sitemap files, road maps for bots & spiders
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Every website should have a sitemap. Two even. While your site's navigation - links, buttons, icons, etc. - direct people through your site, sitemaps direct search engines.
While search engines are good at finding their way through your site, why leave things to chance? Provide thee various search engine spiders with a roadmap that tells them what's where. Take control and fine tne how spiders interact with your site's contents. One advantage is that sitemaps alert search engines when a page has been changed or editted. Search engines rank frequently updated sites higher than static ones.
There are two types of sitemaps. Both are XML files: sitemap.xml and ror.xml There's no harm in using both.
I suggest putting both at the root level, as in www.yourSite.com/sitemap.xml and linking to them from the main index.html page. Additionally put the following line in the <head> of your main page:
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="ROR" href="ror.xml" />
You can also add this line to your robots.txt file to evoke Sitemap Autodiscovery:
Sitemap: http://www.yourSite.com/sitemap.xml
There are several websites that create sitemaps for you site for free. I recommend xml-sitemaps as long as your site is less than 500 pages. This site maps both ror.xml and sitemap.xml files as well as several other useful files for you. Larger site? You'll have to use auditmypc though it only makes sitemap.xml files, not ror.xml
In my frustration, I stumbled across a page with lots of sitemap resource links. A good place to begin learning and exploring.
Lastly use Google's webmaster's tools to notify them of your new sitemap.
Whenever you add, delete, or edit one or more pages, recreate your sitemap(s) too to insure the search engines have up to date info abouyt your sitemap. Make your sitemap a regular habit!