Sitemaps.

If your websites are with lot of pages then it is very important for you to make a sitemap. This will help your visitors to navigate easily in side of your website and like wise search engine spiders too will remember your XML sitemap and used to come to your web site to see it regularly if you have it for indexing purpose. This XML site map may give you more visitors through the search engine result pages as all the top search engines now accept the XML sitemap.
If people search for the key words that you are using in your web sites it is very likely that your web site will get good placement in the search engine results that will give you more visitors. As search engines spiders of Google, Bing and Yahoo too like you to have sitemaps in the XML format, it is better to make one for your web site or ask some one to make it for you and add it. If you have this XML format it will be easier for their spiders to make a fast run in to your web pages to provide the required search results.

It is not necessary for your web site, but it is highly recommended to have your sitemap in your web site of multi pages. There are many web sites in the internet offer you to provide you XML sitemaps for free of charge for your web site. So if you are going to promote your web site by submitting to search engines, make sure you are having a valid sitemap.
If you are a Google account holder then you can join the Google webmaster central. This place allows you to claim your web site's ownership by following their instructions. Later you have the option to show them your XML sitemap of your web site. Once it is reachable by their spider it will be marked with a correct sign. Other wise you will be shown with a mark there in your page, saying that the sitemap is not accessible by their spider.

So now you understand the importance of the XML sitemap. Time to time you can access this account and can verify the status of your sitemap which plays an important role after you submit your website to the top search engines to get good position or visibility in the search results for your web site's key words.

Important:

Search engines will not find out that you have sitemap in your web site.
To inform about your sitemap to the search engines you must use any of the following method
1. Webmater tools.
2. Search Engine's Ping Service.

Submitting your Sitemaps to Google Search Engine.
Price: Free
Join the Google Webmaster Central here. http://www.google.com/webmasters/
Follow the instruction on how to submit your sitemap to Google search.

Sitemap submission to Bing search engine using Ping .
Price: Free

How to submit your XML file direct from your browser?
Here is the instruction from the Bing.com - Webmaster Tools
"Using your browser's address bar, you can directly submit your Sitemap to Bing. Type the following: http://www.bing.com/webmaster/ping.aspx?sitemap=www.mysite.com/sitemap.xml substituting the full URL of your Sitemap file in place of the "mysite.com" example, and the full file name and file extension of your Sitemap file in place of the "sitemap.xml" example".
After the submission you will get the success result like this in your browser. "Thanks for submitting your sitemap."

Submit sitemap to Ask.com
Price: Free
Type in the following in your browser's search bar: http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http%3A//www.mysite.com/sitemap.xml
Replace "mysite" with your site name.