What You Get
The Website Sitemap & Page Planner is a four-page PDF for working out the structure of a website before it is designed. You choose the pages, group them into a menu, draw the sitemap, and write a short brief for each page saying what it is for and what it needs to contain.
This is a plan of the pages for people, not the XML sitemap file that search engines read. A web developer generates that file automatically once the site is built. If you need to check an existing one, our sitemap inspector does that.
What Is Inside
- Four questions about your visitors and competitors to answer before you list a single page
- A checklist of the fourteen pages most small-business sites choose from, to tick or cross out
- Six rules for grouping pages into a menu of five to seven items, with space to write the menu and footer
- A sitemap worksheet with room for four menu sections and the pages under each
- A page brief covering the page’s job, its search term, the questions it answers, the proof it carries and the action it asks for
- A short list of what has to be ready before design starts, including redirects if you are replacing an old site
Who This Is For
Business owners planning a new website or a redesign, and anyone who has been asked “what pages do you want?” by a web designer and wasn’t sure how to answer. It suits a small brochure site as well as a larger site with dozens of service and location pages.
How to Use This
Fill in the first page before anything else. Who the site is for, and what you want them to do, decide which pages earn a place. Searching the terms your customers use, in a private browser window, shows you which competitors you are up against online, and they are often not the ones you know locally.
Then work through the page checklist and the grouping rules, and draw the sitemap. Brief the pages that sell first, usually your main service pages, and treat the rest as a list to publish over the months after launch. If you are replacing an existing site, our guide on how to plan a website redesign covers the audit and the move from old site to new in more detail.
Why We Made This
Every site we build has its pages mapped and briefed before any design starts, because a layout drawn around placeholder text tends to break when the real copy goes in. The planner is that step on paper. It pairs with the Website Brief Template, which covers what the site is for and the budget, and with the free Website Planner if you would rather plan on screen. Our own small-business website starts from the same plan.
Get the Planner
Fill in the short form and the PDF opens straight away, and a copy of the link goes to your inbox. The other templates and checklists are in the resource library.
