The benefits for SEO and users

A sitemap is an important website component for both users and search engines.

This helps them discover your website’s pages.

While it’s important to be search engine compliant specifically with an Extensible Markup Language (XML) sitemap, it’s also important to keep your site organized for users as well.

This is where an HTML sitemap comes in.

What is an HTML sitemap?

A Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) sitemap is a simple web page that lists the pages on your website.

It looks like this:

Think of it as the table of contents in a book, where you can find a list of chapters and subchapters.

An HTML sitemap similarly displays your website’s main pages and subpages. This makes it very easy for users to find what they are looking for.

Ideally, users should be able to find the content they need through your navigation menu. However, it helps to organize your HTML sitemap as if it were a guide to your site.

HTML Sitemap vs. XML Sitemap: What’s the Difference?

There are two main types of sitemaps:

• HTML sitemap: This sitemap is presented in a user-friendly, clickable format and allows visitors to navigate your site
• XML sitemap: It is written in a format designed for search engines like Google

The main difference between the two:

An HTML sitemap focuses on making the site more user-friendly for humans, while an XML sitemap is created solely for search engine spiders (also called crawlers and bots).

They use the XML sitemap to crawling and indexing your site. Which is...