One big page vs. multi-step pages

[Mase]

Hi mozers!

Brand new to SEO and LOVING it! Having several key questions that I don't see answered yet, but I'll start with one we've been very curious about.

Consider this guide we have for Forming a Delaware Corp. 
https://www.upcounsel.com/Free-Legal/Guide/17/Form-A-Delaware-Corporation

This is our overview page, giving you a breakdown of what this process involves.  We love this page, but (Question1:) does it lack better real "content" rather than lots of links to the guide process itself?

Then, you can start to walk through the guide beginning with step one, where each step has crowd sourced answers to it. But as you see, the step pages are all very similar, except for the answers and step info.

(Question 2) Would it be better to put all our answers into the one overview page and skip having separate pages for each step? We like the process and simplicity of seeing one step at a time, but then these pages don't seem to have enough unique content on them.

Related, at what point (if any) is a page too big with too much content and considered bad for SEO?  We're recovering from a big hit from Google, and slowly recovering by nailing down various SEO mistakes. We DO have great, unique and valueable content - now we just need it to rank!

[EGOL]

But, wouldn't you agree that testing is the only way to know for sure?

Yes, I agree.  Testing is the only way to know for sure and I highly recommend it.

I have done enough testing with my own content on my own sites to decide this is the way that I am betting - every time I have appropriate content for this method.  However, other writers on other websites might have different results.

Can you tell I'm on my testing soap box?

Glad you have a soap box... keep it ready at all times.  

[danatanseo]

Hi EGOL. You make some good points. But, wouldn't you agree that testing is the only way to know for sure? I think making big changes to pages and structure based only on a hypothesis is not the best way to proceed. While long pages might impress visitors to some kinds of sites, they could be a huge turn-off to visitors on other kinds of sites. If you have an assumption that one way would be better than another, then the best thing to do is to test that assumption and find out if what you believe is really true or not.

If you are pleasing the search engines at the expense of your audience, what have you gained? You might end up getting more traffic, but what if they bail because the page isn't what they were hoping to find or it's too much for them to digest?

Can you tell I'm on my testing soap box? LOL, OK, I'll come down now.

[EGOL]

I would do both!

I would place all of the answers on this main page... and I would have a link to the post page where the answer is repeated and the visitors have asked questions / left comments.

For search engines this gives you a really big page with lots of content... and it gives you pages with user content.

For visitors they can see all of the details on one big page without needed to click through to the post page.

At first, there is some small risk of duplicate content and of thin content on the post pages.  However, you can solve this by increasing the amount of unique detail on the post page.  (For example, answer one of the most frequently asked questions yourself which would add more unique content for search and also give that answer to visitors.)

I am a big fan of really big pages..... they pull huge amounts of long tail traffic, they impress visitors, and search engines should like them better than a collection of links.

[danatanseo]

There's really only one way to find out if one page structure/design is better than another and that's to split test your ideas. Optimizely.com is a great resource that has a one month free trial.

That being said, I personally don't think there's anything wrong with the page with the steps listed linking out to each step. Visitors generally will keep following a trail as long as they feel they are on the right track. I would be concerned that adding more content to the page might distract visitors from proceeding through the funnel, which is ultimately what you want them to do, yes?

Again, you won't really know that for sure unless you test one way versus the other. If you do test, look at your bounce rates in addition to funnel conversion rates. If one version has an excessively high bounce rate, this could be bad for SEO and would be something to consider when making any changes.

I can give you all kinds of personal opinion, but that's not really going to help you. I think you need to test test test. Hope that helps!

Dana