With the rise of the Internet and its users online, having a website for your business has become extremely important. Think of your website as a digital catalogue/brochure for your business which you use to let your audience and potential customers know about your products/services.
However, choosing between the single-page and multi-page website for your business can be a daunting task. The best way to choose between the two options is to determine what you want to communicate to your audience, how much content your site has and whether your website is content-centric or products/services centric. If you’re still unsure on which website design would be the best fit for your business, below are the pros and cons of each design to help you figure out which design to choose.
WHAT IS A SINGLE-PAGE WEBSITE AND WHAT ARE THE PROS AND CONS OF SINGLE-PAGE WEBSITE?
The single-page or one-page website is a website that uses only one webpage. Although the one-page design is fairly new, businesses have been quick to catch onto the trend. It’s a perfect form of a website for small businesses who do not have a wide array of products/services. The idea behind single-page designs is to tell a story to the user, flowing naturally from top to bottom.
ADVANTAGES OF SINGLE-PAGE WEBSITE:
Studies have shown that 40% of users wait an average of three seconds for a page to load before they choose to leave. Since single-page designs contain only one webpage and users have to load only one page, they’re faster to load. Providing a linear user experience, single-page websites appeal to ‘Z’ pattern of eye scanning narrating a story as the user scrolls down the page. This results in users staying on your website for longer durations (think about how many times you’ve started scrolling on Instagram and wasted hours together) and increased conversions (>37.5%) than multi-page sites as users move through the website quickly and are not bombarded with various links to other pages on the website. With the rise in mobile users, single-page websites have an added advantage as they use the same backend HTML code for mobile optimised sites too. They’re easier to adapt and hence provide a consistent user experience to both mobile and PC users.
DISADVANTAGES OF SINGLE-PAGE WEBSITE:
However, single-page designs also have their cons. The most prominent being single-page websites are not the best suited for when it comes to optimising a website for SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Since single-page websites have only one page, some sub-topic keywords are bound to be diluted. With only one URL to work with, single-page websites have a hard time when it comes to ranking for relevant keywords. Even though single-page websites have a lot to offer, they might not be the best fit for your business. That’s where multi-page design comes into the picture.
Also Read - Difference Between Static And Dynamic Website
WHAT IS A MULTI-PAGE WEBSITE AND WHAT ARE THE PROS AND CONS OF MULTI-PAGE WEBSITE?
Multi-page websites have been around since ages. These are the websites with a huge amount of content distributed across multiple pages through menus and divided into topics and subtopics within the site.
ADVANTAGES OF MULTI-PAGE WEBSITE:
Having been around since ages, the users are familiar with multi-page websites providing them with the best user experience possible. You can also have custom mega menus (navigation menus) as the content on your website increases, making the site easier to scale. Content distribution or content categorization is a trick that is used in white hat SEO to make sites rank higher on the search engine and multi-page websites provide amazing SEO opportunities to optimize your site and rank higher. In multi-page websites, you can optimize a page for a single keyword making it easier for search engines to understand the content on that page and weigh its relevance. E-commerce sites like Amazon and E-learning sites like Coursera use multi-page designs for their websites.
DISADVANTAGES OF MULTI-PAGE WEBSITE:
Multiple pages lead to more website data and that leads to web pages loading slower than usual. If your website is not designed and developed by an expert website developer or a website designing agency who knows the importance of loading speed, it can become a disastrous issue. On average, users wait only 3 seconds for a page to load before leaving. Since multi-page websites might take longer to load due to the huge content amount, this may increase the bounce rate of your website. These websites are also harder to manage and require expert assistance whenever you encounter a problem with any element of your site. Multi-page websites are also harder to adapt to mobile as they contain separate HTML code for each section and thus, it becomes a hectic task to make it responsive for mobile devices.
WHICH FORM OF WEBSITE IS SUITABLE FOR YOUR NEEDS?
In conclusion, websites are all about user experience and content-richness. A better website design leads to better user experience. If you’re still having a hard time deciding on which type of website is best for your business, reach out to us here. We at Sociomark, a website designing company, are ready to give you complete guidance and help you in developing an immersive website. Our expert team will provide you with a complete marketing solution for your business goals. Our services include Website Design and Development, Social Media Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Digital PR & Associations, Blogging & Influencer Outreach, Content Writing and many more. Reach us and grow more!
Author : Ayaz Nashir (Web Developer)
Reviewed By : Heta Baandal , Managing Director - Sociomark