SEO for One Page Websites

[Whitespark]

You can't do any better than this guide for optimization of a single page:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/perfecting-keyword-targeting-on-page-optimization

[ThomasHgenhaven]

Well the guide is still very good. However, one might add some sharing buttons for Twitter/Facebook, as these seem to be important rankingfactors nowadays.

[Dan-Petrovic]

My advice is not to be scared of document size. Have as much data in there as needed to inform and provide regular call to action throughout. Good semantic structure will help Google understand what you're really about. Don't stuff your TITLE with many things - I am guessing you're about a single product or service. Often people try to put too much in key areas, forgetting that Google will pick up miscellaneous other terms from the page and have it rank for it as well.

[firstconversion]

I second the dont be scared of document size recommendation BUT you need to understand the audience you're trying to access and what you want them to do - you havent given us anything to go on really

If people are already pre-bought in and you just want to capture email addresses, then you just need somethign simple and use conversion optimisation to maximise capture

If its early in the buying cycle and you are trying to educate customers, then go to town - add maps, video, images etc as appropritae and make sure to tag them well.

I have also started to write my content with the SEOmoz LDA tool - its pretty fantastic for making sure you don't miss anything important out and end up with a rich, informative page

[randfish]

When it comes to single page sites, make sure you're matching strategy appropriately. It's very hard to win the long tail, and there's often a lot of domain authority value (if the site/page earns lots of links) that goes unspent, meaning you could have more pages/content that could rank well if you added them to the site.

I like to think of these one-pagers as being great promotional vehicles that can later be wrapped into a larger marketing/brand effort by rel-canonicaling or 301'ing back to a reproduction of the content on your larger site. Maybe it's just the thrifty SEO in me, but I hate to see that domain authority wasted

[Partouter]

Thanks for the link Darren - My site search on SEOmoz wasn't as successful 

[Partouter]

I ran out of Good Answers clicks  

I agree with you Rand. The SEO in me wants to extend to a few additional (keyword focused) pages as well. It is indeed a shame to waste good authority. Even though the website owner has a good (broad) authority website, he really wants to widen his net by adding these one page exact domain match website... and I just want to be super-prepared

[randfish]

Suppose that's not wholly unreasonable. Just make sure to have some good links (that are natural and non-spammy-looking) pointing back to the main domain.

[Partouter]

In essence we want to go after 1 main keyword phrase on that one-page, and we'll mention that in the metas. But your suggestion of adding more text to widen the keyword cloud is great.

[Dan-Petrovic]

I guess you would 301 if the offer doesn't exist/apply anymore and canonicalise if the page could have a long-term practical use even after the promotion expires. Right?

[Partouter]

Yes, if a service is no longer active, we would 301 it to the landing page on the main domain.