The 4 elements of a successful one-page website
One page websites are quickly becoming a viable alternative to the complex, multi page websites that have a bunch of information packed into them.
They are excellent when you want to concentrate and condense information in a single spot and thus help users learn only an essential bit of information, or funnel them down to a single possible action. They are also excellent if you want to create a portfolio website, that’ll be clear and convincing. Having a one-page portfolio website, it’ll be simpler to start a research for new projects.
While making a one-page website is easier than creating a complex, multi-page one, it is by no means simple. So before you start, here are some useful practices you should follow.
Make sure the website is fast
If you’re going to make a one-page website, you need to make sure that visitors can load it quickly. The more it takes for a website to load up, the fewer visitors you’ll get.
There are a lot of ways to make your website faster, such as compressing your images, implementing site caching or even finding a good website host.
If you have more technical expertise, you can also try to optimise your site’s CSS and JS, implement a CDN or even remove scripts and try to work around them.
The important information first
People have fickle attention spans that are sometimes no longer than a few seconds. That’s how long you have to transmit your most useful information
The best way to do this is short copy, accompanied by a visual element such as a photo or a video.
Users like clear and easily digestible information. It helps to keep their attention piqued, and so stay on the page longer. And a longer time on page means more familiarity with the product or
service, which takes us to the next crucial step.
Create a comprehensive footer
At the very end of your website is the footer. Seemingly unimportant, the footer contains some very important elements that help a website.
For one, it contains useful contact information that users can use to reach out to you. This can often translate directly to more sales, more registrations etc.
Many sites simply skip over the footer, considering it unimportant. Unfortunately, that’s a lot opportunity. It’s for this reason that we suggest you keep in mind the essential aspects of a website footer when creating your site.
An actionable call to action
Once a user’s attention has been caught, a single site page needs to lead him to a desired action.
This can be either an email signup, a purcase or a social media share or like. In any case, you need a convincing copy to gently nudge the user into the desired action.
Testimonials and user trust
People trust other people, so the best way to convince someone of the quality of your product or services is to include a reference from other users.
Ideally, these should be from independent sites, that contain reviews from real users who have to identify themselves.
Including testimonials is important because users trust other users more than people who do reviews. For all the depth of their testing, reviewers fail to catch the long term, day to day life and routine involved with a product. So if given a choice, always err on the side of including a testimonial and not a review.
Test, test and test
Sometimes, even small variations of a page are enough to lead to a noticeable increase or decrease in key user interactions such as sales, or registrations. It’s for this reason that a website should be constantly updated and tested to make sure it has the most user impact.