As a web developer, I have evolved into building sites that are an intricate maze of pages that allow the user to surf the site. The idea is to provide multiple avenues to arrive to each page, which should be short to allow reading without much scrolling. If the user needs to scroll, build another page. Pages can be targeted for search engines.
But there are single page websites out there which have their place. A nice example of this Seven Places Productions, a WordPress implementation with an elegant graphic design. It is almost a one page site. They cheat on “our services” by showing examples, which are separate posts. But they use sliders to allow all the content to be on a single screen.
There are also less desirable solutions. I shy away from sliders that move a long way, because it tends to make me dizzy. Think Green Meeting is an example of this. It is complicated to build, and I need to take seasick pills if I browse the whole site.
A single page site may work well if there is not too much content or too many pages (less than 10). If graphic design is a premium, this could be a way to go.
I always felt that one page sites would compromise on SEO, but this may not be the case. I’m not convinced, but Mayur Jobanputra in his blog, gives 6 reasons why one page sites offer advantages for SEO. I have to believe, however, that a well structured website with many pages, cross-linked, will always do better than a single page site.
For simple sites that don’t need much content, there are creative ways to build a single page site and have it work to your advantage. One page, however, does not necessarily translate to inexpensive. The sophisticated graphic design (I particularly like the top right corner peeling away for recent sites) means the single page can cost at least as much as a multi-page site.
