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What is a sitemap for a website?

A sitemap is a list of all the pages on your site, like an outline, helping you organize content, improve SEO and create intuitive navigation.

Website sitemap
What is a Sitemap? Let’s Break it Down Simply

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  1. Chapter 1 How to define a sitemap
  2. Chapter 2 What does a sitemap do?
  3. Chapter 3 What are the different types of sitemaps?
  4. Chapter 4 What does a sitemap look like?
  5. Chapter 5 How to use a sitemap based on your job role?
  6. Chapter 6 Why website sitemap planning is important
  7. Chapter 7 Do you need a sitemap on your website?
  8. Chapter 8 How to create a website sitemap for free
  9. Chapter 9 Sitemap examples & free sitemap templates
  10. Chapter 10 A brief history of sitemaps & web design
  11. FAQs Frequently asked questions
  12. Signup Start creating sitemaps!

Chapter 1

How to define a sitemap

Sitemap

sitemap • [sahyt-map]

A list or visual representation of every page on a website that shows the relationships between them and the site hierarchy.

noun

"I couldn't find the page I was looking for, so I checked the sitemap"

Synonyms

  • site map
  • index
  • directory
  • outline
  • roadmap
  • floorplan
  • blueprint
  • site tree
  • site contents
  • site index
  • website map
  • site structure
  • website index
  • site directory
  • site hierarchy

Chapter 2

What does a sitemap do?

Makes communicating ideas about website structure easy

Makes communicating ideas about website structure easy

Simplifies planning and collaboration on website content

Simplifies planning and collaboration on website content

Allows you to optimize your site for specific goals

Allows you to optimize your site for specific goals

Chapter 3

What are the different types of sitemaps?

Visual sitemap

  • A 2D image or drawing representing the structure of a website.
  • Pages are represented as blocks and cells linked together in a hierarchical organizational chart.
  • Visual sitemaps are often created with a computer by manually drawing and linking each block or they're reverse-engineered by crawling an existing website.

    Excellent for establishing:

    • User journeys
    • Internal and external links
    • Sharpening the overall user experience

HTML sitemap

  • HTML-formatted sitemaps are used by people to quickly and easily understand content locations and discover pages on your site.
  • HTML sitemaps should be included as a page on a website as a navigation aid in addition to the menu, they're commonly found linked in the footer.
  • Search engine spiders are big fans of seeing HTML sitemaps alongside their XML cousins because it shows your commitment to a user-centric site.

    Great as:

    • An additional navigational tool for visitors as it's quite literally a page that shows all the pages on your site

XML sitemap

  • An XML, or extensible markup language, formatted list of pages readable by search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
  • Submitting XML sitemaps to search engines allows for better and more comprehensive website indexing.
  • If your site’s pages aren't being indexed by Googlebot and the like, it means they won't come up in search results.

    Required for ensuring your website is:

    • Properly indexed
    • Optimized for search

XML media sitemap

  • Essentially an extension of an XML sitemap.
  • XML media sitemaps allow for better indexing of non-HTML content such as images, videos, PDFs, audio files, etc.

    Excellent for:

    • Websites with rich media content

RSS feed

  • An XML formatted feed that can be used easily to distribute and read timely website and blog content.
  • Typically sitemap files on a server that are auto-updated when new content is published to a website.

    Perfect for websites that constantly create new content like:

    • News outlets
    • Active blogs

News sitemap

  • Slightly different from an RSS feed, news sitemaps are a specialized XML-based sitemap used by search engines to aggregate fresh newsworthy content.
  • These sitemaps include additional metadata about news articles, sources, etc.

    Essential if you're publishing news pages that you want to appear in Google News results

Video & image sitemap

  • A video sitemap helps search engines find out about video content on your website, allowing them to better index and improve visibility.
  • Image sitemaps do much the same as video sitemaps, providing Google and others with info about the images on your website, allowing for greater discoverability and indexing for better search results.

Chapter 4

What does a sitemap look like?

Chapter 5

How to use a sitemap based on your job role?

Sitemaps for designers

Sitemaps for designers

A sitemap ensures your pages and content stay organized which makes it easier for visitors to navigate and search engine crawlers to index.

Sitemaps for developers

Sitemaps for developers

Working from a sitemap has a couple big benefits, it allows you to get into production faster and makes development more efficient.

Sitemaps for SEOs & marketers

Sitemaps for SEOs & marketers

A solid sitemap helps you organize, create and gather content, build an internal linking strategy and guide your audience toward conversions.

Sitemaps for website owners

Sitemaps for website owners

As an owner, a sitemap is a perfect way to see the entire site structure at a glance, confirming all is well and making it easy to spot issues.

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Chapter 6

Why website sitemap planning is important

Chapter 7

Do you need a sitemap on your website?

Smaller sites, like a simple sales landing page, on the other hand, don't justify the effort.

Having a blueprint is imperative for building a house, right? Well, a site map is the equivalent for your website and without one you're basically building blind.

From content creation to SEO to ensuring pages are properly linked, the site map plays a massive role in the evolution of your website. It's something you'll constantly refer to in the development stages to stay on track, and once you're up and running, you'll update and submit your XML sitemaps to stay relevant in search.

Whether you use our free sitemap generator or go for a 14-day trial of the whole Slickplan suite, a sitemap truly allows you to get the most out of your design and development team en route to crafting a site that's a joy to visit and ranks well; saving time and money in the process.

Thumb up Use a sitemap if…

  • You have a large website
  • You're creating a new site
  • Your website changes often
  • Pages aren't interlinked well
  • Your site has tons of rich media

Thumb up Don't use a sitemap if…

  • You don't have many pages
  • You're making a one-pager
  • You're building a portfolio site
  • Search traffic is unimportant
  • Your site will never change

Chapter 8

How to create a website sitemap for free

Step 1 Sign up for a free 14-day trial of Slickplan

Sign up form for Slickplan

Step 2 Set up your sitemap project in minutes

Set up your sitemap project in minutes

Step 3 Collaborate & export your sitemap with ease

Collaborate & export your sitemap with ease

Slickplan has everything you need to start sitemapping

  • FlowMapp
  • DYNO Mapper
  • Octopus
  • rarchy
  • Site crawler & XML import
  • Diagramming
  • Content planning
  • WordPress & CMS plugins
  • Google Analytics integrated
  • UX/UI design sharing
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No credit card required

Chapter 9

Sitemap examples & free sitemap templates

Banking international website structure template Banking international website structure template Blog sitemap template Blog sitemap template Corporate website structure template Corporate website structure template Ecommerce website structure template Ecommerce website structure template Mobile website structure template Mobile website structure template Multilingual website structure template Multilingual website structure template One page website structure template One page website structure template Portfolio website structure template Portfolio website structure template Real estate sitemap template Real estate sitemap template SaaS website structure template SaaS website structure template University website structure template University website structure template Create your own sitemap template

Chapter 10

A brief history of sitemaps & web design

Oddly enough, building sitemaps as a planning strategy for websites is a relatively new concept that only came about in the mid 2000s. The need to pre-plan became much more pronounced as web designers shifted to a content-first philosophy.

Prior to this time, most websites were planned and designed as graphical mockups, page by page, based solely on business requirements. Website project plans consisted of image files representing what each page looked like with additional documentation stored in text files.

Typically, navigation structure was an afterthought. Just a way to link together all of a website’s pages. It was more utilitarian than anything else.

So what is a site map in web design then? What’s changed?

  • 1990s
  • 2000s
  • 2010s
  • 2020s

With the shift to a content-first strategy, the user became the primary focus of website design planning and the internet is better for it.

Content is now broken into categories and organized to provide the user with peak relevancy and accessibility; intuitive hierarchical organization has become the goal and really the norm nowadays.

This strategy naturally requires the considerable pre-planning of a website's page structures but doing it well is something that's become richly rewarded by search engines.

Designers and developers in effect borrowed tactics from software developers and created the specialized flowcharts we now call sitemaps.

Creating sitemaps by hand evolved into fully interactive visual diagrams and sitemap generators to help expedite the process.

By 2012, site mapping as a process was widely adopted by the web design and development industry.

Nowadays you can't define sitemap without discussing web design in the same breath.

Taking it into the future and moving site mapping to the cloud as we have at Slickplan has allowed us to offer a richer feature set as well as more collaborative workflows.

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Frequently asked questions

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Improve UX with an intuitive sitemap

Wendy Saunders

Great software. I have been looking for something like this for ages and have previously resorted to mind map software.

Wendy Saunders, Creative Director at Squiggle Limited