One page website is one of the most popular trends that is definitely dominating the web development sector this year. It showcases a trendy and practical way of delivering the most useful content. Multipage websites have been the traditional and established model in the website development world. However, single page websites are making strides since a couple of years and have surpassed this deep-rooted model. This is for a couple of dominating reasons – single page websites are quicker, time-cost efficient and way simpler to design and develop.

One page websites entail a single HTML page that showcases the complete website. The website often uses coding languages like JavaScript, jQuery, CSS3, or Ajax to complete the development process. There is no menu and the content is segregated in a sectional form. The users need to scroll down to access information.

Why should we choose a single page website?

Delivering Key Messages Effectively – Boosts User Engagement

You have developed a website because you have a message you wish to pass to your visitors. Unfortunately, people’s attention span seems to be growing shorter. You have a maximum of 15 seconds to communicate with a web visitor through text. A one-page website helps you to consolidate all important information onto a single page. Content is easier to find and “scan” than when the same information is on several web pages. People no longer read; they scan. So you better make your content eye-catching, clear and concise.

Simple Navigation – Makes it Easier to Share Your Story

With a multi-page website, the visitors move from page to page and consume only the kind of information they want, ignoring everything else. Not so with a one-page site. Here, you have the advantage of being able to control the order in which a searcher consumes your content. A visitor cannot jump from page to page. You can quickly and easily lead your visitors to content with high conversion potential.

A One-page Design is More Mobile-Friendly than a Multi-page Design

Most websites today have a responsive design that makes it easier for users to consume content on their mobile devices. But searchers using small-screen smartphones may not enjoy content from pages as they would like. Fortunately, single-page sites are much better when it comes to optimization for mobile. Most people would agree that using Facebook — a one-page website — is easy and enjoyable. The one-page design allows you to give your visitors a pleasant user experience.

You Require Less Text on a One Page Website Design

Text-based content has always been a crucial part of websites, whether they are one-page or multi-page sites. A site with ten pages where each page has one paragraph will look like it needs a bit more content. Contrastingly, the same amount of content may make a one-page website appear a bit beefier. If you are writing the content yourself, you may not find it exhausting. Plus it might be cheaper to buy content for your site if you are using freelancers.

A one-page site may look like it carries a lot of content, but visitors find it easy to scan topics on it. A developer uses his or her creativity to make it easy for people to transition smoothly from page to page.

Single-page Sites are Unique

One-page websites have not been the norm. People are more familiar with the traditional multi-page sites. So when they see and interact with a one-page site, it may feel a little different. A developer working on only one page is likely to adopt a kind of out-of-the-box thinking. Such creativity may result in a more aesthetically pleasing easy-to-use site.

Works Well With Images

There are many ways to enhance a site’s search engine optimization. Multimedia is an effective way to improve your website’s SEO. Images, a component of multimedia, have the potential to enhance your ranking in Google’s search results. Additionally, images add visual appeal to your site. A one-page site allows you the opportunity to post many high-quality photos on the same page.

BENEFITS OF SINGLE PAGE APPLICATION

• Most of the users find it easier to view the entire content on a single page. They don’t have to wait for loading another page and keep clicking.
• Here you can get SEO benefit too. When your webpage gets a page rank from Google, it is relevant to the entire website.
• The designer can pay good attention as it is not complex like multiple pages. They can concentrate on the particular page.
• Users are often inspired watching animated site. UI designers can use many effects in a single webpage.
• While designing a mobile app and related website, single page layout comes handy. It takes less effort to navigate for the users, and looks a whole lot better too.

DRAWBACKS

• For having all the contents in one page, it creates a huge size of the page. Thus it consumes many spaces as well as it is time consuming to see the entire site by scrolling down.
• The uses of different effects make the page slower to load. Use AJAX to load different section of the page.
• Sometimes people get impatient to see the whole site for slow loading.
• It’s difficult to update. If your site is about features like news, a blog feed or brochure type websites then you should not go for one page websites. I think this is not the right type of website if you want to regularly add new content to your site.
• It is hard to optimize your entire content effectively for one keyword. For having a large in size and loading slow may cause detrimental to SEO.

CONCLUSION

Single-page website design heavily depends on business goals and target audiences. And before you go for any design practice, you should find out who is coming to your website and why.