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We have a single page website with a several products. We are currently using a navigation that utilizes anchor tags to scroll to a selected product. An agency has suggested (for better SEO) that we change those anchor tags to unique URLs. For example: www.example.com/#productname to www.example.com/productname.

The page contains all data once it is loaded (no AJAX) so each URL will contain the same data but it will be scrolled to the selected product (the same functionality as an anchor URL).

Will this actually improve SEO? My gut instinct is that it will not since the pages will all be the same.

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With websites that have smaller amounts of content, I suggest taking advantage of the many suggested practices Google recommends and offers.

Using both anchor text and page based URL's can be beneficial.

Anchor text

  • Both users and search engines like anchor text, especially one that is concise and descriptive.
  • Used correctly, anchor text provides valuable content relevant internal links.
  • Anchor text provides natural flowing Call to Actions.

Page based URLs

  • People are less likely to share /#page style URLs
  • Increased meta content placement. Use creativity to take advantage of meta: title, description, H1 headings etc.
  • User friendly URLs. Even if it is a one page site, people look at URLs. I have heard some users say that anchor text URLs discomforts them.

Used together, it benefits a User's Experience, and good use of Google suggested practices.

enter image description here Rich Snippets for your products: Increase click through rates and SEO ranking

I am sure by now we all have seen product images, pricing, 5 star ranking, search boxes, map directions showing up in SERPs. Those are extremely good ways to extend your content into the search results.

Schema.org provides rich snippets codes that are essentially universal.

I say, keep yourself open to new or different idea, stay well informed by researching your options and you will always make the best possible decision.

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  • This is the best possible advice even for a small site with products. Any opportunity to load up a URL with semantic value is always wise. Even though the # hash will not screw-up semantics, it does not help with weighting knowing how Google looks at things. So www.magnuswidgets.com/widgets/magnus-premium-super-stellar-hoopty-widget/ is always going to be far better.
    – closetnoc
    Commented Sep 26, 2016 at 21:50
  • Thank you for the valuable information but I may not have been clear. The suggestion made to us was that the page content (a list of products) should remain the same but instead of anchor tags, URLs should be used for navigation. My concern it that it would hurt SEO because of duplicate content. Is that not the case? The URL would essentially be the same functionality as an anchor.
    – agriffin
    Commented Sep 27, 2016 at 15:29
  • I am saying you should in fact use both. URLs are better because as mentioned you get to use meta info per URL and the anchor text to the URL, and in most cases is more user friendly when referring the link. I have never been penalized for connecting anchor tags to menu items and that is how I use most anchor tags and in many instances the anchor tag is on the same page being linked to. I have seen gains but nothing negative. It's like having a BWM add pointing to a BMW page while on the BMW page. It's not deceitful. Google does this in a sense when I see the same ad at once on the same site.
    – norcal johnny
    Commented Sep 28, 2016 at 3:48

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