The Bulleted List, Mobile And a Topics Page

I got this question from one of my students.  It was a question where  I could just reply “Yes,” or I could seize an opportunity.  At its core it’s a web design question, but also has pretty deep implications for SEO if done properly.

So here is the challenge. He has a long bulleted list that has some definitions on it. And if you put that page into mobile, it would be too much time is his fear. Now his question went on to ask if he should make a page for all the bullet points, and the answer,  of course, would be yes. But to me it realistically wasn’t related to the bulleted list and mobile. You should always have a page that is like a table of contents type page or a bullet list that further develops those topics.

This goes back to how to structure a website really, and how to write a topics page. So here is an example of something I did. I wanted to let Google know that this customer was a moving company in Houston. Google was getting confused over this site because it also offers storage services, but not like a storage locker facility, and they also offer nationwide moving which keeps shifting the focus some, and it makes some issues because it’s diluting what Google feels the main purpose of the site is about. To start to sort this out, I went in and added a moving services page that looks like this:

Under each of these topics are a whole section, and then each of those become their own set of sub-topics that allow me to send the right information to Google to help it be less confused on what this company does.  What this does is set a course for Google to follow with the proper reinforcement.

As search gets smarter it becomes more necessary to make sure you have topics that clearly set up a structure for the website. This is something many designers do not account for. So for George, the right answer is please shorten the definitions on the page next to the bullet points and then build a real substantive page of content that corresponds each of your bullet points, and make sure you link them to appropriate well-written pages that support the bullet point.

Beyond the obvious, the other thing this does is create a strong interlink set of pages that will allow Google to understand what the nature of your page is, and why it is important. We discussed why site structure is important in a previous blog, and this is a great example that supports this answer.