Dedicated landing pages vs responsive web design
-
I've been doing some research into web design and page layout as my company is considering a re-design. However, we have come to an argument around responsive webdesign vs SEO.
The argument is around me (SEO specialist) arguing that I want dedicated pages for all my content as it's good for SEO since it focuses keywords and content properly, and it still adheres to good user journeys (providing it's done correctly), and my web designer arguing that mobile traffic is on the rise (which it is I know) so we should have more content under 1 URL and use responsive web design so that users can just scroll through content instead of having to keep be direct to different pages.
What do I do...
I can't find any blogs, questions, or whiteboards that really touches on this topic, so can anyone advise me on whether I should:
- Create dedicated landing pages for each bit of content which is good for SEO and taking users on a journey around my site
OR
- All content that is relative to a landing page, put all under that one URL (e.g. "About us" may have info on the company, our team, our history, careers) and allow people to scroll down what could be a very long page on any device, but may effect SEO as I can't focus keywords/content under one URL properly, so it may effect rankings.
Any advice SEO and user experience whizzes out there?
-
My agency's website is ranked #1 on Google for small business marketing in a major US city. We get a lot of search traffic, primarily on our home page and contact page. The home page features a couple paragraphs about our agency and a video. Of course there is some information in the footer. With that being said, our website and company has been very successful generating business without lengthy pages. Although I enjoy building long, informative home pages, I don't necessarily know that it guarantees better SEO results (as our company has been ranked #1 for a while with a very minimalistic setup).
This is just my own personal opinion, but I think it is generally better to give the user important (quality) information up front and try to reel them in from there. If they want to browse around your site and learn more then you've done your job. If you're really good then maybe they skip straight to the contact page and shoot you an email or call you.
I've ranked multiple websites #1 on Google for fairly competitive keywords in large cities. Very few of them were infinite scroll. With that being said I don't think there is anything wrong with that style of design (I make a lot of websites like that, too).
I think you should do what ever you think is more visually appealing and works with your content. I think depending on the situation either could work well. Best of luck!
-
Hi Viriginia. Here's a blog post discussing this as well and arguing for the design choice of combining the elements into one page: http://moz.com/blog/the-first-link-counts-rule-and-the-hash-sign. Note the result to her test, "The results were the same and now Google is showing the page for 3 different anchor texts. It means there's another exception of the "first link counts" rule and you can put multiple links on document A to document B and Google will count all of their anchor texts." So I'd be a little less worried about having multiple pages per content piece and instead focus on the page style that delivers the best user experience, conversion rate, and content grouping.
Another thing you can look at to help you decide would be your current / past analytics. How many pages does your average visitor view per session? How much time do they spend on site? If they're not visiting very many pages, going beyond that number might limit the exposure of those pages. If you split test the multi-page design versus the single-page design you might find even better answers. Cheers!
-
Yes. I see exactly what you mean. I think that you can do it the way that you want and still have the responsive design. I think that accordion style menus would help the user experience. That is how I shrunk the fly out menus on this site.
The content and the responsive design are very important parts of SEO. I don't think you have to change your content at all to make a responsive design work. I wouldn't change your content, I would just play around with the menu styles so that you can find the one that works best for your content on a mobile device.
-
Yeah, the way you've done it with each bit of content under different URLs for the About us section e.g. /meet-the-team, /roof-chicago, /testimonials/ is my argument. You've done it the way I want to do it - creating dedicated landing pages for each bit about you, not just shoving it under one /about-us URL.
Here's our current About Us landing page, you'll see what I mean http://www.seriousideas.com/about-us/ - we have it broken down into lots of little bits which you can jump to if you didn't want to scroll --> Meet the team, our history, sectors, clients. I'm arguing that I wouldn't have all of those one URL, I would split them up like this:
/meet-the-team
/our-history
/sectors
/our-clients
But still use responsive web design on the site so that it is an easier experience for the user.
Do you see what I mean?
-
I see what you are saying about duplicate content. What I was suggesting is keeping the pages the length you want them, while having a responsive design. There is no reason why you couldn't have multiple pages with shorter content on a responsive design. Maybe I am just not seeing the full picture.
This is a responsive design I created for a service site a few years ago. The content on the pages was designed to target key terms of course, but there are many pages for about us, the team, and what we do. Is this what you are looking to do?
-
Aww I think I unfairly represented my web designers argument, I think he was more playing devils advocate than saying my way is wrong. But yes, your second comment RE: better UX was his point.
I see what you're saying, but I wouldn't do both... that could potentially lead to duplicate content and rubbish user journey if some pages are maahoosive and some point people to different areas of the site.
We don't sell products, we're a service based company (marketing agency). So all our content is around what services we offer, as well as having a blog and some research papers. But ultimately we're trying to promote our marketing services to help businesses connect with their audience better.
-
After reading this again, I think i have to argue your designers point. I think what he is trying to say is that having more content on one page will optimally offer a better UX. This is because they won't have to click so many times to find exactly what they are looking for.
I see that point. What kind of site do you have? Is it strictly content or is it an Ecommerce site?
-
I would say do them both. There is no reason to limit your landing pages in a responsive design. The purpose of a responsive design is to give the user the same experience on a mobile device and a desktop. It prevents losing functionality and information.
You might have to use some accordion function to hide some of the content in order to view products. If you have no products, then you will want as many pages as you can. The size of your site is important.
I am not sure why your designer is telling you that you can't have as many pages as you want and still have responsive design. Maybe it is time to get a new designer?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Log-in page ranking but not homepage
Our homepage is outranked by log-in page for "primary keyword" in Google search results; for which actually our homepage was optimised. I have gone through the other answers for the same question here. But I couldn't find them related with our website. We are not over optimised. We have link from top navigation menu of blog to our homepage. Does this causing this?
Web Design | | vtmoz1 -
CAPTCHA Alternatives to Improve Page Load Speed
Recently I had to install reCAPTCHA on my site. The site contains domain name generators and they were being misused, in the words of my host: _Addition of a Captcha will go one of two ways - hit the bruting on the head as intended - OR it will increase the load and the impact by rendering the Captcha's. _ Have noticed that reCAPTCHA adds a fair amount of code 32% of page size and 5 requests. I want to replace reCAPTCHA with an alternative, has anyone got any ideas? Cheers. Justin
Web Design | | GrouchyKids0 -
Is there a Joomla! Component For A Blog Page That Is Recommended?
A business partner currently has a page on a Joomla! website that is passing for the blog page. I am not a Joomla! guy so I dont' know much about it. I do know that I don't like a lot of things and prefer Drupal however making a change to Drupal on that site is not an option. We need to upgrade the blog page so that it is more like a blog and I know there has to be an SEO friendly component for a Joomla! blog page. Any ideas?
Web Design | | Atlanta-SMO1 -
Changing design for a client. SEO concerns.
Hi there! A client requested me to change the look of his website entirely. It currently ranks #16 on Google with one of their main keywords. My problem is: The current site was made in a CMS I'm not familiar with and all of its pages urls are not SEO friendly (EX: http://www.mysite.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=49&Itemid=95). It is the first time I have come up with this situation so I would appreciate any tips or links to useful information. I tried searching in SEOmoz and came up with nothing. I'm sure this is a common problem though. Since they want a static website, for starters their page extensions will change from .php to .html I'm not 100% sure but I think this will be a problem for their current ranking in Google. Any ideas? Edit: I forgot to mention that all of the backlinks this site has points to their hompage as www.mysite.com, I guess this is good.
Web Design | | Eblan0 -
Landing pages vs internal pages.
Hey everyone I have run into a problem and would greatly appreciate anyone that could weigh in on it. I have a web client that went to an outside vendor for marketing. The client asked me to help them target some keywords and since I am new to the SEO world I have proceeded by researching the best keywords for the client. I found 6 that see excellent monthly searches. I then registered the .com and or .net domain names that match these words. I then started building landing pages that make reference to the keyword and then have links to his site to get more info. My customer sent the first of these sites to the marketer and he says I am doing things all wrong. He says rather then having landing pages like this I should just point the domain names at internal pages to the website. He also says that I should not have different looks for the landing pages from the main site and that I should have the full site menu on each landing page. I wanted to here what everyone here has to say about the pros and cons of the way to do this cause the guy giving the advice to me has a lower ranking site then I do and I have only started working on getting my site ranked this year. He has atleast according to him been doing this forever. Thanks, Ron
Web Design | | bsofttech0 -
Which Shopping Cart is best for SEO? Magento vs. X-Cart
Comparing X-Cart and Magento, which do you think is better for SEO and why? I am leaning towards Magento and wanted to get some opinions?
Web Design | | BlinkWeb0 -
Are slimmed down mobile versions of a canonical page considered cloaking?
We are developing our mobile site right now and we are using a user agent sniffer to figure out what kind of device the visitor is using. Once the server knows whether it is a desktop or mobile browser it will deliver the appropriate template. We decided to use the same URL for both versions of the page rather than using m.websiteurl.com or www.websiteurl.mobi so that traffic to either version of these pages would register as a visit to the page. Will search engines consider this cloaking or is mobile "versioning" an acceptable practice? The pages in essence are the same, the mobile version will just leave out extraneous scripts and unnecessary resources to better display on a mobile device.
Web Design | | TahoeMountain400