How to Create an HTML Sitemap Page in Webflow

An HTML sitemap is a page on your website that lists all your content with clickable links. Unlike an XML sitemap, which is meant for bots, an HTML sitemap serves both users and crawlers, and strengthens your internal linking. Sandro, cofounder of Gemeos Agency, a Webflow agency, shows you how to build one in Webflow.

XML sitemap vs. HTML sitemap: what’s the difference?

• XML sitemap: a technical file at the root of the site (yoursite.com/sitemap.xml), read only by bots and invisible to users
• HTML sitemap: a normal page on your website, accessible to visitors, that lists your content with real hyperlinks

An HTML sitemap directly supports internal linking: every link it contains passes PageRank to the listed pages. That’s especially useful for deep pages that don’t get many internal links from the rest of the site.

1. Create the sitemap page in Webflow

In the Designer, create a new static page with the slug "sitemap." Give it a clear H1 title ("Site Map" or "Sitemap"). Add a noindex tag if you don’t want this page to appear in Google results.

2. Add CMS Collection Lists

For each CMS collection (blog posts, tutorials, service pages), add a "Collection List" element to your sitemap page. Set each list to show all items with no pagination limit. Inside each item, add a link to the corresponding CMS page using the article name as the anchor text.

3. Organize it into topic sections

Structure your HTML sitemap into separate sections with H2 headings: one section per content type. For example: "Blog Posts," "Academy Tutorials," "Service Pages," "Case Studies." This structure helps crawlers understand your site’s topical layout.

4. Add important static pages

In addition to CMS collections, manually list your key static pages: Home, About, Contact, service pages. These pages don’t appear in CMS collections, but they deserve a spot in your HTML sitemap.

5. Link your HTML sitemap from the footer

Add a link to your sitemap page in your website footer. That makes sure the page is accessible from every page, gets incoming internal links, and is easy for crawlers to find.

Conclusion

A well-built HTML sitemap is an underrated internal linking tool. It takes 30 minutes to set up and structurally improves how search engines crawl your site.

• Use case 1: a site with more than 50 pages, to make sure they’re all crawled regularly
• Use case 2: an Academy or blog with lots of tutorials, to centralize topic-based navigation
• Use case 3: a website redesign, to preserve linking to pages whose URLs have changed