If you have a website, chances are you have heard a little bit about creating a sitemap so that search engines know the site exists and knows where to crawl to locate information. But did you know that there are two different kinds of flowchart sitemaps?
HTML – An HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) Sitemap is one that describes the content of the pages on your website. You can create a separate page on your site just for the purpose of having a flowchart of your pages, categories, and posts which would act as a navigation area. The purpose of this page is to elevate user experience by laying out your website’s page connections.
XML – An XML (Extensible Markup Language) Sitemap is one that is coding designed for search engine bots to read, which stores and transports website data. Similar to the HTML Sitemap, an XML Sitemap is also a flowchart sitemap of your pages, categories, and posts. But this sitemap’s purpose is to notify search engines your site exists so it can crawl your content, links, when content was updated, and the relevance and importance of your pages.
Today we are going to talk about creating an HTML Sitemap page for your website. Why it is important to have one. How it can affect your SEO. And how it helps to improve your follower’s experience. Let’s get started!
Why is it Important to have an HTML Flowchart Sitemap?
When it comes to the flow and design of your website you want to make sure people are easily able to find their way around to get the information that’s most important to them. You also want a design that encourages people to stay on your website longer. One really easy way to test whether or not your website design is giving these things to your readership is by having an HTML Flowchart Sitemap page.
You’re easily able to look at your page analytics to see how many people are visiting your sitemap page. If you notice a significant increase of visitors to this page, chances are it’s because they’re having a difficult time navigating your website and you should probably take this as a sign to reevaluate your design.
An HTML Flowchart Sitemap page is definitely a useful tool to help boost your reader’s experience when navigating your website by making your pages and links easier to locate. And you may also notice a boost in your SEO by creating your flowchart sitemap. This is because you have added a new page that houses multiple internal links sending those pages more “SEO juice”. It also acts as another means to tell search engine bots where to crawl, when they may have otherwise missed this information.
It is true that having an HTML flowchart sitemap page isn’t going to drastically boost your SEO, but by giving search engines and your readers a simple way to navigate your website you’re improving the user’s experience. (If you REALLY want an SEO boost using sitemaps please create an XML Sitemap by following this simple tutorial from The Palm Shop.)
How to Easily Create an HTML Sitemap for your WordPress Website
Lately, plugins for my WordPress website have made my life SO much easier! And if you’re even the slightest bit hesitant to mess with coding, this is easy enough for you, too! No coding is required. Keep reading for full instructions and screenshots to walk you through.
- Locate and download the PS Auto Sitemap plugin. Download the zip file from their site. Upload the zip file to your Plugins tab in your dashboard. And activate the plugin.
- Go to Settings > PS Auto Sitemap in the dashboard navigation bar to locate the settings.
- In a separate window, open a new page inside of your Dashboard and title it “Sitemap”. Click on the Text tab to open the text editor.
- Copy and paste in the code string
<!– SITEMAP CONTENT REPLACE POINT –>
Publish the page. - Locate your URL at the top of the page, in your dashboard for the new page you just created. Mine looks like this:
Find the area in the URL that says post=7876 (Yours will show a different string of numbers.) This is your “PostID of the Sitemap”. - Go back to your PS Auto Sitemap settings page and put your string of numbers in the “PostID of the Sitemap” box.
- Save your changes on this settings page, and refresh your dashboard page with the sitemap coding. Once you visit your new page titled Sitemap you should now see a full HTML Flowchart Sitemap page! Easy peasy.
Where you choose to link this page it totally up to you! I’ve seen in linked in the footer area so readers can have quick access to it. However, I have mine linked on my blog’s sidebar, under my policies image.
I’d love to hear from you!
Have you ever considered adding an HTML Flowchart Sitemap to your website? Do you already have one in place? Did you even know this was beneficial to your website? And of course, if you have questions or you run into trouble while getting your own page set up please don’t hesitate to comment below!! I’m more than happy to help you get started.
