3 Ways to Make a Site Map

A site map is an index of your website, a place for visitors and search engine spiders to explore your website more easily. Understand how to make a site map yourself, hire someone to build it for you, or use a site map generator to produce it.
STEPS
METHOD 1 OF 3: BUILD YOUR OWN SITE MAP

1

DEVELOP YOUR SITE MAP TEMPLATE, WHICH SHOULD MATCH THE OVERALL APPEARANCE OF YOUR SITE BUT FIT MULTIPLE SECTION HEADINGS AND UNNUMBERED LISTS. Large sites often have multi-column site maps.

2

COMPILE A LIST OF ALL PUBLIC PAGES ON YOUR WEBSITE THAT WILL NEED TO BE ACCESSIBLE THROUGH THE SITE MAP.

3

SEPARATE THE LIST OF PAGES INTO SECTIONS, AS APPLICABLE.

4

COLLECT THE URLS TO ALL THE PAGES.

5

INSERT ALL THE SECTIONS, PAGE NAMES, AND PAGE LINKS INTO THE APPROPRIATE PLACES ON THE WEBSITE.

6

UPDATE YOUR OVERALL SITE TEMPLATE TO INCLUDE A LINK TO THE SITE MAP IN THE FOOTER.

7

UPLOAD YOUR SITE MAP.

8

VERIFY THAT THE SITE MAP LINKS ALL LEAD TO THE APPROPRIATE PAGES.

9

UPDATE YOUR SITE MAP WHENEVER ANY FOLDER OR FILE NAME ON YOUR WEBSITE IS CHANGED, ADDED, OR REMOVED.
METHOD 2 OF 3: HIRE SOMEONE TO BUILD YOUR SITE MAP

1

DECIDE WHAT PARTS OF BUILDING THE SITE MAP YOU\'LL DO YOURSELF. For example, will you handle the page appearance, or will the person you hire need to produce the code for the layout to match your site?

2

HIRE SOMEONE TO DO WHATEVER YOU AREN\'T DOING YOURSELF: collecting the data for the site map, preparing the template for the site map, and verifying all the links on the site map.
Make sure the person you hire knows HTML and CSS in case a problem arises that needs troubleshooting.
Include a clear cap in your contract on how much you could be liable for paying. If you're paying an hourly rate, set a time point at which the person needs to contact you before continuing to avoid someone padding their billable time.

3

USE THE WORK PROVIDED BY THE PERSON YOU HIRED TO INSTALL YOUR SITE MAP.

4

ADD A LINK TO THE SITE MAP TO YOUR SITE FOOTER.

5

CHECK SOME OF THE LINKS TO MAKE SURE THE PERSON YOU HIRED KNEW WHAT HE OR SHE WAS DOING.

6

UPDATE YOUR SITE MAP WHENEVER ANY FOLDER OR FILE NAME ON YOUR WEBSITE IS CHANGED, ADDED, OR REMOVED.
METHOD 3 OF 3: USE A SITE MAP GENERATOR

1

EVALUATE YOUR WEBSITE SETUP. If your website is a blog, you might already have a built-in site map generator in the RSS or Atom feed. Some webmaster services let you set that feed as your site map.

2

EXAMINE YOUR WEB HOST\'S OPTIONS IN YOUR CONTROL PANEL, IF YOU HAVE ONE. You might already have a program available there for generating your site map.

3

USE A SEARCH ENGINE TO FIND A SITE MAP GENERATOR SERVICE. Some produce free site map code for any site with 500 pages or fewer, including instructions for how to install it on your site.

4

INSTALL THE SITE MAP FILES.

5

VERIFY THAT THE SITE MAP UPDATES ITSELF WHEN YOU RENAME, ADD, OR REMOVE AND FOLDERS OR FILES.
TIPS
If you edit web pages as HTML, remember that returns, tabs, and multiple spaces in a row are all ignored by HTML. Add them liberally to the site map's code to make it easy to skim.