Should You Be a One-Page Wonder?

When you are planning a brochure website, one of the first things to consider is whether it should be a one-page website or a multi-page site. Neither is better than the other; it comes down to your company’s specific audience and needs. One-page sites are becoming more popular, but when are they effective and when are they unsuitable?

One-page sites adapt to mobile and tablet screens well. While that is a very important consideration, this isn’t the only way for your site to look good on all devices. It isn’t an easy decision to make. Here are some of the issues to consider when deciding if a one-page website is best for your brand.

Three Questions to Ask

1. How do you want visitors to use website? What do you want them to do? Having everything on a single screen makes it easier to control your visitor’s journey through your site. The question is will that make it easier or more frustrating for them? Yes, you can direct visitors through a simple and powerful sales funnel with a single-page website, but if you offer a lot of different pieces of information on your site, visitors might be annoyed at scrolling through what they don’t want to reach what they came for.
2. How much information do you need to put on the site? If your brand offers a singular thing such as a specific professional skill, one page is probably adequate. But if you offer an array of products and have a compelling brand story and philosophy, that would be an overwhelming amount of information for one page. Visitors are likely to become frustrated. For example, if you are a newly qualified therapist offering couples counselling, you could easily put your story, philosophy, services and contact information on a single page.  But what if you have a long-established counselling practice serving a variety of needs – anxiety/ depression, eating disorders, grief/ bereavement, addiction, etc? Going into any detail about your approach to each of these would be too much for a single page.
3. What do your visitors need from your site? Are they coming to learn about a single type of class you offer? Or do they want to know about a variety of functions your venue can host? Are they searching for in-depth expertise online about a subject? Do they want to shop and choose from a variety of products? User experience (UX) is the art and science of providing web visitors with an intuitive and easy experience on your site. UX should always drive your decision-making. Yes, your budget and how quickly you need to get the site live matter. But you’ll waste time and money slapping up a site that does not give users the experience they want. Frustrated web visitors simply do not convert to sales.

The worst reason on earth to go with a one-page website is to save money. If your website isn’t doing its job earning money for your brand, anything spent on it is a waste. But money spent wisely on a site that serves your visitors well and motivates them to convert will provide you with a good return on investment.