site map vs help/faq, which would be more useful?

[stndn]

We're doing the design of our website, which has the common layout: Header section, navigation on the left, content on the right, and footer at the bottom.

Header contains logo, search bar, and a link to user's homepage. The footer have various links including link to help page and site map.

We will be adding link to help page (as suggested by one of our team members) either on the header or on the navigation menu.

If we put the extras on navigation menu, we can put both help and site map links, although they will end up being placed towards the bottom since we need the top sections for other things.

If we put the extras on header, we will have to choose only one (either help or site map) because we don't have much space left and we may end up breaking the layout of header.

In your opinion, which of the two would be more useful? I'm leaning towards site map, but help might be more useful for first time visitors. We could put both; but like I mentioned before, it will be placed towards the end of the navigation menu, making it almost useless because visitors can't find those link quickly and might as well go to the footer where the links are less cluttered.


So, any suggestions?
Which one would you consider more useful?
Note that help has links to sitemap on top, and vice versa.


-stndn.

 

[rajfantastic]

you need two site map files for optimal SEO: a static html page that links from your home page (footer?) and a google xml sitemap.

BOTH should be the only option on your poll.

 

[ChicoWeb]

I don't think you need either in the header. People need help to navigate your website? And sitemaps shouldn't be quite the focal point, they are mostly used for SEO.

 

[stndn]

We were thinking about first time users who may not know how to use our websites, will need help to figure out what to do or check out site map to get around our places.

But now that ChicoWeb mentioned it, I guess you're right - if people need to use site map often, then there's definitely something wrong with our main navigations..

rajfantastic, thank you for your link to google's sitemap generator (I've fixed the link for you). We'll have to check it out.

I guess we'll just put the links to both on the footer, and have the navigation menu/header to contain other things...


Thank you.
-stndn.