Sandy Wardenburg Waggett explains why one-page websites hurt your business. They're harder to navigate, can't rank for multiple keywords, and load slower. Build separate pages for each service instead, like an HVAC company with distinct pages for repairs and new systems.
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Good morning everyone. Sandy Weigt here with MSW Interactive Designs. And today I am here with another marketing tip. I was actually on the phone with someone who wanted me to quote them a website yesterday and he asked me to look at his existing website. So I did that while we were on the phone together and I thought there were some really good takeaways from that conversation that could benefit some of you. So this particular person had a nice looking website, but it was a one page website. I am not a fan of one page websites for many reasons. And you know, a few years ago that was actually a big design trend in our industry. But there's a lot of reasons why you don't want a one page website. So I just want to go over those really quickly. So if you, if you have one right now, I would recommend that you change that as soon as you can. And if you're considering a redesign and someone talks to you about a one page website website, these are reasons why you shouldn't go that direction. Okay, Number one, one page websites can be very confusing for the users because even if you're on a desktop or mobile phone, the navigation on one page websites happens in two ways. The first one is, you know, there will be a, there'll be a menu, navigation menu. And it might have four options like homepage services, about us in contact, but they all land on the same page. So when you click on one of those, it jumps down on the same page. And then to navigate your way around, you have to scroll up and down and try to find your way through the content. On the flip side, if they don't use the jump mechanism on the navigation, then you just have to scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll. And so a lot of your content will be missed because people don't want to read that much stuff when they get to a website. And especially if they're on mobile, by the way. Now the other reason that it's not great is because it's hard to share specific content. So when you have your pages broken out separately. So let's just say you're an H Vac company and you have service and repair area and then you also have an area of your business where you sell new systems. So if someone asks for a referral to an H Vac company in your local market, I could share, you know, if they're looking for service and repair, I could share that specific page that takes people right to that service. But if you have a one page website, then I have to just share your homepage and then people are going to have to scroll to find whatever it is that they're specifically looking for. Now in that same vein, it's also difficult with keyword targeting. If all of your content is on one page, then you can't keyword target individual pages based on very specific services. So I'll go back to that H Vac company. So if I'm looking for a new system, I have a page on my website all about new systems. Chances of that page ranking higher for new systems for local search in Google are a lot better if all that content is on its own page, not mixed in with a lot of other stuff, because that dilutes the importance of all the stuff on the page rather than having individual pages for each specific service, which can rank great. Now the other thing is it takes longer to load because all of your content is on one page, including a lot of images based on whatever's on the website. And why does that matter? Well, a few reasons. Number one, for every second longer that it takes to load, you lose a percentage of your website audience. As if that wasn't bad enough, Google factors in page speed in rankings and in their mobile first index. If you have a slow loading website, the chances of you ranking higher in Google are very, very slim. Go. Google likes to return a great user experience and great websites, and they factor in the time that it takes your page to load. Now the other thing with your search engine rankings is the bounce rate. So bounce rate means somebody goes to your website and leaves without doing something else. So one page websites have a very high bounce rate. Why is that? Because they can only go to that one page and there's nothing else to do because everything's on the one page. They can't click through to multiple pages, so you end up with a very high bounce rate. So between the high load speed and the high bounce rate, you have two things fundamentally wrong with your website that Google just really dislikes. So to sum it up very simply, stay away from a one page website. If you're a business owner, your business is your livelihood, it is worth investing in multiple pages when you get your website designed or redesigned. And every page should have a specific, specific topic that you want to rank for. So if you're, I'll go back to my H Vac company example. If you want to rank for service and repair, you should have a page dedicated to service and repair. And then if you want to rank for new systems, then you should have a page dedicated to your new systems that helps the content stay very focused. Helps Google love your website, helps your bounce rate, helps your page load speed, and it helps your users find exactly what they're looking for quicker. So I hope this tip helped. Sandy Weigate With MSW Interactive Designs, we put the web to work for you. Have a great day.
