Single Page vs. Multi-Page Websites.
Here Are The Advantages and Disadvantages for Each.
If it’s time to create a website for your small business, the sheer amount of design options can be overwhelming. One of the first places to start when planning a new website is what type of site do you want: a simple, single page website that lists relevant information front-and-center or a complex, multi-page website that you can add onto as your business evolves? It’s a great question, so let’s get after it: below are a few of the most pressing advantages and disadvantages for single and multi-page websites.
More questions? Reach out to Web Geeks and allow our Windsor digital marketing company to work alongside you to build the perfect website for your brand!
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Single Page Websites
Advantages:
Easier to tell a story
Half the battle of building a website that works for your small business is figuring out how to tell your brand’s story. You’re not just building a page to list information: you’re explaining to the world why you matter; the narrative presented on the page gets you there. Use the single page approach to your advantage and allow your story to unfold as the viewer scrolls down the page. Add pictures, video, and relevant information. It’s also a solid way to create a call-to-action and entice browsers to become customers since everything is on one page.
Perfect for mobile – but watch out for load times
A single page website that’s carefully crafted to include relevant information without a ton of embedded media or outdated Flash objects will load within seconds on mobile. It’s imperative that your single page site loads quickly too, as Google will penalize your ranking if it fails to do so. With approximately 52.2% of global web traffic stemming from mobile phones in 2018, ensuring your mobile traffic is properly optimized has never been more important. Still, with all of the information on one page it becomes beyond simple to digest important information that will stay with your visitors.
Disadvantages:
SEO difficulties
Having a search Engine Optimization (SEO) gameplan is vital to your website’s success. Unfortunately, a single page website makes it nearly impossible to rank for the keywords and phrases you need to compete for; you can also only optimize with one title tag, a meta description, and your URL (not a lot to work with). One solution is to regularly add new content to your website, but that’s also a lot of work that adding a blog would eliminate since it would give you the opportunity to rank for keywords and phrases whenever you needed; then again, adding a blog means your website suddenly becomes a multi-page website. Need assistance? Our SEO services company in Windsor, ON can help!
Handcuffs your content
If you need to list important information yet there’s nowhere to list it, you have to sacrifice some of your information. This can be difficult if you have absolutely no information that can be left off of your website. In instances like these, it’s important to not shoehorn your brand into a single page website; if it functions better as a multi-page website, go with that approach.
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Multi-Page Websites
Advantages:
You have an SEO game-plan
Because you’re not limited to how much information you can include on your website, with a multi-page website it becomes extremely easy to optimize your website for relevant keywords and phrases in your niche on every page without it becoming to ‘spammy.’ You can also rank for ever-changing keywords and phrases in your industry by adding a blog to your website, which will improve your brand’s search engine ranking even more. Of course, you need to know which keywords and phrases to rank for, and we can help with that.
Simple to scale
Need to add a new service that’s coming next year? Opening a new location? Whatever needs change and however your brand evolves, you can add as much necessary information and pages as possible to get the message across. Don’t scale it too big though! Remember: your website’s loading time dictates your ranking, too.
Disadvantages:
Not always mobile friendly
What do you do when you visit a website that isn’t responsive when you try to open new links and pages? You probably leave the website immediately and try to find another alternative. With a multi-page website that isn’t properly optimized, you run this risk. It’s much easier for things to load improperly and go wrong when you add additional pages and information into the mix. Build your website with a mobile-first mindset to avoid this, and your multi-page website should perform just fine on any mobile device.
Navigation can get confusing
A multi-page website presents its own challenges – especially as it grows. As you add additional pages and levels to a website, you will need to take into consideration how simple it is for a new visitor to browse the pages and find exactly what they need. Utilizing a navigation bar on the site’s main page is one way to do this, but you don’t want to over complicate the experience either. Visitors need to know exactly where to go and what to click on the moment they visit your page; any confusion that comes after could make you seem incompetent to visitors (harsh, but it’s the truth). Just remember: the more complicated your multi-page website becomes, the simpler navigation should be; anything less, and you’re going to be driving visitors away.
