This is an example sitemap document that need completing as part of a website project and submitting to us as in line with the project plan. The document has three tabs representing the three elements.
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Sitemap Sheet
The sitemap is family tree of the pages within the website and the tool creates a work plan for the project.
The columns are:
- Page no. – this is a unique number per page for reference, commonly mages have similar names in different sections to this number is important
- Level 1 – Pages you would normally associate being visible on the navigation on every page
- Level 2 – Children pages of the top level
- Level 3 – More detailed pages, we’re often asked how long these can be. The answer is apply some sensitivity to the content and your stakeholders.
- Priority – this is useful if you have a tight deadline to look at the must haves for launch.
- Status – this is a column you can use for internal recording o status, common options would be, “in progress”, “complete” etc.
- Navigation page – this is to make if a page has no content but you want to use it to sign post to the pages in the branch of the sitemap family.
- Analytics tag – this is use to create bespoke Google analytics dashboard for themes of content.
- LMS category – If you have our Learning management system (LMS) you can show courses related to specific categories on this web page.
- Lead – this is your internal person/dept responsible for the content
- Content plan – this is either the file name of the document you are supplying us or a link to the existing website where we can extract the content
- N.B. We don’t as standard do any editorial on content supplied. We we copy like for like and design each page accordingly.
- Notes – I’m not explaining this :)
Top navigation sheet
The top navigation can follow this sitemap or can have variation of be completely different.
- Page no. – this is a unique number per page for reference, commonly mages have similar names in different sections to this number is important
- Level 1 – Pages you would normally associate being visible on the navigation on every page
- Level 2 – Children pages of the top level
- Level 3 – More detailed pages, we’re often asked how long these can be. The answer is apply some sensitivity to the content and your stakeholders.
- Exceptions – This is to reference if the link isn’t the expected page or a direct link to an external website.
Homepage sheet
The homepage of the website again can be completely different to both, representing your priorities.
This sheet is to help you to make decisions on what you would like to priorities for your stakeholders.
Our big tip
Write backwards. This may seem madness, bear with! Once you’ve completed your site map, we recommend writing the content on the level 3 pages first. Level 2 then tends to b a summary of level 3, and level 1 a summary of level 2 etc.
Second tip, people skim words online, so use good sub headings.