Is the sitemap.xml file the most important for SEO?

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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  Brenda Malone: No. An XML sitemap is really not that necessary for smaller sites, as referenced by John Mueller of Google. That being said, it is super easy to deploy one, so why not?
  
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  Daniel Granovetter: Brenda Malone Thanks. Just was wondering, because Google has a hard time finding pages on my site that are not directly linked on the homepage. I plan to add one regardless, just was wondering if the xml is all important and if I`m going to see wonders happen once I add it. Just to know what to expect, lol.
  
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  Brenda Malone: Daniel Granovetter Are you using the inspection tool in Search Console? What does your Coverage report in Search Console say?
  
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  Boyd Trimmell: Daniel Granovetter If Google is having trouble finding your pages to index, site visitors also will have trouble finding them. Adding a site map will not help improve the UX/UI for the most important part, visitor and conversions.
  
  If I were responsible for the site, I would make UI/UX my top priority.
  
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  Daniel Granovetter: Boyd Trimmell Do you know of a good online tool for evaluating the UX? Human users seem to have no problem navigating the pages when shared directly.
  
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  Daniel Granovetter: Brenda Malone Good idea, I`ll look into that!
  
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  Boyd Trimmell: Daniel Granovetter UX/UI is about human psychology. I would only trust this to a human with the skills.
  
  If you must share pages directly for people o be able to navigate that is a huge red flag of serious issues.
  
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  Stockbridge Truslow: Nope. I often don`t submit a site map and don`t even create one much of the time.
  
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  Ash Nallawalla: No. It is optional and a hint for search engines.
  
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  Michael Zittel: CCB = Code, content, backlinks. Those are the number on things. A site map falls in the "code" category.
  
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  Christine Hansen: Sitemaps are usually for big websites above 200 pages.
  
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  Michael Martinez: No. There is no "#1 essential SEO component for websites."
  
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  Ivan David Lippens: Number one thing is content. Anything that ranks is conteny.
  
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