New Year, New Web Design: The One-Page Layout

Types of web design tend to go in and out of style, running the risk of your website becoming outdated. However, one web design seems to be here to stay: the single-page website. These super streamlined sites are popular with companies that offer a single product or service such as apps or consulting services, but aren’t for everyone. For example, companies with a large amount of content might want to consider a different layout. Beyond this, there are several pros and cons you should bear in mind before making the change.

One of the biggest appeals of the one-page website is its simplicity; it doesn’t get much easier than offering a visitor everything they need on one page. The rise of mobile has made scrolling second nature to most users, so there is no learning curve for navigation.

Adding to this, these kinds of websites are very easy to adapt to mobile as their design will remain largely the same. Most one-page templates are responsive, and tend to look as impressive on a smartphone or tablet, as they do on a computer. They are also easy to maintain and have higher conversion rates. As every step of the conversion funnel is on one page customers begin the process sooner and move through it quicker.

On the downside, it limits the scalability of your website; a single-page design could not facilitate any extension of content such as occasional articles or a fully-fledged blog. You would have to do a complete redesign to implement website navigation elements and style sub-pages. These types of web-designs are also detrimental to search engine optimization as search engines like content, which single-page websites don’t have much of. Having all of your content on one page also makes it more difficult to hit all the keywords, sub-topics or phrases that might be helpful for search traffic.

Single-page websites are easy to share on social networks, however this format make it more difficult to share specific content on that page as all of it is housed under one url. It is also much harder to analyse the performance of a one-page website than a multi-page site, as you can’t look at page views and conversions to figure out what’s working and what isn’t.

Luckily, there is also a hybrid approach. If you love the look of single-page websites, but have too much content you could consider a one-page template for your homepage and move a conversion funnel there. Then create separate pages for your FAQ, blog and company information. You can use sections of the homepage to drive traffic to those other pages. For example, Vimeo is a style where the homepage mimics the one-page style approach, but the featured videos all play on separate pages – a footer at the bottom provides links to more pages.

Most websites need a redesign every so often to accommodate not just design trends, but emerging technology and user needs as well. Team Discovery offers a unique personal service that is tailored to your company needs to maximise the potential of your business website.