly good at recognizing legitimate businesses verses imitators by viewing a website’s sitemap and analyzing the content of each page. A well-structured site means that when a user searches for your company name, or related products and services in your area in order to buy and submitting orders for a specific product, your website is more likely to rank highly.

In fact, depending on your market, your Homepage, About Us, and Contact Us might all be listed in a search engine result so that users have one-click access.

XML Sitemap and SEO

Sitemaps are crucial when planning a website, but they do not have to be set in stone. One important aspect of the technologies we use is the ability for our clients to grow their website. This means that as a company expands and adds a service or adds a second type of service or product,  corresponding pages can easily be added to the website and and the content modified appropriately:

• Home
• About Us
  • Our History
  • Our Staff
• Our Services
  • Service A
    • Type I
    • Type II
  • Service B
  • Service C
  • Get A Quote
• Submit Your Order
• Latest News
• Contact Us

If a site has been structured correctly, search engines will pick-up on the addition and re-index your site accordingly. One last important step in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the existence of a properly formatted .XML sitemap that lives off-menu in the root directory of your website hosting server.

Check out Steele Agency’s XML sitemap.

As you can see, its a complicated array of URL’s and priorities, where superpages are given top priority and blog posts are given lower priority, which tells search engines to list your Homepage, About Us, and Contact Us pages first in their search listings.

Because this is one thing all the major search engines agree upon, there is a standard protocol for generating and submitting these links, and thus a we can build functions into your website that automatically update and submit a properly formated XML sitemap.

Final Notes

• When building a sitemap, start with a structure that is unlikely to change, but that will allow room for growth.
• Do not get in the habit of changing top-level pages, as Search Engines will take note and assume your content is unreliable and rank your website – and thus your digital presence – poorly.
• The sitemap can contain sections, for example, adding a top-level page call Blog or Recent News is understood as meaning that articles will be posted and displayed in that section.
• Every user experiences your site differently. Some may like your menu navigation and the way it reflects the organization of your content; however some people may prefer a simple organized list posted somewhere off-menu, for example: View Our User-Friendly Sitemap