Like a boomerang, what comes back to me once again is the question of how to SEO one page website. which has been enjoying interest for several years, due to the attractiveness of the materials presented on them, ease of use by the Internet users and low costs, which is why today I will deal with this topic.
What is a one page Website?
As the name suggests, this is a website that contains only 1 document presented to the internet user with the entire content of the site. There are no links inside the page on tqhis page, a menu may appear linking to the sections on the visible site.
Such websites are most often used to promote one particular product or service and are focused on one specific action, which is why they are very simple and transparent, and users can read everything on one page quickly and fully familiarize themselves with the entire content of the site. One page pages look modern and are adapted to mobile devices.
Well, I wrote how wonderful these pages are, and now a few bitter words.
The biggest problem of one page type pages is the lack of content, which is why seo specialists do not like these websites. One page is 1 page and nothing more. There are no content that will contain hundreds, thousands of potential key phrases that can generate natural traffic from Google. The updated content on the site is also an important element of the page for Google, while on one page there is no room for it.
The other thing is that these websites are very nice, have animations, large images, which can additionally weigh a lot on what seersome does not help, but more on this later in the “Advantages and disadvantages of One Page” section
Below is the statement of Matt Cuts former Google employee
Below is a free translation of the movie.
“What does Google think about one page sites? They are becoming more and more complex and there are great sites that use only one main page (+ a lot of CSS and JavaScript), giving the user the same possibilities as a classic page with numerous subpages. “
“A very good question, because there is a trend of one page pages, like pages for various conferences or hot-startup websites (page with product offer or project description), on which you can scroll endlessly. They often have a lot of content and dynamic, interactive elements.
Google has been dealing with JavaScript a lot more recently, and if you do unusual things on your website, pin and unpin various items, etc., our script does a good job of processing these types of activities.
Generally, in your place I would test first, I would not base all SEO on this single page if CSS or JavaScript is unclear, or inadvertently blocked it in robots.txt. But if you do the test and you’re happy with its result, I do not see any particular problem in it.
This is a different convention, sometimes it works, sometimes not; maybe you will have a better conversion of such a page. It depends on your industry, topic and the layout you use. But if this page layout works for you and your users, then in most cases it will also be readable by Google. “
How is the one page website built?
As I mentioned before, it is a very simple website with literally 1 document, which is divided into sections, e.g. about the company, services, price list.
At the top of the page, it is worth placing a menu that will link to these sections, so that the user will not have to scroll often a long page, and immediately go where he wants. By the way, Internet users like this type of site precisely because you do not have to wander in the structure of the page to find some information, but it is available immediately on page 1 just scroll it.
As for the design of the page, they usually contain a lot of animations and graphic elements. In my opinion, they are overloaded with them.
Advantages and disadvantages of one page pages
You already know what the one page page is and how it is built, but even before we go to seo I will tell you why people use these websites and what are their main drawbacks.
Advantages of one page website:
- Visually attractive,
- The whole page is loaded immediately and you do not have to wait for it to be reloaded while browsing it,
- As this is only one side of her creation, it should not be expensive,
- For this reason, managing it will be easier as well as its optimization,
- All content is available on 1 page so the user will not get lost,
- Allows you to quickly get acquainted with the offer / product,
- Allows for effective call-to-action.
Disadvantages of one page website:
- Due to many animations and graphics the site is heavy and will load for a long time,
- Lack of possibility to optimize the website for many key phrases,
- The lack of the possibility of using extensive content, often the content is limited to fit the page layout,
- No possibility to conduct content marketing activities on the website,
- No possibility of expanding the content,
- The lack of the possibility of using some optimization techniques on the website,
- Links lead to 1 page, which contains a lot of information so that the user who gets it can feel confused where to look for information,
- In my opinion, placing too much information on this site can cause a lot of confusion and chaos on the site.
How to optimize for SEO?
I think that a good solution that allows you to combine the advantages of one page while not abandoning the standard pages is to add a link to the page describing the section in more detail at each section.
So on the main page there is a section about the company that contains a short, nicely composed 500-character text with a link to the page containing the full unique description of the activity. Thanks to that, we have 2 roasts per 1 stone. This is also a good way for them to gradually develop a page to the normal page one by one.
There is one more solution, namely parallax scrolling, which allows the site to be a page, sections contained their individual url addresses and meta tags, also if someone insists on one page it seems to be the most reasonable solution, although technically more difficult to implement. I refer interested people to a foreign source on this topic >>
How to rank single page website – Useful tips
Ok, you already know what problems are related to one page pages, what are their limitations, but what if someone insisted on one page?
You have to rank it on Google! So below you will find some useful tips on how to do it, but they do not differ much from the ranking of normal website pages.
1. Selection of key phrases
You must limit the choice of key phrases to 1 product or service, which will be discussed on the website. You must arrange the phrases in the appropriate sections by treating them as normal subpages of your site.
2. Page title
The page title should contain about 60-65 characters and should describe it. Do not spam the title with keywords due to the fact that you have only 1 title on the entire page. Remember that the title can be seen in Google and may affect its click throughs; also take care of its copywriting. In addition, the title is visible e.g. in browser tabs, social media…
3. Page Meta description
The description of the page or description contains about 160 characters and should describe the content of the website in a natural way, but it is worth to include the key phrase in it. This description is displayed in Google search results, as well as in social media so it is worth writing, so that it encouraged you to click on it.
4. Heading tags
These are headlines that you use in text of all sizes. From the html tag h1 as the largest and here it is the title of the article, through h2 as the headers in the content. Heading tags create a structure like in a Bachelor’s or Master’s thesis.
The h1 header is an element that matters to seo. It defines what the document is about. Very often, the site title is included in h1.
I always advise that there should be 1 element h1 on the page, because the document speaks about one particular topic, whereas for one page, which is made in html5 technology, I allow each section to contain its h1 header.
5. Images
If you are adding images to your website, it is a good idea to ensure that their file names as well as alternative descriptions reflect their content and are optimized for search engines.
6. Content
Yes I know with one page there is not much space for content, they are also focused mainly on the action to be taken by the surfer, but try to compromise and provide some content in which you will pass key phrases. Remember to make them unique.
7. Speed of the website
Here again you have to try to compromise, because one page pages contain a lot of animations and pictures. It is worth considering whether all the animations are definitely necessary and whether the images have definitely been saved in the appropriate format and their size has been optimized.
8. The division of pages into sections
The page should be divided into clear sections, e.g. about the company, services, price list and mark it in the html document with the div tag, to be able to use anchors in the menu and refer to them. The contents of a given section should be optimized for specific phrases, including anchors, as long as it looks natural.
9. Mobile Responsive
The one page website must be responsive, that is, adapt to the screen size of the device on which it is displayed. It must look good on a mobile phone and a 20-inch computer screen. Soon, the results from mobile devices will be more important than from stationary ones.
10. Local Google Business Listing
Naturally, if the site is a local business, you need to ensure the visibility of company data on the website, and a solidly prepared business card in Google My Business.
A great optimization of one page will be a very important element, due to its considerable limitations in this matter.
Due to these restrictions, you need to focus more on linking. Linking will not be so different than for regular pages.
Conclusion
It cannot be said that one page is the same evil, because if someone has a small service plant in a smaller town, he only needs a good business card to present his offer, and if there is little competition, maybe he can help you.
However, if you are thinking about effectively gaining traffic from Google’s natural results on a large scale, then a “normal” page will be a much better, easier solution.
If you do not find information in the article, Write in the comment what you think about one page and what your experiences with them are.