There’s nothing worse than a cluttered website. Not only does it look unprofessional, but it loses you customers. Statistically speaking, 55 percent of all users will spend just 15 seconds on your company’s website before losing interest and leaving. Less sustained traffic means less conversions — and so if you rely heavily upon digital revenue, chances are your cluttered site is hurting you more than it’s helping.
Fortunately, more and more businesses are finding a simple solution for this issue by deploying one page websites.
What is a One Page Website?
The term ‘one page website’ is exactly what it sounds like — although in order to properly develop and deploy one, you do need to put quite a lot of consideration into what you’re doing and how you’re going to achieve it.
Simply put, a one page website is a single page website that utilizes just one HTML page. Most one page websites do have menu bars like your average, run-of-the-mill website. Yet rather than transport you to different HTML pages, selecting a menu item merely drops users down to a predefined HTML anchor somewhere on the site’s single page. This is typically achieved through JavaScript, CSS3, Ajax and jQuery.
A huge number of creatives have recently adopted the one page website — although larger multinationals have also begun to implement temporary deployments of one page websites as preview pages and placeholders to kick start promotional activities prior to a big launch.
Why Do Businesses Like One Page Websites?
The benefits of deploying a one page website are clear from a user’s point-of-view — but a lot of business owners benefit from their use, too.
First and foremost, creating a one page website is nearly always going to be faster than taking the time to create a larger website filled with smaller pages. The design process normally takes a bit longer when crafting a one page website, because the HTML is a bit more complicated. But in the long term, it’s usually a quicker option. One page websites are also far easier to maintain when content needs updated, because it’s all in one, easy-to-find location.
Many business owners also find drafting copy for a one page website to be a useful exercise in learning to be more concise in their product and service descriptions. Because one page website are design-driven, it’s advisable to keep copy as minimal as possible – and fickle customers consequently go on to appreciate receiving the cliff’s notes of who your company is and what it does. When in doubt, if you can say it less words, do it.
How Do I Create a One Page Website?
If it sounds like a one page website might be appropriate for your small business, you’ll be pleased to know they aren’t very difficult to create. Although they are typically more complicated in terms of HTML coding, there are plenty of dynamic generators and free template providers that streamline the process. If your site is uses WordPress, you can even transform your cluttered site into a one page site in a matter of minutes.
Alternatively, freelance web developers will often be able to churn out a bespoke one page site in a matter of days.
Do One Page Websites Have Any Downsides?
One page websites can be incredibly dynamic and refreshingly simple marketing tools with which to further your business – but that doesn’t mean they’re perfect for everybody.
Some developers argue that swapping a multi-page site in favor of a one page website can be harmful to a company’s online visibility. This is because when all your company information is located on one page, you won’t have the benefit of being able to index several pages with different keywords and meta descriptions that could help your products and services appear in less obvious search engine results pages.
This is a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) issue that isn’t guaranteed to affect every website or business, and can sometimes work to a company’s advantage by bolstering its page authority on a more finite set of keywords. But this risk can be a matter of trial and error, which is why some experts warn against relying too heavily upon one, single page website.
At the end of the day, only you know what’s right for your business. Just remember to do your homework before you choose to experiment with a one page website, and ensure you’ve got discernible aims and KPIs to decide swiftly and decisively whether a one page website is working with you rather than against you.
Sheet of Paper Photo via Shutterstock
[“source-smallbiztrends”]
