Do you have a sitemap?

Sitemaps are not just the page you create for search engines so that they can see all the pages you have on your site, a site map is also simply a map of the way your site is laid out.

A sitemap is the backbone to your site, and should always be created prior to starting any design. These are the details that tell you what pages you need, how the navigation will work and how people get from page A to page B. If you were to avoid building a sitemap, and jump right into design, there is a high posibility that you would not only forget about pages, but that the design would feel disjointed and unorganized.

To create your sitemap, you don’t need expensive programs or tools, you just need a little time and a little patience. When I am working on one, I use either a whiteboard (for small sites or blogs). I like it because it is easy to erase and re-order and I can physically touch it (I’m a big proponent of ‘real’ tools). If I am working on a larger site (15+ pages), I use Word and map it out, this is helpful as you can make it as big as you want, but unless you print it out, it can be difficult to follow.

Once you have decided the best tool for mapping it out, you are ready to get started on the sitemap itself. My website is small, so I am going to use its sitemap for the demonstration. Here is the sitemap that I used when mapping out my most recent design:

There are a few things to notice about this map:

1. It is color coded to help me separate the levels. One is blue, two is pink, three is green. All of the level three pages exist on the site, but the only way to get to them (unless someone has the exact url for that page) is through the level two pages. The level two links work a little differently because those are my “navigation”. Every page on the site has those links, but I only place them under the homepage. Why? Because the place I want people to start, and the place where the level two links originate is from the homepage.
2. I don’t include the “links to sites” as subpages. In this case, when someone clicks on a link to a page (or a picture of the page on my portfolio) it takes the user to that site. Since they are leaving my site, I can leave it out of the navigation.
3. It is not perfect. Your sitemap is never going to be exact, sites change and grow over time, but if you have a solid idea of where you want to start and end, you will have an easier time with the design itself. For example, I know I need 4 buttons on my blog, because there are 4 places I want people to be able to go from there. This aides in the layout, and knowing how much space I need for the content.

Finally, if you already have a site designed, it doesn’t mean that you can’t still create a sitemap. In fact, I recommend that you create one without looking at your site, and then compare what you want to see happening to what you actually see. If there is a big difference, you may want to contemplate making some design tweaks.

Did you build a sitemap for your website? Why/Why not? If you didn’t have one, and you created one after the fact, what did you learn?

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