One page websites

A question I've been pondering - do one page websites for business work??

I suspect for things like local builders or carpenters they are functional but not a lot more. If someone searches for a builder in their local town they have a fair chance of coming up,

Of course,depends what the product/service is. Often landing pages are one page only, which can be very effective. 

http://www.bradburton.biz/ is a one page website - works well imo.

I've got no scientific evidence for this, but I think one page is a bit limited

If the design is right it can serve well as an online advert, like Carl says, for local sole traders who should have an online presence - I certainly commend them for having something; I think it looks worse to have nothing, unless your business really will never benefit from being advertised anywhere online (I can't think of any offhand, but I'm sure you all will!).

Having said that, a lot of one page websites are put together so badly that they needn't have bothered! You can tell they either tried to put it together themselves in FrontPage or they got someone else to... personally, I don't think there's any excuse any more, unless you've never looked at another website in your life, we all see what the standard is. A badly put together one page website gives me as much hope in the company as does a badly printed, see-through business card. We've all got a budget, but sometimes it's transparent.

Having said *that* - all that glitters is not gold, either! ;o)

Nat

You might have difficulty in getting it to the top of G's organic searches.

But if that's not your route to visitors (e.g. you use Adwords or you have a type-in domain name) then, it all depends on how good you are at making a one-page website convert. Also a page on the internet can be a very, very, very LONG page!

I've seen a one page website for a web designer which was basically just contact details and a note saying "Yeah, I know I'm a web designer and this is a really rubbish website, but I'm so busy doing great sites for clients I haven't had time to do my own."

Depends on what you mean by a web site, if its your only presence on the web then a single page does not do much for you, however if you use it as a squeeze page, sales page call it what you will with a specific job to do and a call or calls to action they can be used very effectively. We run some for law firms and accountancy firms with PPC and they are a valuable source of leads for them.

Is there something wrong with my eyes or does Victoria really looks like .... a dog?

Yes and I am this month also bronze.

There are occasions where a one page site is appropriate. Perhaps for businesses that just require a minimal web presence, or who aren't looking to the website as a way of generating leads. A single page site can also be a good temporary measure rather than having a holding page - better to at least find a little information about the company and their contact details rather than an 'under construction' notice or a redirect to wherever the URL was registered.

Yep, another good point - a holding page or redirection makes sure I'll never go back. "Coming soon" might just about get away with it, if - and it's a big if - I ever do go back and there is content... invariably there isn't.

One pagers are great for finding a telephone number. If the business prefers telephone, but your customer prefers online, it's a great compromise - the online fanatic gets to find out your number online, and you get a call :o)

As others say, it all depends on the business.

They're never going to be good for search engines as sites with more pages with useful content, however they quite often serve a purpose and are a good way to get the basics across and allow other listings to point to a central location.

An example for one of our clients, that works: http://www.85exeterstreet.co.uk/

Nice little site Aaron...

Thanks Paul. That's nice coming from a fellow web developer