Lists VS Individual Posts

Hello!

I was hoping someone has some experience in this area, as I couldn't find a relevant case study.

Let's say I have a topic called 'Lowest Calorie Fruits' for example.

I create 2 semi-identical websites with the exact same metrics.

On Domain #1, I create a single post titled 'The Top 10 Lowest Calorie Fruits' where I list each fruit and their caloric score inside the same blog post.

On Domain #2, I create 10 separate posts; one for each fruit.

For example:

Domain.com/calories-in-apples
An apple has 100 calories

Domain.com/calories-in-bananas
A banana has 110 calories

Domain.com/calories-in-red-grapes
Red grapes have 5 calories each

I'm not talking about creating 500 word blog posts. I'm talking about creating a post and literally having about 10 words or so and an image.

All metrics aside, which website do you think will start to receive organic traffic first - even if it's only 1 visitor per month?

Domain 1 (List)
or
Domain 2 (Individual Posts)

I'd love your experience and advice on this topic

 

It will be Domain 1 (List).
Google has tendency to identify a website that has quality content. It essentially behaves like a user. So if you are a user, what would you like to do? search calories individually or have a list that gives you a clear picture? This is what Google's crawler thinks and rank the page accordingly.
There are a few ideal criteria to follow while developing a website or writing a content.

 

What if someone is searching for a specific fruit calorie. For example: "how many calories are in a kiwi", would Google tend to show the list or the single post?

 

Hi, thanks for your details. Actually here, I do prefer both but priority goes for the first one (domain1.com - lists).

Reasons-

Firstly, you create a post with a list and named it 'The Top 10 Lowest Calorie Fruits', now you describe your 10 fruit individually here. But in the same website (domain1.com) you create individually 10 different posts for every fruit you talking about in the list post.

And create a good internal link structure for your website. Like I showed in the image, from the list post, 10 internal links goes for your individual post.

Then the main part, boast your list post with getting back 10 internal links from different 10 post in your website

(Post like- Domain.com/calories-in-apples
An apple has 100 calories

Domain.com/calories-in-bananas
A banana has 110 calories

Domain.com/calories-in-red-grapes
Red grapes have 5 calories each)

But here you follow 1 thing very carefully, use your targeted keywords for those 10 internal links from individual 10 posts.

Example: 1st individual post - A banana has 110 calories, within this post you use a keyword like “best low calories fruit for your health” and link back to the targeted list post (Top-10-Lowest-Calorie-Fruits.html).

Same for another post use another targeted keyword like “Lowest Calorie Fruits” and do the same.

Here your main goal is to boast your main list post, for this you’re using those 10 posts for supporting and referring your targeted post.

You can do it for another way, if you’ve 2 different domain then do the same linking process but here the link will be external link and the link attribute should be do follow for the main list post.

Thanks

 

As mentioned in my previous reply, the result depends on the website's authority. There are certain criteria that Google matches before displaying the results.

Say if you search for "how many calories are in a kiwi" what Google will do is:
1. Look for the URL, Meta, H1 and content of the websites across the globe and identify those who match with the keyword. These websites might be lists or a single post.
2. From these sites, Google will check domain and web page's authenticity and authority. Domain age is another important criteria here.
3. From shortlisted sites, the next step by Google's algorithm will be to see the referring domains and number of backlinks directed to these websites. From this, Google finally arrives at a decision to which site to rank in search results.

Note: This is just an overview and Google checks many more criteria's in detail while ranking a site. For any SEO Related help, you can contact us.