One Page sites have gained popularity due to their small size, easy operation and legibility. Interesting design and focus on the message make them friendly to people, but they are not necessarily a good material for SEO. Is it worth investing in one-page websites?
One Page site – what does it mean?
One Page site, as the name suggests, is a single page, which unlike a classic website, does not have subpages, but internal links, so called anchors marked with #hashtags, may appear within it. Introducing such links enables to create a menu of page, which will refer to specific elements – clicking on a link scrolls the page to a place where the content you are interested in is, but does not move to another subpage. Lack of subpages means that One Page site has only one URL, so this type of website is considered to be difficult to position.
One URL
As mentioned above, a classic website consists of many subpages that have their own URLs. The One Page site, even if it has a menu, directs it to the anchored elements that are on the home page – such segments are marked with a #hashtag, do not have their own URLs, so for the robot of search engine only one page is visible for indexing. It is possible to create URLs for individual elements using Java Script, but an artificially created structure of the page will not bring benefits in terms of positioning, because Googlebot will skip this record, for it this will still be one page, even though the link will change on our computers.
Anchors (#hashtags) or URL?
If you are wondering whether instead of anchors use separate links to the elements of one page site, it is worth considering what we want to get – the correct structure, which the indexing robot will love, or readable links that people like.
Anchors are easy to use, enable to create internal links within the site and are readable by robots. Moreover, if used correctly, they provide valuable internal links.
Separate URLs for elements are not a good strategy, because we get many links that ultimately lead to the same content, so the robot can consider them as "duplicate content", i.e. content copied to another page. In opposition to robots, there are people for whom we create a website, there is a greater chance that they will provide a readable URL than the anchored #hashtag.
Advantages of One Page site
Price of One Page website.
One Page sites have gained their popularity thanks to the simplicity of design, which translates into the cost of implementation, in other words, to put it simply – it is a cheap website. Most often One Page is chosen by people, who want to get a nice corporate website in the shortest possible time and at the lowest possible cost, because they have the conviction that having a corporate website is necessary to find their customers. Unfortunately, by choosing such a strategy, they do not yet know that having a company website is not synonymous with the visibility of company’s website in search results of the browser, and One Page site is resistant to SEO.
Functionality
One Page means that a potential customer does not have to look for bookmarks with information that may interest them, everything is in one place on one page, just scroll down to the bottom or click on the anchor link to find a contact form. This feature enables the recipient of content to spend more time on the website than in case of extended websites, and this increases the chance of purchasing our product or service.
Effective call to action
The main feature of One Page is wow effect, i.e. surprise the recipient with interesting graphics, nice photos and animations. The content on the One Page site should attract attention, often unconventional headlines and texts that focus on valuable message and contain a clear Call To Action (CTA) are the key to success of this type of site.
Disadvantages of One Page site
Positioning problems
One Page is indeed visually attractive and contains the most important information that can be useful for a potential customer, it can be said that this is a form of website created for people, unfortunately it does not translate into a liking for indexing robots. Visually attractive website with a small content and one basic URL is not a good material for positioning.
Limited amount of space
One Page site is hard to enrich with new materials, so you should use the key phrases wisely for extensive descriptions that will be on the target homepage. In case of expansion of the company, services, new products, there is no possibility to expand the One Page site, so it will be necessary to create a new classic site with an extensive menu and separate URL for the content.
Page weight
All texts, images, contact form or map must fit on one page, so the advantage of not having to go to another subpage becomes a disadvantage, as the individual elements increase the weight of such a page, which may increase the time of loading it by the browser.
When considering the form of a website for the company, it is worth considering whether One Page site is enough for your business, or whether a traditional responsive website with separate URLs for products, articles and forms will be a better solution. However, if you are sure that One Page is for you, make sure that it will be properly built and use its potential to the limit!
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