Separate long FAQ’s onto separate pages?

[hgolov]

I have a client who hired me to do SEO on her sites. She manages a lab, which provides various medical services. She uses the same structure on all of her sites, as follows: each service occupies one page on the site. Each page is a list of FAQ’s. Most of the FAQ’s are several paragraphs long. So there are very few pages on the site, and each page is exceedingly long.

My thinking is that each FAQ should be its own page, since the SEO literature says to optimize each page of the site for only a couple of keywords. What are your thoughts? Any other pros and cons of separating the FAQ’s onto separate pages?

Thanks in advance.

[stapel]

I don't know if it matters -- since you ask about search-engine usability, rather than live-person usability -- but it is generally recommended that pages not go very long, because people's eyes tend to glaze over when faced with a hugely long page with eternal scrolling.

Probably the FAQ should be split up. If the questions divide naturally into sub-categories, you could make sub-pages for the FAQ, each containing that sub-categories' questions and answers. This would likely still make for fairly long pages, but they would still be shorter than the all-in-one FAQ page. But I think the preferred solution is, yes, to have the questions on one page and each answer on its own separate page.

Eliz.

[tedster]

The ability to have a unique title element for each question is critical, IMO. That alone would move me to split the pages.

[pageoneresults]

My thinking is that each FAQ should be its own page, since the SEO literature says to optimize each page of the site for only a couple of keywords. What are your thoughts? Any other pros and cons of separating the FAQ’s onto separate pages?

Your thinking is correct. I usually break pages down to their least common denominator. When a client submits a document to me for publication on a site, I typically end up breaking that document down into its own section (with multiple pages) and/or sub-directory.

With an FAQs section, there are a couple of different ways to do this. Personally, I'd do what you want to do and break them down into individual pages. If the answers for each question are more than 2-3 paragraphs, then they most likely qualify for a page on their own. You just need to figure out how to organize and create a logical navigation for the visitor.

For shorter FAQs, a single page with a list of links at top and then named anchors throughout the document with a back to top link at the end of each answer.