Sin­gle-page Word­Press web­sites became increas­ing­ly pop­u­lar in the last cou­ple of years. As Google­bot favors a pag­i­nat­ed struc­ture, which mul­ti-page web­sites have by default, it is pos­si­ble to have an SEO-friend­ly sin­gle-page web­site. Learn which steps you need to take to have a one-page web­site that search engines will love.

SEO advantages of single-page WordPress websites

While mul­ti-page web­sites are bet­ter for SEO in gen­er­al, there are some advan­tages of hav­ing s sin­gle-page website:

• Less main­te­nance and SEO issues — A sin­gle-page web­site is sim­ple. There are less plu­g­ins and infor­ma­tion to update, there­fore few­er SEO issues that could decrease your ratings.
• Page author­i­ty — Since the web­site con­sists of only one page, the author­i­ty of that page will always be high­er than if you would split con­tent into sep­a­rate pages.
• Great for mobile vis­i­tors — Intu­itive scrolling with­out click­ing around is per­fect for find­ing the infor­ma­tion you need on a small screen. With a grow­ing num­ber of mobile users each year, this is a huge advan­tage when you are opti­miz­ing for mobile traffic.
• UX friend­ly — When load­ing speed is not an issue, a sin­gle-page web­site is more intu­itive. It lever­ages a grid lay­out for sto­ry­telling and to inspire action.

SEO disadvantages of single-page WordPress websites

Even when apply­ing all SEO rec­om­men­da­tions, there are a few SEO dis­ad­van­tages that come with sin­gle-page websites:

• A lim­it­ed num­ber of key­words — When all your con­tent lives on the same page it is hard­er to rank for a vari­ety of keywords.
• Link build­ing — It is more dif­fi­cult to have a con­tin­u­ous flow of new links.
• Con­tent shar­ing — You can­not share spe­cif­ic con­tent on social media because all sec­tions of the web­site share the same URL
• For­get about advanced SEO strate­gies — As stat­ed before, sin­gle-page web­sites are sim­ple, and SEO is all about con­tent. Since you can­not have long and com­plex con­tent about dif­fer­ent top­ics all on one page, you should­n’t rely on organ­ic traf­fic as your main channel.

Optimize your single-page website step by step

Opti­miz­ing a sin­gle-page web­site is sim­ple. You just need to fol­low these 7 steps:

1. Define keywords you wish your website to rank for

The first step in build­ing a one-page web­site is to decide which are the main key­words for which you want to appear on search engines.

To come up with a qual­i­ty list of key­words you need to do thor­ough key­word research and choose key­words with sat­is­fy­ing search vol­ume but not too much competition.

2. Prepare content optimized for each keyword

For each key­word you choose, you should have at least 300–600 words that are opti­mized for that key­word. You can find some gen­er­al guide­lines on how to opti­mize your con­tent for cho­sen key­words in our arti­cle: How to opti­mize a blog post

3. Use DIVs to separate content sections

You should orga­nize your con­tent into dif­fer­ent sec­tions and place them inside DIVs. Each DIV should contain:

• A key­word-based H1 tag
• Your cho­sen key­word in the first sen­tence, clos­er to the begin­ning is better
• LSI key­words sprin­kled through­out the copy
• Key­word-based image alt tags

Basi­cal­ly, all SEO rec­om­men­da­tions that apply to opti­miz­ing con­tent on mul­ti-page web­sites, you can lever­age here as well.

4. Use keyword-based anchor links to navigate through different sections

As you can­not have a key­word-based URL for dif­fer­ent key­words, you should treat anchor links as you would dif­fer­ent URLs.

This is an exam­ple how you should struc­ture and name DIV IDs and anchor links:

<div id="your-chosen-keyword/keyphrase">

<a target="_blank" href="#your-chosen-keyword/keyphrase">Your chosen keyword/keyphrase</a>

5. Optimize page speed

One of the most impor­tant things when it comes to sin­gle-page Word­Press web­sites is web­site speed. Since sin­gle-page web­sites are ide­al for mobile traf­fic, you need to make sure the load­ing time is fast.

Here are gen­er­al guide­lines on how you can decrease your web­site’s load­ing time:

• Reduce image file size as much as possible
• Min­i­mize the num­ber of HTTP requests
• Reduce DNS lookups
• Uti­lize brows­er caching
• Enable GZIP compression
• Mini­fy CSS, HTML, and JS files
• Opti­mize the DOM’s ren­der­ing path

Find more detailed instruc­tions for opti­miz­ing web­site speed in our arti­cle: How to opti­mize web­site’s speed and performance

6. Optimize crawlability

If you use JavaScript for spe­cial effects, make sure all con­tent on your site is crawlable for spi­ders, and JavaScript is not block­ing anything.

You can eas­i­ly check how Google­bot sees your site by using the “Fetch and Ren­der” tool in your Google Search Con­sole property.

7. Optimize readability

Make sure the con­tent is eas­i­ly digestible; avoid wall-of-text, long sen­tences, and para­graphs. Use num­bered and bul­let­ed lists, quotes, images, and oth­er mul­ti­me­dia to break the con­tent and make it more interesting.

Conclusion

Sin­gle-page Word­Press web­sites are not ide­al for every busi­ness but can be great for new sites and spe­cial projects, where sto­ry­telling which leads to bet­ter con­ver­sion rates is essen­tial, and organ­ic traf­fic is not in focus.