6 Tips for Building One Page Websites
One page websites are becoming popular and trendy now – there is no doubt about that, although they are not suitable for every topic or organization. However, if done correctly, your project can be very successful.
When creating a landing page, as a rule, it does not have a large amount and volume of content. You only have one page to get your message across, and only a limited number of tricks and animations you can use before the user loses interest.
Most one-page sites have non-standard markup – trying to fit the required amount of content in a limited area so that it does not look like a mess of information is quite problematic. You can see the most successful examples of implementation on the OnePageLove and Land Book sites.
The potential scope of such projects is different, but some of the most popular candidates for their use are personal one-page portfolios and websites of companies that provide a small number of products, services or services. Make sure the strategy you choose is effective for your business and operations. There are certain guidelines that you should follow when creating any website, but the points below are especially critical for single page websites.
1. Keep your visitors focus
Make it as simple as possible for your audience. If you are considering a one page option for your site, then you probably don t have a lot of content to put on your site. It is perfectly. We sometimes tend to put a lot of unnecessary information on the site. One-page sites do not require unnecessary information. their only goal is to hit right on target. If you re a portfolio designer, submit your best work; and don t even be tormented by the thought of hosting mediocre projects or your third-party t-shirt business.
Cleanse your site and only use the information that matters. While this is a good strategy for any site, most multi-page sites can afford some unnecessary information. the user always knows where the information he needs is located. in the case of one-page sites, you have, figuratively speaking, only one shot: if the user does not find the information they need, you will lose it.
We have no question about what this website is selling
This portfolio gets right to the point. And a wonderful, cute minimal design too.
2. Create a visual site hierarchy
One-page sites have as their task not only to set the focus of the visitor s attention, but also to present your product or service. If any one-page sites impressed you, then they may have one single purpose: to present the agency s design work or to draw attention to an upcoming event.
Great designs and a focused visual hierarchy can help define your site s goals. You, as a designer, have the power to direct the visitor s gaze to where you want them to go. It is natural for humans to notice large objects first and small objects last. Important objects should not be placed at the end of the page and be small.
Large-print introductory paragraphs have become so popular on designer portfolio sites precisely because they hit the mark and attract those looking for designers. The last thing you would like to see on the website of a designer is what school he attended. But it is important for you to know his specialization and what design projects he does. Similarly, for a business project, in principle, it is useful to view information about the company s employees, but its services and benefits are much more important.
Again, you only have a few invaluable opportunities to get your message across to your visitor. So try to use them correctly. If you realize that you have too much content to convey your message through one page, then create a multi-page site.
Despite the fact that even within this screenshot we see several different points of focus of the visitor s attention, we can say a lot about which is more important.
We can tell what this company is doing, but the visual hierarchy could be better.
3. Clear navigation
Some single page sites are static pages that redirect the visitor to external resources. For example, musicians can put the “Video” navigation option on their page, which will send you to their page on YouTube. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, and it s even easier (especially in terms of encoding). The only thing the visitor needs to know is that he will be redirected to an external page.
If your one-page site was built to sell a product, and the Buy link sends a buyer to an external payment platform without warning, you may be losing some of your customers.
Your goal is to keep things as simple as possible. Redirecting a user to external sites without prior notice may confuse the user. He may think that the link is not working, or that the link is incorrect. Try to use special icons (there are a lot of free options on the Internet) or headers so that the user knows where he will be redirected.
Here we see what is not worth doing. The link at the top takes you to an external site without warning. This is really confusing.
The design and code of this site are very unusual. However, all links to external pages are highlighted in green circles and labeled accordingly.
4. Experiment with design
We ve now come to the fun part: using a one-page website to show yourself and your skills. You don t want your website to be boring or similar to other websites – be more daring and experiment. Take your design to the next level – think outside the box. Unusual design draws attention to your product and makes it memorable.
One-page sites are becoming synonymous with great design because working with a large “canvas” opens up great opportunities for you. You may not need to use the same background everywhere; You can change it for different sections. Oftentimes, visiting one-page sites is like looking at magazines or well-written presentations. Take advantage of these opportunities.
Create a stunning design: use large pictures that fill the entire browser window, or a gorgeous illustrated background. Not only will this give you an edge over other websites – it may end up in one of the web design reviews for your site.
The design is breathtaking. It resembles a poster or a poster. And the rest of the site design won t leave you disappointed.
The cleanliness of this design (and code) is amazing. He makes you stop and watch.
five. Experiment with the code
If you want to show not only your design skills, but also your coding skills, then one page sites allow you to do it. Experience in code development is critical in this case, so pay attention to the details. Code can take your site to the next level.
Here are a few things to consider: the color and behavior of links (especially in select mode); appearance and behavior of forms (adjusting forms to the site design using AJAX and JavaScript); submitting data and error messages (forms and AJAX script are used here); content table and location (including content behavior in the browser window). All of this should be consistent with the design and work in harmony with the design.
A wonderful and simple code example for a one page site.
I am, of course, biased, tk. I like it when content is loaded in the same window, but the attention to detail in the code here is incredible and you can see it throughout.
6. Animation
In addition to what was said above (taking care of the details when coding), you can use code to create animations on the page. And try not to be boring. Add a sense of life and movement to your page; make it look like it moves with the visitor. Add fun animations and interesting transitions to make your site really stand out from the crowd.
The languages jQuery and AJAX have become commonplace for creating website animations. It doesn t matter what you do: make content appear from different angles or create a background in the form of a slideshow – keep your audience engaged in the process of browsing the site.
The background of this site is made in the form of animation. It s hard to know what this site is about, but it looks very neat.
The transitions on this website are great. I love it!
PS The original of this English-language article can be found here – 6 tips to create better one-page websites. What can I say as a summary. Of course, one-page sites are a cool thing, which has its own very serious advantages: such a project can surprise, detain the user, highlight and emphasize your site among hundreds of other ordinary and nondescript ones. Therefore, the greatest benefit from such one-pages will be in the field of activity where the effect is almost the most important task – as an example, you can safely cite portfolio sites of designers and any other creative people. In terms of focus, this is somewhat reminiscent of flash sites – the concept is similar, only other implementation options.
On the other hand, it should be remembered that a small amount of content on the site reduces the project s opportunities for promotion in search engines and attracting traffic from there. Therefore, of course, most corporate sites of serious companies should not be made as one-pages, an exception may be a mini-site (in addition to the main one on a subdomain, for example) or the creation of an image project for a company that is promoted in other ways – a TV channel, a radio station, etc. P.
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