Planning Your Website: The Site Map
This blog entry was posted on January 14, 2009.
One of the first steps in creating your new website is to create a site map of which pages you want to include. This is actually “story-boarding” your sales presentation. Having a picture of your whole web site will make it easier to create a menu system that is useful to your visitors.
The planning site map is actually a flowchart that shows your list of pages and sub-pages. It shows how they relate to each other. This doesn’t require special software. The example below was prepared using Microsoft Word.
Let’s say you have a restaurant and you want a 10 page website. You would start by listing out the topics that would answer the questions your visitors would have.
For a restaurant a visitor may want to know:
- What makes the restaurant special and different than others in the area?
- What’s their menu and pricing?
- Will the food work with my diet?
- Where are they located and what are their hours?
- Can I get a job there?
- Do they sell gift cards?
This is a site map that would answer these questions.
How to create a site map
- Start by listing out the pages to include. Avoid using obscure names for your pages, it will only confuse your visitors . Your home page should explain what you provide and why they should choose you. The About Us page should talk about your history, mission, vision and values.
- Group pages that cover the same general subject. Then order them according to how people will look for them. For example, people will first look for the menu and then ask about the nutritional values.
- The sequence of topics should match your best sales process. In the site map above, the visitor would look first at the Home page. Then they would want to learn about the restaurant (About Us). Then they would want to check out the menu. Finally they would want to see where they are located and their hours.
- Use the site map to create the menu or navigation for your website.
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Related posts:
- Web Site Navigation can be like adding a GPS
- Do XML Site Maps Help SEO?
- Planning your Internet Marketing Strategies
Filed under: Internet Marketing,Website Design
This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 14th, 2009 at 6:31 am and is filed under Internet Marketing, Website Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.No Comments
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Agreed. Creating a sitemap of your new site / site redesign is crucial in planning on optimization efforts.
I personally use a free online service called WriteMaps – http://www.writemaps.com. Not the best web application but I do like the online sharing aspect of it..
Comment by Christian — January 14, 2009 @ 10:54 am
Christian – That is a nice tool to use. I hadn’t seen that before. Thanks.
Comment by Doug Williams — January 14, 2009 @ 11:18 am
[...] It forces you to think through your website’s functionality at the page level. We use creating a sitemap and wireframing as the first two steps in website [...]
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[...] It forces you to think through your website’s functionality at the page level. We use creating a sitemap and wireframing as the first two steps in website [...]
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[...] Steps: You are now ready to plan your website. Refine this into a structured sitemap. Define what actions we want visitors to take (Sign-up, request quote, buy, etc). Identify examples [...]
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