Top 5 Reasons Why Single-page Websites Are Great
The very first thing I love the Web for is its unceasing evolution. Year after year, the new tools and solutions appear, and others fade out. It was Flash to burst in 1996, and what now? Is it popular and much in use today? The drag-and-drop interface became widespread in 2008, yet it is called-for and has a promising future.
This year innovation is single-page websites. Actually, this kind of web design has been seeing during a couple of last years too, but in 2014 this trend picks up speed and strengthens its position in the Web community.
In this article you will find top 5 reasons why you should have a single-page website and what major options differ these sites from regular multi-page themes.
What is a Single-page Website?
The definition is very clear, it means exactly what it sounds: a single-page website is a site with one page on one URL. It is a scrolling design that goes down or aside and requires no clicks.
This is a non-standard one-page website design with an air balloon to show you the way.
5 Reasons Why Single-page Websites Are Great
There are dozens of reasons out there but these are the top 5 reason why one-page websites are great.
1. Everything in One Place
A single-page website is a perfect variant for neatniks, who like everything to be clean, well-organized and neat. A one-page website limits you in space, so you need to sort out the content and give your visitors just the most vital things to read. Still, the limited page space doesn’t mean that you can stuff the entire site with text/images and make it messy. The whitespace concept refers to this kind of website design the same as to others.
There are many tricks to place more content on less space. Here I mean geometrical shapes, typography, images (that are more exhaustive than words), bullet lists, infographics, lightboxes, etc.
The very interesting case is when you redesign your regular web project consisting of many pages to a concise one page theme. Then, it is a whole clean-up of the mess you have gathered since your site was launched. It is like you move from your old house in the suburb to a compact apartment in megapolis: you won’t take your child toys that you save as a treasure, right?
Another reason for you to organize a brief one-page theme: users love simplicity. There are tons of websites that a user may need to look through before he/she finds a needed company, service, product or specialist. It is impossible to read attentively every single word on a site that is why we usually scan information and take into consideration just a very small piece of it. It is easier to scroll through a simple one-page theme then browsing through numerous pages all designed with much content.
Even if you find this to be a problem(I mean getting everything on the only page of a website), because you have so many information for your clients or you need your site to be exhaustive and useful, at least make an effort to do it! It often happens that you are afraid of something new, but you can’t imagine how you lived without this novelty after you finally try it.
This website has a three-slide gallery in the Header. They are scrolling by the text buttons on both sides of the page. Still, the site navigation is represented by a vertical scrolling. The design consists of images mostly.
This medical design in green shades seems to be hand-drawn. The vertical slides of the page are done with original animations. The last section of the site is informative with the hours and social sharing buttons.
2. Trend
Trends come and go, it’s true, but do you want to stay in shadow of your competitors till the current trend will be changed by something new? I hope you won’t wait that long. That is why single-page website is an awesome solution to have this year, it is on the peak of popularity now, and users seek for it.
You will get not just a trendy website, but also a user-friendly and delightful page if adopt scrolling on it. And isn’t clients’ delight your primary goal?
This beauty and fashion related design is a new site from Lancôme. This one-page website with parallax scrolling looks fabulous.
3. Storytelling
Storytelling is one the most effective approaches to compel users to convert. It works much better than any optimization strategy, still if it is done in a right way.
It is a common misconception that storytelling approach is in writing a long text. Images and videos tell a story, too. The scrolling one-page websites suit this trend better, than multi-page projects. Before we continue this point, I will determine some major components of storytelling in web design (there are actually more of them, but these are the basics):
- Images– Images serve as perfect tools to form your message and make it visually attractive. Pictures have a power to tell a story without it even words.
- Videos– Videos give the information quickly and in a very clear manner. Moreover, this interactive solution is widespread on modern websites. You can tell users a compelling story and save your website space within one video or a gallery of them.
- Audios– This is another visual component to do magic in storytelling. Audio is effective both as background music or a single file to listen. Plus, many people find it easier to perceive information in the audio format.
- Typography– This feature is important when you write a message on your website. Even though, many who find typography to be a so-so component of website design, you should know how significant it is. A use of different fonts draws attention and helps to tell a better story, especially today, when so many free fonts are available on the Web.
- Scrolling– Finally, we have reached the needed point. Love it or hate it, scrolling is a key element of storytelling. A multi-page is out of competition here, because scrolling intrigues users and compels them to read a site to the end. It is like reading a book and waiting for the end to find a moral.
A single-page website that tells a compelling story will gather maximum users for you, that’s for sure.
This website tells a story and does it via a few most powerful approaches: video, images, and scrolling single-page design.
4. Easy Navigation
Navigation is a cornerstone to any website being it a business project or a portfolio page. Complex navigation takes too much time, and as a rule, it alienates users. This is also a reason why minimalism and simplicity are so widespread web design directions today.
One page websites are good for being maximum plain. It is necessary to scroll your mouse wheel in order to look through the entire site, what can be easier?
If you are very and very creative person, you can express it within a single page website by applying horizontal scrolling to it or any non-standard scrolling scheme, e.g. a few slides right, then down-left-again down, etc. You are not limited by the only scrolling option, so here you can realize your non-standard ideas.
This website is a pleasure to look through, because you can use either scrolling or clicking. Anyway, the content is housed on a one page but with a few sections.
5. Perfect for Mobile Devices
This point repeats the previous one to some degree, because all the essence here is the navigation too.
I don’t want to tell you how good responsive design is, you must have heard it thousands of times. I just want you to tell that scrolling websites are the part of responsive concept. Let me illustrate an example: A friend of mine has a business website with a pretty clean design and clear navigation. Still, the menu bar has a drop-down section, which is hover sensitive. It seems to be a common thing for a multi-page website, but he hadn’t predicted the impossibility to launch the sub-pages of a site, when he developed a mobile version of the theme. Users don’t have mouth for their touch-screen devices. That is why, it took my friend a whole new process to redesign his mobile site.
Here the point is that one-page sites are great for smart phones, tablets and various gadgets that we have now. This kind of website designs are navigated by a simple push of a finger and it pleases users a lot, believe me.
Should You Redesign Your Multi-page Website into a One-page Theme?
Now you probably think about the future of your website, because all I have mentioned in this article is good for starting up and creating a new site. In a case you already have a website, and it is a classic multi-page design, you have a few options to choose: leave everything as it is, perfect your site but leave its multi-page structure, or rebuild it into a modern one-page solution. This choice depends on what your current situation is, whether you site is profitable and effective or it is a just-to-have thing. You know all the benefits of this new trend and you understand the benefits you have now. Take a time and think over!
If you have any questions, ideas or you want to share your personal vision on this topic, feel free to leave a comment in the section below!
Excellent Examples of Fresh Single Page Designs
In this presentation, you’ll find a variety of highly-creative, beautiful and most importantly inspirational designs which is following the same trend of single page designs.
Game of Thrones Helper
Happy 25th Birthday Game Boy
World of SWISS
2Complex Designer
CUPS Annual Report
Guillaume JUVENET Portfolio
Kickdrop
Brancott Estate Pioneers
Havoc Inspired Ltd
BrightMedia
Shokunin
Bear On Unicycle
Fap Fapp
Ting
PhotoshopKiller
The Cream of Manchester Portfolio
Sanseveria
The Wedding Of Vanti & Agus
Appliance Tec Limited
Axial Apartments
These are all great reasons, one I’d like to add is the fact they are SEO Friendly! I am sure google loves all the information on the index page. These are great & fun examples, its crazy how fast these started trending. Thanks for sharing!
One question remains though, how does this affect SEO? You can’t build out deep layers of content with a site structure like this, no? What are your thoughts on that?
Great article. Thanks for the insights.
Bad reasons:
1. Bad for SEO. In opposition to Teelah’s comment. It depends on the content, but overall Google loves to crawl large websites for information. Having a small amount of content on one page makes it weak in Google’s search results.
2. Some take a long time to load and even include loading graphics (which should die along with Flash).
3. On many one-page sites, browser forward/back buttons do not work.
Tim, thanks for your feedback! But you see, you have 3 bad reasons, yet I have 5 good))
Anyway, it is possible to optimize a single-page website by making a keyword strategy thought-out, keeping the content fresh, speeding up a website, etc. By the way, loading time is a very controversial point: there are many one-page sites faster than regular multi-page ones.
I agree with Julia. Single page application can be faster. Looking into my github project. https://github.com/anilbms/landingpage
I did landing page design using only basic HTML & CSS , no Javascript & any framwork . Which uses key items of single page design – logo, Header text, paragraph, action button and background cover.
You cannot keep the content fresh on a single page website, because it is only one page. Do you recommend actually updating content on a one page website every week? Every month? That will kill your Google rankings. If that page actually linked to other pages in your site, then yes. But if it is one page and you keep your content “fresh” all the time it is going to tank for SEO.
I have to disagree with your seo comment about flash and one pagers. My site is in flash and it is ranking well for major keywords for my town and Toronto. It really depends what you know about SEO and how you use it. I do agree that large graphics are a waste and occupy bandwidth but now with the speed increase that is becoming a thing of the past.
Sean, have you thought about people that want to view your site on their iPhone or iPad?
Cited articles for bad SEO and single page websites:
http://searchengineland.com/single-page-websites-seo-182506
Julia, you said this, “But you see, you have 3 bad reasons, yet I have 5 good”, so here are 5 reasons:
http://www.katetooncopywriter.com.au/5-reasons-why-single-page-websites-are-bad-for-seo/
http://www.hyperarts.com/blog/single-page-websites-and-seo-a-one-page-site-can-clobber-your-seo/
http://conference-websites.co.uk/2014/04/15/3-reasons-why-one-page-websites-are-bad-for-seo-ranking/
There can be a reason for using a one page website, but it should NOT be your primary website.
I recently wrote blog about Landing Page Design Pattern.
https://medium.com/@anilbms75/landing-page-design-pattern-4f52a86995e5
which talks about main components of the single page website.
Hello,
Thanks for sharing lot of things about single page websites. Web Design isn’t just a service we provide, it’s a passion we pursue to craft inspiring websites with a perfect fusion of code and creativity.
Thanks for sharing lot of things about single page websites.
I agree with the author that one page websites can be useful. I see them as more additional websites supporting a main website. For the main website of a company, I agree with Tim that the SEO will be too weak.
YOUNG is an advertising agency in Mumbai providing creative, brand strategy, design, media & digital services. We create compelling brand communication that deliver results
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