Pages with Long Content VS Multiple Pages with Content

How do you choose between pages with a lot of content VS multiple pages with content? It seems to me from a user experience that ultra long pages can be perceived as a bad user experience. Not to target Bruce Clay, but his site ranks very well and his content pages are a mile long. You could consider this to be a strong element in making a decision of how to build your pages.

On the other hand we see pages ranked consistently with a good content and may only be a typical single page in length. Commonly these pages are configured in a pyramid theme, at the top of the theme would be your primary subject and the pages below it could be considered topics that are inline with your primary theme. Which is the way I prefer to build sites out with content.

For example, I will use Cystic Fibrosis since I am trying to collect donations for it. Hint hint…


Your top category page: Cystic Fibrosis

Should contain a brief synopsis of the subject.

Your sub-category pages should be relevant and linked to from your primary category page:

• Symptoms
o Digestion Issues
o Breathing Problems
o Loss of Appetite
o Digestion Problems
• Treatments
o Physical Therapy
o Lung Transplant
o Medications
• Living with Cystic Fibrosis
o Mental Anxiety
o Burdon on Parents and Siblings


This method seems to work very well for containing content. It is important that each one of these themed pages link back to the Parent page as well as the subject pages themselves. Otherwise you are not taking advantage of the linking powers that move upward.