Mar 23
Modern Sitemap and Footer
Back in the old days, almost every website had a sitemap where they listed out all the pages. The purpose of the sitemap is to help visitors and search engine spiders to find information on the site. Now, a lot of modern websites have dropped the sitemap page, instead they place the sitemap in the footer area. I’m going to review 20 websites (from big corporation to small portfolio sites) who organized their footer cleverly to enhance usability.
Benefits of Placing a Sitemap in the Footer
- Engage user click and visit duration:
As you may know, online readers don’t read everything on the page, they scroll and scan. Footer is probably the last place they look at before exiting. Placing a sitemap in the footer may attract readers’ attention and increase page clicks and views. - Make sure your visitors are not missing out:
Sometimes your visitors might be too lazy to click on the sitemap link or miss it all together, having a sitemap in the footer can ensure your visitors are aware of every page. - Use your footer to promote links:
You don’t really have to use the footer to list out everything, you can use it as an alternative location to promote important pages. - Save readers’ time:
Having a sitemap in the footer allows users to quickly jump from page to page. - You save the visitors a click:
By placing the sitemap in the footer rather than a separate page, you save the visitors a click. - Enhance layout design:
Don’t know what to put in the footer? Perhaps a sitemap can fill up the page and make your site look bigger.
Digg
Digg keeps their header nice and clean by placing only the content categories. The header is focused on the users while the footer is focused on the company.
Mozilla - Firefox
Thanks to the footer sitemap, with just a glance, I know exactly what pages are available on the Mozilla website.
Apple
What if you have a huge website (in terms of content), putting a full sitemap in the footer may be insane? You can learn from the clever Apple.com, split the sitemap into sections. For example, go to the Mac section, you will only see the Mac sitemap.
GoodBarry
Although GoodBarry doesn’t list out every page in the footer, but it does act as a sitemap where they list the pages with the most significant content.
White House
In the recent redesign of the White House website, browsing the site has been made easier by using the dropdown menus and sitemap in the footer.
Miro
Miro separates the sitemap with a text bar “Looking for something?”.
Six Apart
You may also use the sitemap to connect to your network sites. Six Apart is a good example. In the footer, under the Six Apart Blog column, there are links to their sister sites: Typepad, Movable, and Vox.
Clearspring
In Clearspring, they split their Services section into two columns: Launchpad and WidgetMedia.
SquareSpace
SquareSpace’s sitemap tells you which pages you’ve visited already. Notice the visited pages have a tiny check mark instead of the regular triangle icon?
SugarSync
SugarSync displays only the main level of the site in the footer, the full sitemap lists all pages.
FreeAgent Central
Again, FreeAgent Central has a simplified sitemap in the footer with a link to the full sitemap.
FiveRuns
FiveRuns creatively organizes their sitemap to put the main focus on their products.
Red Nose Day
I particularly like the "red nose" figures in the footer because they make the sitemap stand out.
Tigers
Having too much empty space in the footer? Fill it with a sitemap. You don’t need to have a lot of pages to make a sitemap (Tigers is an example).
Get Satisfaction
Get Satisfaction saves their header space by placing the main navigation (which is also their sitemap) in the footer.
Flashloaded
Flashloaded sells Flash components, thus their footer sitemap only lists out the products.
Jamie Oliver
Jamie Oliver displays a simpified sitemap in the footer and also provides a link to the full sitemap.
Redbrick Health
Nice and clean 5-column sitemap.
FortySeven Media
I’ve been showing a lot of big corporation sites. What if you have a smaller site? FortySeven Media is a good example of what you do with a portfolio site. They use the footer to display the latest entries of their blog and portfolio work.
Jason Santa Maria
This one is my favorite. Not only does it look elegant, but it also attracts readers’ attention by laying out the recent activities of the blog in a beautiful way.
Tips For Designing Footer Sitemap
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Categorize - organize your links in categories.
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Use Headings - use headings or titles for each category.
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Be Consistent - the order of the links should be consistent.
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173 San Diego Mobile Notary http://www.melissasmobilenotary.com
August 3rd, 2010 at 9:13 pm
I use sitemaps in the footer of my Wordpress-themed sites. This does create its own dynamic page that will get crawled by search engines well. Those that want to look at a sitemap would view it too, but i question whether this is needed for any site other than the most over complicated sites.
Thanks for the article though.
San Diego Mobile Notary
172 Penang Web Design http://www.weebernet.com
August 2nd, 2010 at 1:22 am
some great ideal to design the footer…thanks…
171 Ted Thompson http://www.goblinridge.co.uk
June 21st, 2010 at 9:02 pm
Some great ideas for site map design.
170 martin
June 17th, 2010 at 6:09 am
thank you so much! it’s extremely useful for my current project!! and saves a lot of time
169 Plumber NYC http://plumber-nyc.net
June 8th, 2010 at 2:18 pm
interesting post thanks
168 small business website design http://bestsmallbusinesswebsitedesign.com/
June 8th, 2010 at 2:17 pm
thanks for this valuable post
167 LCD Sharp TV http://lcdsharptv.net/
June 8th, 2010 at 2:14 pm
that was useful thanks
166 LCD Sharp TV http://lcdsharptv.net/
June 8th, 2010 at 2:12 pm
great thanks a lot for sharing
165 Test http://www.test.com
June 7th, 2010 at 12:18 pm
culo
164 Paul http://www.mbinteractive.co.uk/
May 28th, 2010 at 7:23 am
Nice round up - I’m not sure I totaly agree with the bullet-points in the post intro though… If users are engaging through your footer, then I kinda feel you’ve not done a good enough job further up the page.
I definitely see the benefit of sitemap footers if you have long pages however, where your users might become ’stranded’ from the main site navigation (assuming this is at the top of the site). Also, I’ve always assumed that it’s great for SEO.