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One Page websites have been very popular recently. This is due to the fact that they are relatively easy to prepare and allow small businesses to start their online presence without having to invest in a professional website. When deciding to create a new website for a business, it’s worth analyzing the possibility of using a one page format. In the article below, we’ll try to explain what one page website development is and what its capabilities, applications, disadvantages, and creation methods are. Enjoy the read! And as always, if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us – we’ll be happy to help!
What is a one page website?
As the name suggests, One Page websites are websites without subpages. All information is therefore contained on the homepage. All texts, images, and the entire graphic design that a company wants to present to the world are located on a single page. One page websites are convenient from a user perspective due to easy content management. Instead of a menu leading to different subpages of the portal, there’s a menu that allows navigation between different sections of the same page. Creating this type of website has many advantages. Among them are mobile display and loading speed. They also have certain disadvantages, which will be presented later in this article. The content layout on a one page website is very linear. This means that all information is divided into sections and is not split into tree structures. For this reason, a One Page website is usually long. It’s a good solution for websites promoting a single product, service, or business card-style collections of company information. The content consumer doesn’t have to struggle to find the content that interests them. One Page website development usually involves using a content management panel such as CMS WordPress. It’s preferable for them to be based on custom graphic designs supported by competitive, industry, and market analysis, as is the case with standard websites. Only the subpage structure and layout are omitted, since all content is placed in one location.
One Page website development should be based on brand analysis and all the stages necessary to prepare a professional website.
One page website development
One Page website development should be based on brand analysis and all the stages necessary to prepare a professional website. This solution should assume a significantly greater share of content and higher quantity and quality due to the need to condense content and guide the user through all necessary elements and decision-making stages during a single “scroll” down the homepage.
Advantages of one page websites
One page website development has several basic advantages. The first is certainly time savings and reduced costs needed to prepare this type of solution. They are suitable for small content volumes, which means they’re a good solution for pages promoting individual products, landing pages, or business card websites for small companies. Another important advantage is mobile-friendliness, meaning the fact that using a One Pager makes it easier for mobile users to use the portal. It’s a known fact that websites with many subpages load slowly on mobile devices. Taking advantage of the fact that mobile devices account for a very large share of all website views online, it’s worth making every effort to optimize our websites specifically for mobile devices. Navigating between subpages takes time, and opening additional navigation menus can cause some difficulties for less experienced users. One page website development can be a good solution for businesses that attract an older audience or one that has less experience using the internet.
One page websites are also used as dedicated landing pages for advertising campaigns. When the main goal of the creative is to drive traffic to the site and generate sales, single-page portals are created with condensed product knowledge, reviews and descriptions, and parameters describing the product to leverage the fact of bringing the user to the site and in one place convince them to purchase and convert.
Disadvantages and limitations of one page websites
One page website development also has its drawbacks. These include lack of scalability, meaning limited ability to expand the site and its optimization due to having a single page. This means a complicated site structure, which negatively affects user experience and inability to optimize for SEO. Another drawback is the inability to use optimization techniques. A one page is a tool that should be relatively simple in construction. It’s usually a very long single page whose optimization, due to many graphics and texts, is exceptionally difficult. This also negatively affects SEO due to the lack of internal linking, sitemap, breadcrumbs, structured data, blog, or other SEO-related activities. Creating large amounts of content aimed at SEO and optimizing parameters monitored by search engines is difficult.
One page website development also means difficult or even impossible traffic analytics. Analytics tools like Google Analytics only provide us with information about session duration and user entry to the site. We don’t have parameters about the user’s path and journey on the site. All these elements negatively affect indexing because when analytics are difficult, SEO is difficult, and optimization is difficult, search engines negatively rank these types of solutions.
One page website development – best practices
One Page website development can, however, be a good solution, and with the application of proper practices, you can achieve better conversions and a higher Google ranking. Such best practices include an attractive appearance, high-quality content, good loading speed, and the use of an SSL certificate. The site should be based on a custom graphic design supported by competitive analysis, market research, and graphic designers’ help in preparing a solution adapted to the rigorous requirements of the given industry.
High-quality content will help search engines understand the purpose of the given page. The character count should be in the range of 10,000 to 20,000, and the content should be limited to the top keywords for which the site is to be ranked. Of course, more content can be added, but it’s important that it forms a cohesive whole with the graphics and design so that the user feels served and satisfied with their visit to the site. Be careful not to focus too much on SEO and forget that conversions are made by users, not search engines. Another aspect is loading speed. Research shows that we have only 2 seconds to capture the visitor’s attention. After that time, they leave the site looking for another source of answers to the question they came with. To achieve this, scripts should be properly optimized, images compressed and optimized, and caching used to optimize content delivery.
One page website development – applications
One page website development has several basic applications. The first is business card purposes, meaning the business sector where clients are not acquired online and companies whose owners don’t want to actively promote. Using a one page gives them the ability to mark their online presence without conducting activities aimed at promotion in both paid and organic results. The second application is squeeze pages, whose goal is to acquire personal data at all costs. They have their application in promotional campaigns or contests where the user receives certain benefits after providing an email address or phone number. The last and most important application is business card websites for local businesses. This is usually the optimal solution for small local businesses where we plan to open a few basic subpages with an offer or contact information. When a company doesn’t want to invest more funds in creating a professional and complete website, it can opt for creating a one page architecture and presenting everything in an attractive format on a single page.
Summary
As you can see, one page website development has both its advantages and disadvantages. Regardless of whether a company opts for a professional solution or a mini website in the form of a single page, it’s worth remembering the basic principles of building an online presence. Every website is different and different things are expected from each. Remember to base your websites on a custom and professional graphic design that results from industry and competitive analysis. Users in every industry expect different things, and the content delivered to them should be arranged in a way that aligns with the expectations and behavior patterns of the given audience.
