The one-page wonder | Hacker News Reader

The one-page wonder

dech.co.uk

46 pointsdanw28 comments

There definitely can be some negative SEO effects of fitting all your content on one page. If you want your page to rank well in Google, the keyword density should be 3-5%, and the title tag keyword density should be as high as possible for the specific term you want to page to rank for.

If all of the content is squeezed into one page, like the example, the page won't rank well for anything (baring off page optimization).

Absolutely. Furthermore, you're going to give yourself a huge bounce-rate if - like the dentist example - you have a single page with no external links.

Google keeps track of how many times users click 'back' from a search result to a search page. Needless to say it's going lower the subsequent rankings that the dentist page receives.

Decreasing the number of pages through clever AJAX use can improve user experience. But it still makes sense to have different chunks of content on different pages, linked together. The SEO implications are a reflection of this.

SEO should never be the reason to ruin a site's navigation. No dentist can bank on being the #1 search for "Dentist" on Google. The dentist's website optimization should concentrate on having accurate information in local directories (online and printed phone books, Citysearch, Yelp, etc.) and encouraging satisfied patients to provide positive online and in-person reviews/referrals. Google Adwords and Yahoo's equivalent would be good investments too, using "<City Name> dentist" as keywords.

One of the commenters made a good point that he had to navigate too much to see the phone number. IMO, the phone number, address, and a link to a map should be on the screen at all times (using CSS fixed positioning).

True, don't ruin your site navigation for the sake of SEO. Good thing its very easy to create a very appealing website that also can rank well in Google.

Having accurate information in local directories would be considered "off-site" factors. Off-site factors are very very important, but does not negate the importance of proper on-page SEO.

And yes, for a website like the example, I think the contact info should always be very easy to find near the top of the page.

I'd say the tasteful kind of SEO often aligns well with having good usability, site navigation being one of its aspects.

I tried googling for the page and it wasn't trivial to find.

Here are queries I tried: 1. "parkside dental" 2. "parkside dental goldsworth"

I found it with the second query, it's the third result.

You'll notice they used a graphic instead of text for the company name at the top of the page. That's a classic SEO "no no".

  "There definitely can be some negative SEO effects..."

There definitely CAN BE negative effects, if you do not know what you are doing. You should be properly building the out the page's hierarchy as well as relevant inbound and onsite links (with id anchors at the end) to accompany that hierarchy.(Please note I am not suggesting links like "http://www.site.com/#about-us" can rank in google)

A one pager, in my opinion, can be great for a small business.

You would definitely need to provide the user with conventions they are used to such as (contrary to DECH's blog post) providing pseudo-navigation at the top of each section.

Of course none of this matters if you aren't putting in any effort to convert that user into a possible customer. So a few things to include:

- scrolling contact info

- contact form

In the end the user get's "faster page loads", and therefore more gratification from using the website.

Disclaimer: This was just a stream of thought, I do not encourage or discourage one pagers for any given case.

1. A high keyword density for the phrase you wish to rank for is very important to achieve your desired ranking.

2. The more content you squeeze onto one page, which could be spread across multiple pages, means the keyword density will be lower.

3. The page will not rank as well as it could have. It's basic SEO. Maybe dentistry isn't a very competitive niche and you can get away with a lower keyword density in the body text.

1. I can beat keyword density out with a good title tag, 2 related headers (h1 & h2) & some inbound links.

2. True, but see my first point.

3. True, BUT only in a competitive market. In my original comment I said "...can be great for a small business.", I probably should have used the words "local small business".

Because ranking for something like... "Miami Electricians" or "New York City Dog Sitters" would be easy and would be most effective (in my opinion) with a one page site.

A good title tag needs to focus on one or two key phrases. If the whole site is on one page, you can't make a good title tag to cover everything. Better to have a different page for each topic and optimize title, body text, and thinks for the topic the page covers. If all inbound links are equal, the optimized page will always beat the all-in-one page.

While a one pager will work for some very, very small sites, there a compelling reasons not to do this. People have been trained to look for navigation cues such as Contact Us, About Us, What's New, and Home. These are standard becasuse they work, are easy to understand, and give the user LESS content to sift through. The example site is really missing the boat usability wise. Also, it doesn't feel right to NOT have the standard navigational options. It leaves me, the user wondering what I am missing.

Dech's disclaimer at the beginning ("can get all of the information on one page without compromising on usablity") is so restrictive as to be tautological. It basically says "if it works on one page then it works on one page".

From a business perspective, there are different reasons for having a website (I tried categorising at http://www.shirlawsonline.com/blogs/171-there-are-only-four-...) and I would suggest only a small subset of the simplest reason would fit into Dech's disclaimer - for the rest, this would be painfully wrong advice.

Navbars are probably the most widespread ui element on the web, and I can't think of anything you could do (that isn't explicitly malicious) to confuse casual users more than removing them. Even if that violated expectation counted for nothing, I'd estimate that 30% of the dental site's users wouldn't think to use the browser's find button. I would fire this man in an instant.

Even if we didn't have to contend with the habits and training that users have, I doubt this would be better. Is he arguing that a navbar with links to the appropriate sections is not worth the space it takes? If not, is he arguing that the benefits of everything being on one page (more useful browser find, I guess) outweighs the downsides (seo, users wading through mountains of text, scrolling required to access navbar, etc)?

On the other hand, check out songza.com for some smart one-page web antics.

I absolutely hate long one page layouts. They scream "scam" any time I come across one.

What else do you hate?

Underscore.

That actually made me chuckle. Nicely done.

Tough crowd!

But often "less is more".

A page per section makes it easier to focus on that section. I think it has to do with the unconscious processing of visual information.

Also, if the one page technique was superior I would expect it would have become the dominant method on the web. Evidence suggests otherwise.

Some A/B-testing would be in order, though.

The one-page strategy doesn't give you room to grow. I think that alone is enough to reject that strategy in all but the most trivial of cases.

The example website is a site that basically replaces a paper-based flyer, so having it be one page is OK.

I would have worked more or less the same as a 2- or 3-page site I think. With only one page you don't have the lag associated with page load every time you want to see a different section of the site.

It's a print page for an entire, small-sized website or possibly a summary page for a medium-sized website. It's not a new concept but I would like to see it applied more often. Anything worth doing is worth summarizing.

unless the navigation scrolls the page, this is a horrible idea. I agree that if you can fit all of your info on one page, it should be done, but the example was 5-6 pages long. I wouldnt scroll down that far.

It's certainly worth a discussion on the merits of a one-page design. Often, I flounder through a site trying to find a specific piece of information and just wish they would put it on a single webpage.

You can print all with one click.

"Just because you can, doesn't mean you should"

...goes both ways.

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