When you visit a website, there’s a good chance you’ll find a link to the so-called sitemap at the very bottom of the page. If you click on it, an overview of all the subpages that make up the website will appear. You can use the sitemap to quickly navigate to the subpage you’re looking for. From this perspective, you can simply think of the sitemap as a website’s table of contents.
If you have a website of your own, it’s definitely worth considering adding a sitemap. Later in this article, you’ll read why we say that, and we’ll also provide tips to help you optimize your sitemap. First, however, we’ll mention something that many people don’t yet know: namely, that there are two completely different types of sitemaps.
What types of sitemaps are there?
As mentioned, there are two types of sitemaps:
The HTML sitemap
This is the sitemap as described above. It is a page where website visitors can clearly see exactly which subpages a website contains.
The XML sitemap
Unlike the HTML sitemap, the XML version is not visible to the consumer. An XML sitemap is intended to improve your website’s online discoverability or Google ranking. XML sitemaps therefore consist of code that must be read by Google’s algorithms to determine the site’s relevance and authority.
Benefits of an HTML sitemap
Adding an HTML sitemap can offer the following benefits for your website and, consequently, your business:
- A website visitor can quickly navigate your site using a sitemap. This improves the user-friendliness of your site.
- Thanks to your sitemap, people may stay on your website longer. This is because the sitemap allows them to see subpages they might not have found otherwise.
- If your website’s internal link structure isn’t (yet) up to par, a sitemap can help guide the user to the right page anyway.
- If you have a large website with many subpages, an HTML sitemap helps to organize the structure.
From the points mentioned above, it is clear that large, complex websites with a lot of information and numerous subpages benefit most from adding an HTML sitemap.
Sitemap tips
As mentioned, adding a sitemap to your website can significantly improve your site’s user-friendliness. However, it would be a mistake to think that a sitemap in which you simply list all subpages with their corresponding links one after another is sufficient.
For optimal performance and user-friendliness, more is needed. For example, provide a sitemap in table form, or a clear overview with the necessary indentations. This makes it clear to the visitor which categories, tabs, and topics your website contains and which subpages fall under them. Also, use an attractive, clear, and large font, ensure that all links are clickable, and make sure that each link leads to the correct subpage.
