How Many Pages Does Your Website Really Need?
Although page count doesn’t necessarily have an effect on search engine optimization (SEO), your page count is something to definitely pay attention to when designing your website. From the number of services your brand offers to the type of content you plan to display on your site, you want to ensure that your page count is enough to display effective information without scaring customers away. At Big D Creative, we design websites with usability in mind and often help our clients whittle down their page counts to focus on the essential elements of their brand. Here’s a little insight into how we approach page count, and what types of pages your site really needs.
Can Your Site Have Too Many Pages?
The technical answer is no, it can’t. Your site could be 150 to 200 pages, and as long as the content is unique, search engines won’t penalize you for having such a large page count. On the other side of the coin, if your website doesn’t require so many pages, penalties still aren’t an issue, but your site won’t be or user-friendly. The content you place on your pages should always be unique, and you should never duplicate content just because you want to rack up a higher page count.
Unique Pages Are Your Site’s Best Friend
As we just mentioned, duplicating content is an SEO sin. Despite the number of services or locations associated with your brand, you want to write unique content for each page. This will help you establish authority throughout your site right out of the gates and ensure that you avoid any penalties that hold up your site’s success. Some of the types of unique pages you should aim for include the following:
Static Pages
These are some of the most important pages on your business’ website. These pages tell your customers exactly what your brand offers and how your services can benefit their lives. These pages are also known as money pages as they are usually higher converting pages.
Static pages will be the bulk of your website and should always include:
- Service Pages
- About Us
- Contact Us
- Locations Pages
Your design and development team can help you create unique content for each of these pages and make the most of every page that you add to your site.
Blog Pages
While your SEO team can adjust your static to match keyword and industry evolution over time, their content isn’t something you want to drastically change often. You want your website to naturally evolve over time, so, let’s welcome blog posts to your page count! Blogs are an excellent way to keep up with trending, relevant topics while also adding an extra boost to your site’s page count. Outside of adding relevant pages for crawlers to index, your blogs are also a point of engagement that you can freely share across the internet with the benefit of attracting even more new potential customers to your site.
Don’t Be Afraid to Condense
A lot of business owners believe that having too much content on one page results in poor usability. So, they will create multiple pages that expand on one service. This can lead to a cluttered website that leaves visitors scrambling to find the exact service or product they are looking for. Although Google does reward sites that have higher unique page counts, we recommend condensing multiple pages into one unique page of long-form content whenever possible. We understand that long-form content can seem daunting at first glance. However, your design team can help you format your pages to include all relevant content on a subject that is scannable and easily digestible. This approach is also helpful when you attempt to tackle SEO after your website launches. Google and other search engines reward websites for long-form content that answers the most relevant questions about a topic or product. If your page content is longer and able to appease Google upon launch, get ready to watch your site climb up into the rankings fast.
Always Keep Your Audience in Mind
When you and your website development team are creating the sitemap in the design process, consider your audience when you start incorporating page count into your site. Audiences want to find what they need quickly and if your site has too many pages that require visitors to jump down a rabbit hole to make a conversion, then you probably have too many unnecessary pages.
Craft the Perfect Page Count with the Professional Designers at Big D Creative
If you have big ideas for your website but don’t know how to implement them in the design and development process, the team at Big D Creative wants to meet you. We’ve successfully created user-friendly websites for every industry and can help you realize your vision through our professional services. When you work with Big D Creative, we are your partners through the planning, design, development process, and even beyond launch. Contact us today to learn more about our services and schedule your free consultation with a member of our team.