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Designing Your Site Map Page
Tips to help you create a user-friendly site map.
by Alyice Edrich
All materials copyrighted
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Ad Disclaimer
Designing the site map page can often feel like a waste of web space, but if done correctly, it can be a wonderful place for new
visitors to explore your website in more detail and a place to help search engine spiders locate the key entry pages of your website.
When designing your site map, keep these three points in mind:
Keep It Simple
Your visitors should not have to learn complicated programming or read through a “how to use this page” message just to dig deeper into
your website.
The simplest way to display the infrastructure of your website is to design a site map that lists the contents of your website by
alphabetical or categorical order. (Personally I prefer categorical order because I can jump directly to the section I am interested
in and find a jumping off point for what I am searching for.)
Use Hypertext Linking System
Instead of designing a complicated site map with expanding links, visual aides, animated graphics, charts, etc., design a simple site
map that gives your visitors an overview of what your website is all about with a static web page that uses a simple linking structure.
Your links can be named based on the category names within your website or by terms your visitors are more likely to use when searching
for information within your website. (A good example of such a
site map can be found here.)
Keep To One Page
Keep your site map on one web page and make sure your visitors can view the entire site map without having to scroll left to right. What
this means is that you want to design your site map for your average user’s screen size. (You can determine this by checking your stats
counter. Most stats counters give you this information in an area called system stats or resolution stats.)
The key to designing a user-friendly site map is to consider who your visitors are and how they will best benefit from your site map. By
making sure your site map doesn’t overwhelm your visitors, you can increase your visitor click-through rate, and quite possibly your
sales.
About The Author:
Alyice Edrich is a mixed media artist, freelance writer, and aspiring photographer. She enjoys creating things that bring joy
to others. Visit our her blog, Coming Home, to check out her latest art. Or
stop by her resume site, AlyiceEdrich.net to learn how you can hire her for your
next project.
* This article is available for your publication, for a F-E-E.
This article may NOT be reprinted without monetary compensation and written permission from the author.
For reprint rights or comments/questions about this article, please contact the author.
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