One Page Guide vs. Multiple Individual Pages

[jpretz]

Howdy, Mozzers!

I am having a battle with my inner-self regarding how to structure a resources section for our website. We're building out several pieces of content that are meant to be educational for our clients and I'm having trouble deciding how to layout the content structure. We could either layout all eight short sections on a single page, or create individual pages for each section. The goal is obviously to attract new potential clients by targeting these terms that they may be searching for in an information gathering stage.

Here's my dilemma...
With the single page guide, it would be nice because it will have a lot of content (and of course, keywords) to be picked up by the SERPS but I worry that it is going to be a bit crammed (because of eight sections) for the user. The individual pages would be much better organized and you can target more specific keywords, but I worry that it may get flagged for light content as some pages may have as little as a 150 word description.

I have always been mindful of writing copy for searchers over spiders, but now I'm at a more technical crossroads as far as potentially getting dinged for not having robust content on each page.

Here's where you come in...
What do you think is the better of the two options? I like the idea of having the multiple pages because of the ability to hone-in on a keyword and the clean, organized feel, but I worry about the lack of content (and possibly losing out on long-tail opportunities).

I'd love to hear your thoughts. Please and thank you.

Ready annnnnnnnnnnnd GO!

[jpretz]

Right-- that's how the wireframe is set up now is with a landing page for an introduction.

Thanks for your response!

[CleverPhD]

Generally speaking, you don't want thin content.  Don't do it.  Take each of the 8 topics and write to the fullest.  You may be surprised how much you can write on a given topic (vs just 150 words). Hire out a freelance writer on oDesk to help if you need.  You may then want to have an overview page that talks about the 8 section and links to them so that people (and bots) can see how things are organized.

[asmedia]

Hi there,

As a guide line you should have at least 700 words on a page, so the multiple pages with 150 words is risky.

The way I would do it is to create 8 butons at the top which would be anchors and list all the text bellow, so you would have the 8 buttons at top and the client will only click the appropriate section, and the good part is that google will see all the text on-page

You know just like the 1 page sites work, it's a common practice now days

examples : http://moz.com/about/tagfee or http://www.epipheo.com/

[BrianJGomez]

I'm with you, I like having the separate content. I'm sure if you do that you will link all of content so that someone looking for a particular piece of content can quickly navigate by title or something like that. I think doing that way you can target broad keywords for each of the eight topics and if they're in depth, I would imagine the long tail opportunities will be there as well.

To me this solution satisfies the human/user experience part as well as the search engines, your eight landing pages will get some love because of how narrow in scope they.