For Best SEO Results, Slice and Dice Content

Google doesn’t care about your SEO campaign. The only thing they care about is that people get the most relevant possible results for their searches. The Google brand depends on the reliability of their search results in delivering exactly what people are looking for when they input a search.

If you search “top law firms in new york city,” Google hopes to deliver exactly that: a list of the top law firms in New York City. Google does not want to deliver a list of the top law firms in New York State. Nor does it want to deliver the top law firm in New York City. You pluralized your search for a reason – you want a list, not a single firm.

Now let me tell you the most common thing I see companies doing that hinders Google in its quest for specificity and exactitude: they put too much information on one page. For example, most companies that offer services have a Services page. And on that page, they list all 6 – or whatever the number –services the company offers, perhaps with a short description of each one. That seems like a reasonable thing to do, right? Well, it is, but Google doesn’t like it. If someone is looking for just ONE of those six services, Google would prefer to show them a single page dedicated to ONLY that service. That would be the clearest, most unobstructed response to the user’s query.

Yes, I know that the searcher could quickly scan through the other services on the page and find the one they need. And if you were the only company that offered that service, then they would have to; yours would be the best result Google has to offer. But the odds are that some of your competitors have a single page dedicated to the specific service the user was searching for; and if that’s the case, you are going to lose the potential customer to them.

If you are serious about attracting organic traffic from Google, I advise you to slice and dice your content up. Bear in mind that I don’t mean for you to make your website a bunch of really short pages strung together; I just mean for you to give users the option to click on various concepts and offerings in order to view a page fully dedicated to that concept or offering. For example, you can keep that comprehensive Services page I described earlier almost exactly as it is. The only difference is that each service listed on it should be linked to a full landing page that is dedicated to that service and that service alone.

Another common example of a page with too much information for Google’s liking is the FAQ page. Many companies have FAQ pages, and typically they are fairly long, containing several questions. Now imagine the same page but with a “Read More” link after each question which leads visitors to a new page with a longer answer to the same question. That way, when someone types a question into Google and it happens to be one you have on your FAQ page, you have a much better chance of showing up. Google will love that you dedicated an entire page to answering that one question.

The concept of presenting your site’s content via numerous specialized pages need not harm your user experience. In fact, the only thing it will do is give people searching on Google a happy home to come to when they’re doing research on what you sell. And you can attempt to direct them wherever you want once they’ve gotten the answer to their question – hopefully to a page that converts them into a customer.

In slicing and dicing your content, everyone wins: you, your potential customers, and Google. Implementing this strategy is a bit of work, yes, but so are all good things.

Evan Bailyn

Evan Bailyn is a best-selling author and award-winning speaker on the subjects of SEO and thought leadership. Contact Evan here.