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Are Sitemaps Important? • More a Requirement

Site-maps. These have often been considered redundant within the process of website creation. This is even truer today as the search engines have found more interesting ways to categorize websites.
September 19, 2011

Creating a site-map for the sake of having one is, in fact, redundant, but if you understand the importance of a well-constructed site-map, you will then be able to tailor the site-map to your own specific needs.

Here are some reasons on why you should create a site-map and utilize it in your website designs.

Navigation

The site-map itself is what the name portrays – a topographical map to your website. If an end user browses your site and gets lost throughout the endless information your site has to offer, they can always refer to your site-map for navigation.

Site Optimization

A site-map is a single page which will contain a link to each of the other pages your site contains. If a search engine spider comes across your site-map what do you think will happen? They will follow each link and in time, every page of your site will be indexed. This is good. It is also for this purpose that a link to the sitemap should be placed prominently on the front page of your site.

Theme

When an end user clicks the site-map link on your website they can get a glimpse of the overall theme you are trying to portray. Forcing the end user to look through each page individually to make an intelligent guess as to your reasoning would be a waste of the end users time and the goal of any website design.

Organization

Not only for the end user… a site-map also helps with the creation of the website design process. It gives the designer a birds-eye view of the entire site infrastructure allowing a more general idea of where to place new content and sections. The result becomes a perfectly organized website with all information sorted according to its relevance.

It is most important to implement a site-map for website projects with a considerable size. This allows for a well-organized machine that is easily accessible for everyone, including the one doing the designing.



Written By • Jon D

Web Developer / Managing Director
Jon is a website designer in Flagstaff Arizona. He started with web design at the age of 17 where he created a website where he would test and choose the best software from around the internet. It was all hand coded with Homesite – at that time the best (in his humble opinion) HTML editor around. He believes in local economy, open source technology, and helps bring the best the internet has to offer to his clientelle.

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