How to choose between a landing page, one page and multi-page websites

When looking for a first website people often think of a one-page website or a landing page for their new business. It could be because the business is very new and the client doesn’t feel they have enough information to fill out a multi-page website. It could be that they’re looking at keeping their costs low. There are some cases where a one page website is a perfect fit and others where a multi-page website is more suitable.

For single products you’re more likely to have a landing page with long form copy, testimonials, reviews, and many different persuasive reasons to buy the product.

This can also be the case when it’s a membership website or a course (in these cases we consider a course or membership to be a product rather than a service). Typically these landing pages will be written by a copywriter and won’t be a low-cost option. Not least because building a website as a single, long-form landing page takes a lot of time and skill.

You essentially offer one type of service: Admin. 

You can easily layout the type of admin you do without needing to go into detail.

Your audience only needs to know:

A skill people value in Virtual Assistants is their ability to be concise and a one page website is the perfect opportunity to showcase this. With 5 - 7 sections of content it will give your ideal client everything they need to know when deciding to work with you.

There are of course, more industries that just VAs who will benefit from a one page website, what they will all have in common is that they’re offering just one type of service.

The general rule is: one product, one page. If you’re selling a product you want all eyes to be on that. You don’t want your ideal customer to be distracted by looking at other products on the page. (Using related products as an upsell at the bottom of the page which people can click through to, is a different strategy than having multiple products on one page).

Having an individual page for each product will help your product get found in the first place as search engines will be looking for specific keywords in your pages and if you have it littered with different products all on the same page, it won’t rank it for any of the items as there won’t be enough consistency or density of key information on the page.

There is a caveat here and that is, if there are variations of the same service, you can offer them from the same page. Take for example you’re a copywriter who offers email writing, newsletter copy and blog writing. As they all come under the category of writing and they’re likely to be at a similar price point, you could have them under the same services page. However, you’ll still need to do more storytelling on the website than having just one page.

The general rule is: a separate page for each service. The SEO algorithms will thank you for it and your ideal client will have a much better idea of what you do and why it is of benefit to them, than if you’re trying to squeeze the information into a single page.

One of the reasons I’ll always suggest you use a copywriter for your website is that they know how to tell the story that your ideal client needs to read before they buy from or work with you. Writing for websites is very different to writing for any other part of your industry. It’s not the same as a newsletter or a blog post and it includes headlines and structures, keywords and phrases for SEO, Calls to Action, as well as telling a story and creating touchpoint which resonate with your ideal client, convincing them that you’re the person to work with them.

This story telling is played out across multiple pages including your Home Page (which has snippets of different sections of the website), your About and Services pages, any resources  and a final persuasive text section for the Contact page.

Every industry is competitive and when someone is choosing who to work with, they’ll make their decision based on:

Whether your values align - they’ll get this information from the tone, look and feel of your website and the copy.

Your expertise - this is the big one because there are a load of other people who can all deliver results the client’s looking for and to make sure you’re interested her running when they decide, you’ll need to showcase your industry expertise. This could be through case studies, portfolios, blogs, vlogs, podcast episodes etc. However you do it and whether you also use other platforms, such as YouTube or podcasts, you should have links from them to your website, as well as having it noted on your website that you share your expertise and where they can find it. Pulling things like feeds from YouTube/Vimeo etc to the website, can also work really well.

A new website is a big commitment and the success will lie in the skill of the designer and the amount of preparation that’s been done prior to the website build. . Often when people are thinking of just having a landing page or one page website it’s because they’re right at the beginning of their website journey and they don’t know about storytelling and touchpoints, or they haven’t consulted a designer or developer to workout what’s the right model for their business. Even one page websites need careful planning to make sure they bring in leads and make sales and if this isn’t done it can be a waste of time and money for the website owner, as well as leading to a lack of confidence in their business when they’re not making sales through their website.

If you’d like to understand more about the User Experience when planning your website build, you can check out my course: Understanding Your User’s Journey. This will give you all the tools to help you plan a website with a strong user experience, which helps your ideal clients to choose to work with or buy from you each and every time.

If you’d like to discuss working together on a website, you can book a free, no-obligation call with me using the button below.