One-Page Websites: Are They Good or Bad for Your Business?

Don’t want to spend too much on a website? One-page websites are perfect. However, they do come with a lot of repercussions.

Without going into too much detail, one-page websites are not good for any business. A website with multiple pages with quality content and images will rank and do much better than a single-page website. They do have their benefits, but if you are aiming to rank highly in search engines, you will be surprised.

One-page websites do look fancy and can be quite eye-catching. This is why there are a lot of companies like restaurants or e-commerce websites which prefer one-pagers. However, the benefits also come with some drawbacks with the sites SEO being one of the biggest parts that are affected. If you already own a multipage website; keep it. Especially if your ranking, you will not want to change to a one-page website otherwise you can expect to see some massive changes to your sites SEO.

Throughout this article, we will be covering what is good and bad about one-page websites and if they are good for your business.

What are one-page websites?

If you are unsure of what a one-page website it, it is as the name implies; a single-page website. It consists of a single HTML page that has different sections for the different parts of the site. The only similarity to a multipage website is that they both have a navigation bar at the top of the site. There is a difference in how they work though. On a multipage website, the navigation bar will take you to different pages. This is not the case for a one-page website. Instead they will scroll down or up the page to the referenced section.

What are the benefits of a one-page website?

A one-page website comes with negative factors, but it does have plenty of benefits. Those benefits include being cheaper and faster to create, easy to maintain and more. Deciding on if you want to use a one-page site over a multipage site depends on a variety of factors which we will cover later in the article. However, with these benefits, it is easy to understand why one-page websites are appealing.

Cheaper, faster to create and easier to maintain

Firstly, one-page websites are by far the cheaper option when looking at creating an online presence. A business without a website is sure to find that they are missing out on a lot of potential business with the increase in online shoppers. However, some business might not want to or have the resources available to pay for a multipage website from a web designer.

One-page websites offer companies the ability to create a website at a fraction of the cost of a multipage website. Not only that, they are much quicker to develop and easy to maintain in the long run. A one-page website is an easy way to get online and give people the chance to find the business and possibly get in contact.

Better mobile experience

A key part of a one-page website is its mobile experience. Due to everything being placed on a single page without the need for links to other pages; it creates a page that loads and works exceptionally well on mobile devices (as long as it has been made responsive). When looking through a multipage website, you might have to go off to another page to get more information on what you are after. This is not the case for one-page websites.

The continuous page of information with easy to use navigation means that people aren’t taken away to another page and must wait for it to load. This gives mobile users a much more streamlined experience which can even aid into driving conversions. A better experience will give the user more of a reason to stay on or re-visit the website.

Potential for high conversion rates

As mentioned in an improved mobile experience, your conversions have a chance of being increased as well. As everything is on a single page, it will direct the viewer through the content in a single line; inevitably leading to the contact form. This means it is highly likely that someone will be willing to get in contact if they have gone through all the information and got what they wanted form the site.

More conversions are not guaranteed. There are a variety of factors that are involved in getting someone to get in contact with you. Simply having a one-page website will not do. The user will need to get what they want from your site and there are a range of different areas which need to be covered within the design and content of the site. These are all parts of a good SEO strategy.

What are the downsides to a one-page website?

They come with a wide variety of benefits that aid the users and the businesses behind them. However, they are not without their downsides. These downsides can overshadow the benefits greatly depending on your businesses goals and what you want to get out of your website. From the page speed to the analysis and SEO of the site; everything is negatively affected from a one-page website.

Page Speed

As everything is placed on a single page, you must be considerate with the amount of content you have on that page. If you have paragraphs upon paragraphs of information with a lot of images (made even worse if the images are not optimised) , the page speed with be greatly slowed which can lead to a poor experience.

There is a limit to the amount of content and images you should have on a one-page site before it gets too slow. A poor experience leads to people backing off your site and heading elsewhere. This leads us onto our next issue with one-page websites which is the minimal space for information.

Minimal space for information

Not only do you have to restrict the amount of content you have on the site for the page speed, you also should take into consideration the minimal space available as well. Potential customers won’t want to scroll continuously until they reach the end. Too much information or areas that are packed of images will cause the site to slow, but also mean that people must go past this to keep going through the site.

The minimal space for content means that you should be careful with how much you want on that single page. If you have a lot of services or products, you would want to mention them on your site. Well with a one-page site, that is about all you can do; mention them. You won’t be able to go through all your products or services without risking making the page too long or slow.

If you wish to just mention what you do and focus on getting people to get in contact to find out more, then a one-page website would be good. However, more people will be searching online and would require certain things from your site when they visit. If they don’t get this, they are highly likely to leave and head elsewhere.

Hard to analyse

Google Analytics offers its users the chance to be able to record where traffic is coming from to their site. Be it to track what devices or being used or what time of day people are accessing your site; it will track this information. Businesses would be able to use this information to their advantage. This information would detail what pages aren’t doing well and what people are searching when finding those pages.

With a one-page website, there are no extra pages. This means that if there is an issue with that page, you won’t be able to identify what section it is. Google Analytics works great for multipage websites due to the range of information. When it comes to a one-page website however, the information it can give is rather limited besides the general information it can collect. If you would want to track visitors and the bounce rate, then you can do this easily.

SEO

Along with the tracking comes the SEO. Utilising SEO techniques is what will enable you to try and improve your sites rankings and get your site found. This is much easier to do with a multipage website as there is more content and you can focus on a wider variety of keywords. We will go more in-depth on this in the next section of this article.

The SEO of the site will only be able to do so much. One-page websites are harder to get ranking, but also you will not be able to run tests. SEO techniques don’t always work for every site. Sometimes it requires some trial and error. This means that you would try something on your site to see how it effects your rankings. On a multipage website, you will be able to do different tests on different pages to see what works best for you. You are not able to do this on a one-page website.

You might be able to use a variety of SEO techniques on your website, but you will not be able to track what works and what section is working better. This requires you to make changes piece by piece which can not only slow the SEO process down, can be rather detrimental to your rankings overall. There will only be so much you can do to your one-page site before you exhaust all options.

What impacts will a one-page website have to your SEO?

A one page website does have its benefits, but when it comes to your SEO; it fails dramatically. It is a rare site to see a one-page website ranking highly on any search engine. Because of the negative impact to your SEO, it is also a way of driving less search traffic!

Keyword availability

With multipage websites, you can target a variety of keywords due to the availability of content that can be altered or added. This furthers the businesses online reach and enables them to target different keywords for the different services which, if they got ranking for, will generate search traffic. This however is not the case for a one-pager.

One-page websites have limited space for content. This means that a business would not be able to target a wide range of keywords or topics. Restricting this means it becomes less likely for people to find the site for a variety of searches. A business with a one-page website would only be able to focus on a limited number of specific keywords.

Online Traffic

For certain businesses, driving online traffic can be a large source of new customers. These kinds of businesses would suffer greatly if they were to use a one-page website instead of a multipage one. If you are a business that wishes to expand on your online reach and try to obtain new customers, but have a one-page site; you will want to consider changing to a larger, multipage website as soon as possible.

There are also businesses out there that have different needs. They might be restricted by the lack of resources or planning to launch a complete SEO campaign or might not need a full website. These businesses generally aim to just be found online when people search for their brand name along with certain important keywords. For these kind of requirements, a one-page website would be perfect.

Is a one-page website good for your business?

After going through the benefits and downsides of having a one-page website, we personally would suggest highly against it. Obviously, it depends on your businesses goals. If you wish to get online traffic and grow your sales through an online source, a one-page website would be a huge mistake. However, if you wish to have a placement online so that people can at least find you; a one-page is a cheap and quick option.

The decision is made from your goals and what you wish to get out of the website. We would always suggest more pages are better and would go against any one-pagers. There are so many negatives and to pay for a website that won’t necessary generate as many sales as you would want; it would be much more time efficient to spend more and get a multipage website at the start.

Have a one-page website and are looking to upgrade or would like some professional advice on how to move forward; speak to our web designers today by getting in contact.