A quick Google search for advice on creating a site map initially threw many links to software you can buy or download for free to create a site map.

But why do you need a sitemap?

Basically, as web sites become larger and more complex in both the browser and the need for human search engines easy to follow the map to find all pages of your site. A site map gives a simple navigation tool.

Site maps has 3 main advantages:

1) A site map allows visitors to easily find what you are looking for simply visiting the site map and click on the link to go directly to the page you want to visit.

2) Often the technologies used to help in the reading of web pages as readers of the website and screen readers can only follow the text links. For practical reasons, is not always possible to display a text link to any page of your site in your homepage and other pages of your website and use a site map.

3) Search engine spiders and text and text links. If you can not access a text link to a page on your site can not be indexed. Make it easy for the spider to index all your pages through a site map.

A site map is composed of two search engines love things - text and keywords. To build a good site map combine relevant keywords in hypertext links. For example, the site map you may have a link to your website on websites promoting your link should contain "website promotion" of words and a direct link to the page of your site.

A site map is not necessary and indeed should not be fancy, but it must be clear and easy to navigate.

Here are some tips for a good site map:

1. Place a prominent link to your sitemap on every page and lable SITE MAP.

2. It should show all your web pages through the different levels as basic text links.

3. Use standard colors for links and visited links.

4. It should show a fast, easy to follow page view without scrolling in the web browser.

Google started allowing people to submit site maps to your account as a way to let Google know about all your web pages and updates to your site. It increases your page ranking at all, but it's worth taking the time to install correctly.

You can find free software for creating site maps:

http://www.likno.com/sitemap.html
http://www.freesitemapgenerator.com
http://www.sitemapspal.com

And when finished, do not forget to tell Google about your site map so they can hopefully crawl and index all pages of your site.

http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login

A well planned site map can ensure that your website is fully indexed by search engines.