Why Visual Sitemap Important
A visual sitemap looks like a family-tree diagram or flow chart and shows how the web pages relate to each other. Visual sitemaps are also a hierarchical diagram that shows the information architecture of a website. It gives you a visual representation of the site’s organization and how different sections are linked together.
For small websites, I often just create an outline in Word as a visual sitemap. But for medium to large websites, a visual sitemap can help you make sure nothing is left out of the design, nothing is duplicated (that you don't want to duplicate), and can often aid in content creation similarly to an outline.
An HTML sitemap is a tool for the website user. An HTML sitemap is just a clickable list of pages on a website. These types of sitemaps usually include every page on the website from the main pages to subpages. They help the user find where they are and what the website contains so they can get there.