A One Page Website – How Does That Work?

First, a one page website isn’t actually a one page website, but I’ll come back to that in a little while…

A website page isn’t like a sheet of A4 paper, in that it doesn’t actually have a physical size or an end to it. You could have a page that just went on and on as your reader just scrolled down the page. You wouldn’t do this though as it can be a really bad user experience and few people will continually scroll down a page, reading content (most don’t even do that with Facebook – they scroll down a bit, but then stop).

Why would you have a one page website ?

If, after chatting about your business and carrying out Keyword Research, your business can be categorised as “doing one thing in one location” then a One Page Website would probably work for you. They are great for small start-up businesses and can always be added to at a later date as your business grows and develops.

Why wouldn’t you have a one page website ?

To work well on Google and have a good ranking, a website page needs to be optimised. It’s optimised generally to work for a given, primary keyword and a given, primary location such as Electrician, Abingdon.

But, keyword research or the way that Electrician works could mean they might be better to have a few, separate website pages. Each would be targeted to a primary keyword and primary location such as Domestic Electrician, Abingdon and Commercial Electrician, Abingdon or maybe even Solar Electrician, Abingdon and EV (Electric Vehicle) Installation, Abingdon.

They also don’t tend to work well for very Image heavy websites, with very little text as it can be difficult for Google and visitors to figure out what you actually do.

Why isn’t a One Page Website actually a One Page Website ?

Because, it’s essential, to comply with regulations, that a website has a GDPR/Privacy policy. This, usually very text-heavy page is separated off from the rest of the website and given its own page.

Then there’s a Thank You page… what’s that I hear you say… when a website visitor completes the contact/enquiry form on a website, then it is very useful to redirect them to a separate page with a basic “thank you for completing our contact form, we’ll get back to you just as soon as we can. In the meantime, please have a browse of the rest of our website”.

Why is this useful? Well, it can be used as an ultimate “trigger” within website stats to show how well the website works… One of the ultimate and most desired outcomes of someone visiting your website is for them to get in touch with you – via your contact form. The Thank you page shows up in your stats, showing how many did that over a given period.

It’s also useful, though not necessary, to have a separate contact page on your website. This is for the same reason as above, in that it’s a way of monitoring “desired action” on a website. This information can be used to track and improve the pathway of a visitor to your website.

Let me give you an example. A client lands on our Electricians website, they look over the page and this Electrician seems to be a perfect match for the client, so they click through to the contact page to get in touch. They scroll down the page and fill out the various boxes with their details and hit the send button… the contact form goes, but it goes to your old email address that you changed a few weeks ago… Disaster!

With separate pages and tracking, you would be able to see the pathway, they took from the main page, to the contact page, but not to the Thank you page. You would see that there is an error and be able to correct it.

So a One Page Website is probably a Four Page website, but, it has just has one main page.

These are some One Page Websites I have made for clients:

Each of these One Page Websites can be visited by clicking on either the image or title.
They all focus on the one thing the business does and the one location they do it in.

Until next time…

Best wishes