Bring Back the One Page Wonder
Posted On: 2007-07-25
As soon as I wrote the title for today's column I realized that lots of webmasters already produce sites that consist of one single page every day. They call them TGP galleries but the one page wonders that I want to talk about aren't galleries at all ... in fact in their most basic form they don't have one single thumbnail ... but over time they will start bringing in some regular traffic.
So if you were wondering what you should be doing to work smarter ... as I suggested yesterday ... here is one of those ways.
Now you might think that in today's modern world of blogs and RSS feeds from sponsors what I'm about to describe has no real place because it's something that has been around for years. However, if you produce these in the right way they could be an important part of your survival in the tough times ahead.
The really good thing about these one page wonders is that they should only take you about 20 minutes a day to produce one and they're not going to cost you an arm and both legs in content either. In fact you can simply recycle all your old content just as long as you have the relevant information that will be required by the 2257 regulations.
So how do you build a one page wonder? It's simple and over time you will probably find that you will almost be able to produce them in your sleep. All you have to do is start with a basic HTML page; put a single cell table at the top of the page with an attractive background image in the cell. Then add a keyword rich text title into that table.
The header image can remain the same but the title obviously needs to change with each page. How much that title changes depends on your creativity.
Place some advertising below the header. It can take the form of a banner with some text or just some plain text that will catch the surfer's eye and get them thinking about how good the sponsor is that you're promoting.
It would be best if you used SSI to place that advertising on the page because you never know when you might want to change sponsors or refine the advertising and if you use SSI you can do it across all your pages instantly. Of course, if you've used sponsor content on your one page wonders you will be locked in to sticking with the sponsor that provided the content.
Below the advertising add a couple of short paragraphs of text - again making sure that you incorporate your keywords into that text. Yes, you will have to actually write something but only 90lb weaklings complain that they can't write good text. So bite the bullet, and write some text because even you can do it.
What you write in that text can be something generic about the niche you're promoting or it can be something about the girl who is appearing in the image you're about to place on that page. You could even write a very short story about what's happening in the text.
Whatever you write try and make it appealing to the surfers that will see it. Think about ways of drawing them into the scene and encouraging them to see themselves in the picture. And don't forget to include those keywords and keyword phrases - don't go crazy with them but make sure you do include some. You don't have to finish the story in those two short paragraphs because you can continue it on after the next step.
That next step is the image. All you are going to use is just one single image. Make it a reasonable size but don't fill the screen with it. You can make it clickable if you like but don't send them anywhere but to the sponsor. The idea of a one page wonder is to tease them and get them interested in looking at your sponsor.
After the image finish off with two more short paragraphs. The first paragraph could conclude the story that you started telling above the image while the second paragraph should include a call to action that encourages them to see more at your sponsor.
Below the text add in some more advertising ... again using SSI and then think about making your traffic work harder by adding in a link to one of your traffic hubs.
That's the on-page work done but there's a bit more to do behind the scenes. Make sure that the you add in the relevant meta tags and make very sure that the title tag includes keywords that are important to the niche you are promoting. Give your page a description that will draw the surfers in when they see the page listed in the search engines too.
Then list your one page wonder on some of your traffic hubs and make sure that you include important keywords in that link that you place on your hubs. Be creative and don't just call them Story 1, Story 2 etc. Get juicy with your titles and the way you display those links.
And then do the same tomorrow and the day after and the day after that just as you would do if you were building free sites and galleries. Spread those one page wonders around all your domains and across all your IP addresses too.
This is definitely not a get-rich-quick scheme but over time you should find that your 20 minutes a day is time well-spent and time that will begin to put money in your pocket and improve your search engine rankings.