One page website SEO
A colleague, a client and a friend Jo Williams recently asked me a question about one page websites, specifically “Is it bad for SEO to have a one page website?”. I wanted to share my response with you in hopes that the answer helps you in selecting your next website implementation. Let’s first take a look at what I mean by a single page website.
One page website and what it looks like
One page website is a website that utilizes jQuery(AJAX) technology to move you around without re-loading the page. As a result we all website pages in a single scrolling browser window. See the example above by clicking on the image.
One page website example
Now we know that one page website can be a cool way to execute a small business or an agency website. But do single page websites play well with SEO? Let’s look at an example of a Calgary-based web design and online marketing agency Redline Interactive.
Redline has a one page website featuring its work samlpes and contact information. Pretty much all you need to know about an agency. Until recently the company had been competing for the term “Calgary web design”, among other key phrases. They outperformed the competition in Calgary and, I’d assume, were getting a lot of traffic from Google. A quick “site:” lookup on Google shows that the site has two pages: Homepage, Contact Us page and an indexed PDF file on why hire Redline (there are other URLs indexed but they’re not for consumer eyes).
So far it looks like a great example of a one page website ranking #1 in Google. The biggest reason for such performance was that they engaged in extensive link building efforts. Quick MajesticSEO lookup tells us that they had been doing link building heavily late last year. My apologies for cutting the image short. I just wanted to make sure that I can scale it properly for this post.
As you can see, in November 2010 they got over 6,000 links, which was clearly the main contributing factor to its high rankings. Then, as the graph shows, their link building efforts decreased significantly. As a result, they dropped to the second page of Google for the same term, now sitting in between #11 and #15 in Google.ca organic results.
One page website SEO example takeaways
By the way, by showing the example I don’t mean to disrespect Redline or pick on them. They, in fact, do a great web development and online marketing work. The company just happened to provide an example of one page website for the purposes of this article. Let’s now look at what we can learn from this example.
- All link building activity was focused on linking back to a single page on the website.
- This single page website was not being updated that often, being a static one.
- Link building was probably a single contributor to higher rankings, no new content was produced.
My logical conclusion, and it’s just my educated guess, is “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” when it comes to SEO. This example proves that link building activity does affect rankings. But links, although important, not the only factor Google looks at when it ranks websites.
One page website SEO recommendations
So, given all of that, here’s what I told Jo and what I’m sharing with you now.
- One page website is a great idea. It looks cool, it smells cool, it feels cool. It IS cool! So, if you are an agency or a creativity powered small business, one page website is a great way to execute your web presence.
- However, make sure that you have new content created regularly. This can be done by installing a blog inside a directory like yourwebsite.com/blog/. This is my recommendation as opposed to doing a sub-domain like blog.yourwebsite.com.
- When link building you should link general keywords like “calgary marketing agency” to a homepage, but use more specific keywords to link to your blog posts.
- This will allow you to both build links AND expand your website with new content through regular content addition.
Valuable update (September 10, 2011): after a few of your comments on Twitter and Facebook I decided to add a bit more relevant links to this post. Here’s what others say about one page websites and their relationships with SEO:
- “The SEO effects of a one page website” discussion at Cre8tiveForums
- “Single Page Website SEO” blog post at Permanently Uncached
- “Repercussions of a single page website” discussion at SEOchat Forum
- “SEO for One Page Websites” Q&A at SEOmoz
I hope this makes sense. Please let me know if it doesn’t. And don’t be shy, I greatly appreciate your +1s, shares and comments below the articles.
6 Comments
Great – I should definitely pronounce, impressed with your website. I had no trouble navigating through all the tabs and related info ended up being truly easy to do to access. I recently found what I hoped for before you know it in the least. Quite unusual. Is likely to appreciate it for those who add forums or something, web site theme . a tones way for your client to communicate. Excellent task.
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[...] is to create the blog on a separate page within your website directory, e.g., yourwebsite.com/blog/ Thanks to Zagoumenov.com for this tip! Make sure to optimize your blog articles with the keywords found in your one page website to ensure [...]
Fantastic issues altogether, you just won a logo new reader. What would you recommend in regards to your post that you just made some days in the past? Any positive?
Ian, first of all, so great to hear from you! How’s Montréal? Second, great questions! Here’s my take:
1. The main problem SEOs are having with one page sites is that all external links are pointing to this single page. I agree, and in this article show an example of why a one page website didn’t work (SEO-wise) for Redline. It did while they were investing in links building efforts. Once they stopped, the page dropped in rankings. So, having all links pointing to a single page is not good.
2. However, my point is that one page website + a blog (regular content including landing pages) as a directory site.com/blog/ = a way better scenario. This way you can diversify your link building by creating links to other pages on the site. In my opinion this is way more valuable for two reasons: 1) there’s new content, 2) link inventory is spread throughout the site, not on a single page.
3. Does quantity of content contribute to page rank? If you consider a one page website vs. a multi-user blog, then the quantity does matter. It’s more difficult for a 5-page website to compete with forums and multi-user blogs in Google. However, if you’re comparing one regular blog to another regular blog in the same field, then the quantity of the content should not be a factor. Here’s an example of this post ranking on Google:
Check “one page website seo” (without the quotes) on Google.ca de-personalized. You will see this post ranking somewhere at the top of page 2. In front of me you will see 3 big forums, one SEOmoz result, a webdesignerdepot showcase page, and a number of blogs like mine. Yes, they are all much older than my post, yet I can still compete.
4. I’d rather have inbound links that point to 30 different sub pages, totaling 1000 links? And that’s why I’m recommending adding a blog to a one page website. A one page website is bad on its own. Blog creates additional content (hopefully on regular basis, otherwise the whole thing may not work), which can then be used for link building purposes (those new pages can be used as landing pages for your keywords).
I hope this makes more sense. LMK if it doesn’t and I’ll write another post with visuals. I’m actually getting a few clarification requests in this post, so I might as well write another post. Again, great to hear from you! Chat soon!
Does having one page somehow become more “efficient” for linking rather than having hundreds of articles or pages? Or does quantity of content contribute to page rank?
I am not sure if that was clear, but let me put it this way: would you rather have 1000 people mention the same address on Facebook, Twitter, blogs and comments… or have inbound links that point to 30 different sub pages, totaling 1000 links?