Is creating lots of sub product pages with some variation a good idea?

[designquotes]

I have a service for quote comparison for web design, graphic design etc.

My main sales page is

http://www.designquotes.com.au/compare-quotes

I am thinking of creating 20 or so product specific pages such as this:

http://www.designquotes.com.au/business-card-design-stationary-quotes

Additional pages such as

• CMS Wbe Design
• eCommerce Web Design
• Logo Desing
• etc

Some of the content is repeat, the main content that changes is in the content slider at the bottom.

Is this a good idea, or should I be creating more high quality content like the one below? Will the page be considered low quality or get duplicate content penalties?

http://www.designquotes.com.au/web-design-buyers-guide

[kchan]

Hello,

My advice is try to keep things simple and straightforward.  You shouldn't create an individual page for similar products.  I understand you are trying to optimize a product for a specific keyword, but if the products are very similar such as 'logo design' and 'graphic design' then having one page would be better. If you have too many pages, it might make things confusing for your visitors, thus they will leave the site (higher bounce rate).  Also, the content on each page is fairly similar, so there might be a duplicate issue problem.

If your looking at a PPC perspective, creating the suggested landing pages would be a good idea because you can specifically customize advertisements for each page and that should improve your quality score and minimize CPC.

So in summary, keep things simile and relevant.  Don't create the page just for the SERPS, concentrate on usability (what make it easy for your visitors to navigate around the site), because if they get what they want easily, there is a high chance of them returning.

Hope this helps.

[Danapollo]

Ah ok, I see - I must have mis-read. Either way, you'd still be placing duplicated content on several pages, and this could affect how you rank for certain keywords.

Of course, it's your call, but by a best-practice approach, you're always safer with unique content. I think of it like this - an author wouldn't copy and paste some of chapter one and place it into chapter two of their book unless it was completely relevant (which is rare) - so a web master shouldn't do this either (unless you're quoting with a link).

[designquotes]

I don't know why you think two pages are hitting the same keyword.

The first page I refer to targets "web design quotes" "graphic design quotes" etc.

The second one targets "business card design" "stationary design".

The sales content is duplicated, but the descriptive content is unique.

[Danapollo]

Just my own opinion on this one (and one I know other SEOs on here will share) - duplicated content is best avoided on your website. You want to be unique, right??

Firstly - you'd have two separate pages competing for the same keyword, so you'll never be able to get 'the best' out of one page as the other one will be sapping away some of its visits and authority.

Secondly - why would you want to duplicate your content (other than cutting corners and attempting to dominate a keyword)? Forgive me for being blunt, but it's pretty spammy and doesn't look natural. You'd be best doing what you suggested and creating more high-quality content that people WANT to read and share. An extra week writing better content may sound like a chore right now - but you'd spend much longer than a week trying to clean your site up when you realise your duplicated content isn't working.

That's just my view on it - but I feel pretty strongly about duplicated content. Pet hate, some may say!

Create killer content - better than your competitors - that's going to be worth reading. Informational first, then move into sales.

Hope that helps!