Have you ever visited a web site and noticed the “Site Map” button jammed somewhere near the bottom of the page? Ever click on it? Probably not. So, why do sites have site maps?
The Site Map Very Important
In the old days of the net [about three years ago], experts proclaimed every site should have a site map. From their ivory tower, they proclaimed the site map as the extraordinary method to assure potential customers could easily navigate the site and find what they needed. Once they found it, they would buy it and you would be rich, rich, rich!
As is typical with such universally accepted proclamations, this one was wrong. Anyone remotely paying attention to server statistics realized very few people were visiting site maps. The proclamation stopped being shouted and evolved into criticisms of sites which still have site maps. These criticisms, of course, also miss the mark.
HTML site maps are archaic. Visitors to your site will almost never use them. You may even forget you have one. You will certainly forget to update it as often as you should. Still, the site map is a critical component of the site.
The first thing to...