One Page Website Design Tips, Examples and Inspirations
Today, to build a one page website is one of the most efficient ways to get one’s name (or, to be exact, one’s commercial business’ name) on the map of the world wide web and its territory. These types of websites are relatively cheap, and don’t require the connection of payment gateways, APIs or other advanced features. It is, usually, enough to think through the design and hire good copywriters and dedicated web developers who can get you top content for SEO enforcement.
The latter isn’t difficult to accomplish (as you probably know, popular search engines are becoming more focused on ordinary users instead of search robots; that means, if you find a literate person who is able to effortlessly and concisely express their thoughts in writing, then you’ll probably get the most efficient copywriting service for your business), but everything about the design must be much more integrally developed. Why?
The thing is, images and videos attract people’s attention more prominently than ordinary typed text. This means that you’ll waste the talents of even the most talented writer if you neglect the ux design services design aspect.
Want to create single page website? Easy! In this article, we review the important question of “How to create a one page website?” as well as present a small single page website design tutorial to help you outrun all your competitors with your project.
How to Create a One Page Website: 9 Really Useful Tips
In order to answer the questions “How to build a one page website?” or “Where to take one page design inspiration?”, we’d like to present you with an efficient manual. It consists of nine tips, in total, by following which you can create a single page website design that will amaze your web visitors.
Tip #1: Pay attention to the background
Obviously, the first thing we see when we launch any website is the homepage background. If around 5-7 years ago, web-developers had been choosing the most neutral images or single-tone wallpaper, today, be it a weight loss site or an ICO resource, something more active is preferred. Surely, the background mustn’t intercept the rest of the content.
That’s why the best decision here would be either a pastel-toned image or a grey-shaded image (for example, a themed black and white photo). Try not to use animation as a background if it isn’t necessary, since it doesn’t always load properly in all browsers, which can significantly slow down the whole site’s performance (we don’t need that, do we?).
Tip #2: Choose the most fitting color scheme & font type
Are you still having the question “How to make a one page website”? Forget about the bold, garish fonts featured universally on sites created in the 90s or early 2000s. Minimalism has been a major trend for a number of years now. Look at the modern web design of any iOS application. It is, arguably, considered to be essential to the web and mobile development niche. As for the color scheme – it must harmonize with the background. Also, keep in mind that many displays might distort shades, so the brighter shades might look neon for some users (a type of shade that isn’t perceived well by our eyes).
Tip #3: Provide Quality UX
Now then, a few words about navigation and how to make a single page website. The goal is to provide intuitiveness of navigation, which is not difficult to do. You just need to subdivide all the content into several logical blocks, place the navigation menu at the top of the page (for instance, in the header), and make sure that one is able to get somewhere (by automatic scrolling) by clicking some of the menu items. In practice, this feature can be realized with the help of the JQuery JS library. A particular case of such automation is well described on GitHub.
Tip #4: Work On Scrolling
Pay special attention to scrolling. Apart from the most standard type of scrolling – top to bottom -, there are also ways to scroll automatically to the middle or even the end of the page. We wouldn’t argue over the practicality of these methods, but we can say that scrolling can be unusually organized in more traditional ways: for example, by making a parallax effect.
In this method, you basically make the background image move more slowly, as opposed to the forefront elements – i.e. it changes its position more smoothly as the scrollbar moves up and down (the forefront elements are, usually, buttons and text blocks). This is achieved with JQuery; however, such an approach can negatively affect the site performance and, in many cases, it is much more rational to build this feature in CSS, as shown here. Also, you can try employing horizontal scrolling instead of vertical. Detailed descriptions and codes required for the implementation of this effect can be found here.
Tip #5: Adapt a Website For Mobile Devices
If you are creating your single page website using a readymade CMS like WordPress, there mustn’t be issues with adapting it to the mobile version. Another option is to decide to build single page website from scratch, based on a custom engine. In this case, you’ll have to create an adaptive design that will automatically scale in accordance with the displays of using mobile devices.
Tip #6: Optimize the Location of Text Blocks
Conversion rates may be affected badly if a single page website features too many text blocks. The thing is that the single page format, in itself, implies as brief a chain of actions from the user perspective as possible: visit -> realize that you need it -> buy it (or execute some other action, implied by the site owners’ call to action).
If during the second stage, you bombard a user with tons of text to read and waste their precious time, they might as well leave the website early on. Place only the information that leads directly to the CTA button, and present it briefly, subsequently, and comprehensively. Create a separate blog if you have a lot to tell your users. You can place a link to it in a visible place – e.g. in the contact block (which we’ll discuss shortly).
Tip #7: Develop a Working CTA
One of the crucial things is the development of a working CTA. Let’s define what CTA is, for starters. It is a graphical element that motivates or encourages site users to perform certain actions, for instance: buy, download, subscribe to a newsletter, etc. In simple words, a CTA must directly tell a user what to do and what is expected of them from the webpage owner. The employment of such elements increases sales rates and provides good product promotion.
In order for your CTA to be working and efficient, it must:
- Be intuitive, logical, and concise;
- Encourage users to perform a single (!) action – buy, register, subscribe, etc.;
- Be visually outstanding against the background of the other graphical elements by color and form (as a rule, the CTA is placed in separate containers or buttons);
- Be placed in the user’s scope of view (ideally, at the top of the page; or it can be non-scrollable and static independently of scrolling).
If you ask how to create a single page website, pay separate attention to the CTA content. The requirements are as follows:
- The text must outwardly demonstrate the product’s or service’s value for a certain user;
- The impression of urgency to purchase must be achieved (‘only a few items left’, ‘the discount is available until the end of the day’, etc.);
- The text must feature positive customer reviews (don’t make them overly positive though, can be too striking and decreases CTA efficiency);
- The text must include certain verified statistical data (this can reinforce the level of trust of your potential customers even more);
- The text must respect the user’s personal boundaries (sentences like ‘you are nothing without our product’ are prohibited).
Tip #8: Emphasize the Contact Block
It is very important that a user is able to effortlessly find any information related to your contact data on the site. For that purpose, we strongly recommend putting all the phone numbers, addresses, social media links, and blogs in a separate block, usually placed at the top of the site (or pointed at by a button situated on the homepage, as shown above).
Unfortunately, some web-developers neglect this piece of advice. As a result, site users must scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page, which can be pretty cumbersome (especially, when a page features many media components that can load badly in browsers with low-speed Internet connections).
Tip #9: Create Media Blocks
Due to the fact that most of us best perceive information visually, it’d be much more reasonable to enrich your website with media data instead of interspersing it with dry text throughout. Add animations or videos. The latter are especially popular as they, usually, clearly demonstrate the most impressive features of your product.
The Perfect One Page Website Examples: Top 6 Most Successful Cases
Now, in order for you to understand clearly how proper implementation of all these tips looks in practice, we present to you our top six best single page websites, which are the most relevant for 2021.
Canale Salon
Let’s begin with a resource dedicated to a brand that manufactures premium hair care products. The first thing that strikes the eye in this one page website template is a slider at the top of the screen, which graphically demonstrates the advantages of the presented products. A product assortment is placed below.
Below that, you can see the covers of the magazines where this trademark has been mentioned, as well as presentable photos of the salons where the products are sold. The end note is one of the most winning ways to gain trust – photos of Canale leaders. Also, this simple one page website employs autoscrolling. You are automatically redirected to the respective place on the page when clicking any of the menu items situated in the site’s heading. All in all, the developers did a great job with this one!
Luso Exotics
When exploring how to design a one page website, you should definitely check Luso Exotics. This Portuguese single-page website is dedicated to presenting the services of an exotic fruit distributor. It features simple navigation (open the menu, click one of the dropdown menu items and you’ll instantly be redirected to that part of the page), vivid design, and it is specially made to lift the spirits of any visitor who passes by.
Apero Wine
This web-resource belongs to a wine-accessory company that employs nitrogen oxide-based wine openers. Almost everything is perfect here. The CTA button is well-distinguished against the background but isn’t ‘overdone’ (thanks to the thin, formal font without squiggles).
Moreover, there is not much text on the site. Instead, there are a couple of videos that are much more informative than any article or infographic. Last but not least, it boasts an austere but incredibly elegant color scheme. This is how we believe, deluxe and luxury products should be presented.
Rollpark
A website with some amusing animation, Rollpark gives its users quite a serious service – organization for parking places. Notice that the animation portrays the practical meaning here. In particular, it explains in detail how the sub-floors are laid down and of which components they consist.
Next, a reference to a world-renowned partner – Ford auto group – is highlighted. What we especially enjoy about this site is that it has an online-calculator, with the help of which one can count the costs for a particular case without having to turn to a consultant. This is one of the best ‘role model’ single page web sites out there!
Addiction
It is difficult not to witness the usefulness of this solution, as it is dedicated to the topic of addictions. In particular, it explains the reasons why people start doing drugs or other addictive substances.
All the info is accompanied by some vivid and really impressive animation. There is no navigation here because there’s not much information (additional data is hidden by separate buttons). We recommend visiting this web-resource to see for yourself what great work the designers did!
Danish Sait
This resource is dedicated to an individual person – show host, entertainer, and actor Danish Sait. The site is bright, colorful and cheerful, features simple animation, and all the data is well-structured and presented in a logical sequence. This web solution is a great example of how you can get something truly impressive without huge expenses!
How to Make a One Page Website: Conclusion
Let’s summarize our findings on creating a one page website. As we can see, the scope of work related to working out one page websites design is pretty wide. Even if you sufficiently possess standard web-development, JavaScript, HTML5, and CSS3 skills, there are still no guarantees that you’ll get the desired conversion rates with your solution. Why? Because the Internet is now used to single-page solutions, and reinventing the wheel here is an utterly complex task.
On the other hand, experienced Internet-marketers strongly recommend avoiding the use of standard templates provided by renowned CMS. The reason for this is on the surface. Such templates usually don’t feature sufficient configuration flexibility and are easily recognizable even after customization and configuration.
Of course, there is always a solution. If you aren’t ready to dive headfirst into how to build a single page website but want to get a fully configured solution in the shortest time, let us help you! With a minimum budget and in no time, we will create a one page website, which will be customized according to the specific needs of your business. You will be amazed by the results!
