Website- How many pages is too many?

[Desk Jockey]

I'm roughing up what I would like our new website to include and I'm getting a lot of pages. How many is too many?

We offer 10-services Carpet Cleaning, Area Rugs, Upholstery Cleaning, Tile & Grout, Water Damage, Fire Damage, Vandalism Cleanup, Soda Blasting, Mold Remediation, Bio Recovery, Post Construction Clean Up.

I spent a little time with carpet cleaning and water damage I already have 6-sub pages for each of them.

If each has service has that many sub pages and add in an "About us", "FAQ", "Why chose us", "How did we do", "Links" page it could be in the 50-60 pages range? :shock:

How many is too many?

 

[Brian R]

I'm not sure it matters....but

Sometimes it's better to have all that info from one major category on one page...just reeeeaallly long.

You can link to different parts of the page from the top so that the reader doesn't get transferred to a bunch of different pages.
Although it might make problems loading the page.

The search engines see content, the more content the better as long as they don't see it as being abusive.
Like saying "carpet cleaning" every other two words.
You get the idea.

 

[rotovacguy]

Hey Chavez.....wth is soda blasting??

I've heard of sand blasting, but can't say soda blasting rings a bell.

 

[Desk Jockey]

Similar process but with baking soda, the particles of soda fracture and take the soot or dirt with them as impact the surface.

Works really well in attics crawl space and on unfinished floor joist when covered with soot. You can also safely use it to remove graffiti off brick and stone.

 

[rotovacguy]

Cool, looks like it does a nice job.


Just learned something new...


Always wondered just how they get the soot off the wood without damaging it. Me and my brother did a furnace install at a fire damaged house in Milwaukee several weeks ago, and the studs of the walls were loaded with it, just like in your pics, I was wondering just how they get that crud off there.


Sorry for hijacking the thread :mrgreen:

 

[The Great Oz]

There's no concern about too many pages, as long as your navigation is well organized and clean.


Additional: Draw up on paper how your links should be organized.

I'd make a link button on the side for each of your services, plus a home, a contact, and an about us. Your consumer awareness, commercials, associations, charities, and testimonials belong as links on the about us landing page. It might be nice to have one testimonial about each service at the bottom of each service landing page, with a link to the others.

The front page gives people the impression you want to make, the link buttons or thumbnails that go directly to landing pages for each of your services and other front page buttons. Each landing page will then serve as the front page for that service, with buttons, link text or link thumbnails that go into specific detail of parts of the process or items featured on that page. Using a photo as a link can keep people from going to the wrong page, and as long as you use a frame that displays quick access to other pages, you won't frustrate customers that went to the wrong place.

Drop-downs on the front page are great for getting directly to a particular place, but they also allow a customer to skip the landing page that will sell them on a service. Make them at least hit the landing page before getting a quick link somewhere else.

The purpose of a well designed site is to get people to pre-like you enough to be ready to buy before they pick up the phone.

 

[harryhides]

Learn to count Richard.

"We offer 10-services Carpet Cleaning, Area Rugs, Upholstery Cleaning, Tile & Grout, Water Damage, Fire Damage, Vandalism Cleanup, Soda Blasting, Mold Remediation, Bio Recovery, Post Construction Clean Up."

 

[Desk Jockey]

OK Mr Smarty Pants when (if) I get to that point I'm sending it to you to proof read.

 

[Wayne Miller]

I'd say you can have as few or as many as you want. If people are interested, they'll read. If they're not, they won't.

 

[ACE]

My advice would be to find some website templates you like. There are lots of good ones for under $100.00. Working form a well organized template will make the build and updates easy. Add pages as you go when you have quality content with text of at least 200-300 words. Have a plan on how to easily update the site with fresh content every 1-4 months before you build. You seem like the kind of guy that has enough time to keep a website fresh if someone made it easy for you.
See, I know how to have a great website. Doing it is what’s hard for me. BTW, www.lawrencekansascarpet.com is available for $10,000.00 :shock: .

 

[Desk Jockey]

Ouch! :wink:

 

[Brian R]

Learn to count Richard.

"We offer 10-services Carpet Cleaning, Area Rugs, Upholstery Cleaning, Tile & Grout, Water Damage, Fire Damage, Vandalism Cleanup, Soda Blasting, Mold Remediation, Bio Recovery, Post Construction Clean Up."

Maybe he meant on a scale of 1-10?

 

[Brian R]

Yahoo is still free....I just made my own template because I didn't like theirs.


www.Service1.com is availabel for $30,000.00 :shock: :shock:

Has been for about 3 years now. lol

They won't give up Priority.com. oh well.

 

[Ron K]

"Learn to Count" Thats Funny!


He couldn't get his shoes off in time to get to 11.

 

[Desk Jockey]

Ron- :x

Don't encourage Harry!

 

[Brian R]

"Learn to Count" Thats Funny!


He couldn't get his shoes off in time to get to 11.

Now wait just a minute....if he was in front of his computer, you know he had his pants down. He could have at least got to 10 1/2. :mrgreen:

 

[Desk Jockey]

Hey those are just rumors..........and I pull them up when I get to this website.....I mean if I ever had them down. :wink:

Appreciate the extra consideration you gave me there Brian 10.5 huh, almost Boyle like. Just don't speak with my wife and I'm good with it! :roll:

 

[Brian R]

Hey those are just rumors..........and I pull them up when I get to this website.....I mean if I ever had them down. :wink:

Appreciate the extra consideration you gave me there Brian 10.5 huh, almost Boyle like. Just don't speak with my wife and I'm good with it! :roll:

It was an added .5 to your 10 fingers there buddy.

:wink:

 

[Desk Jockey]

Me me no like you as much as I did a few minutes (inches) ago! :wink:

 

[Brian R]

 

[carpetcleaner]

I don't think the number of pages matters. I have heard you should be able to find whatever info you are looking for on a site in 3 clicks or less.

 

[The Great Oz]

Rob,
The three clicks rule is a good one, just like editing your text to minimum is a good idea. You'll find a lot of commercial sites are ignoring three clicks to some degree now, as landing pages give you a better chance to tell your story.

Your job is to make sure those pages don't waste people's time by being either too text heavy or having a lot of automatic slow-loading stuff like video or audio, or jumping/moving stuff. Allow the visitor the option of selecting that stuff.

 

[cleanimagemarketing]

Like has been mentioned, number of pages isn't as important as ease of navigation. I can't tell you how many sites I've been to that are just so frustrating to find anything, I end up leaving.

Keep it clean, keep it simple.

Remember, your customer is not as interested in carpet cleaning as we are. She doesn't care about reading 8 paragraphs of info on how your system works on the front page. You need to play to emotions. Nice clean colors, clean logo, some warm and happy pictures, a short paragraph of who you are, and a bullet list of benefits of using you.

If you want to go into more detail on your system, that's fine, just give it a separate page that can easily be navigated away from when she gets hit by a wall of text.

 

[Ron Werner]

I look at it like a marketing sales letter.
As long as its readable and keeps their attention, ie not boring, and its something they want to read, then put all the info you can. If they are interested, they'll read what's there. If they aren't, doesn't matter if you have 2 or 20 pages.
And for a SEO plug, if they can't find you, they can't read it.
Clean and easily navigable keeps it easy to read.
I've a consumer info page that's been copied from many times (someone actually copied the whole thing) and I've had customers say they appreciated the info on my site. Mine's still a work in progress.

 

[Brian R]

I just read something on Google that says 250 pages is a small website. :shock:

 

[Desk Jockey]

Back up to 60 pages it is then! 8)

 

[Brian R]

Back up to 60 pages it is then! 8)

Hell, I just added two more this morning for the hell of it. :mrgreen:


I don't think it's really what the search engines think in this case.
It's how easy is it for your customers to use.

 

[alazo1]

I don't think it's too many pages. As long as it's structured right initially. Personally I would have the main topics covered on your first sub page. Then having possibly a "learn more" on different topics for those interested in more information.

Albert