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Old 11-27-2007, 05:40 PM
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maniactive maniactive is offline
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Default Re: One Big Page vs Several Smaller Pages

Bust it into separate pages. Five reasons why:

1. Design with usability in mind.

Who wants to vertical scroll down a long list to get to what they want? In the real world, would you give your audience a loooooong scrolling piece of paper -- or a booklet with an index?

2. Design with satisfaction in mind.

There's a reason Wikipedia sections each topic into a separate page. If I'm interested in English Setters, I don't want to scroll past a section about English Bulldogs.

3. Design with search in mind.

Separating content into discrete pages lets the spiders index better. As a blogger who links out, I'm more likely to link -- with anchor text -- to a page that describes my topic. If I'm writing a post about "English Setters" -- I'm not going to point my readers to a page about every dog on the planet and tell my readers to try to find the paragraph I mean. And what if someone else is blogging about "English Bulldogs"? The spiders will see all kinds of different anchor text coming into one huge page -- which makes it difficult for the spider to figure out just what the heck the page is all about. Separating it out makes it easy for people to link to you.

4. Design with the future in mind.

As time goes by, you'll test those pages. You'll add more content. You'll clarify. You'll tighten your copy. You might add pictures, video. You'll do it one page at a time, one term at a time. This approach gives you a framework for growing a more friendly, searchable, and satisfying experience for your audience.

5. Design with measuring in mind.

You'll also find out which pages are attractive to visitors. Learn from this information to create additional, more attractive resources.
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Laura Bergells
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