Websites vary a lot in size: there are companies that need very large websites to accommodate everything they want to have online and then there are small businesses who don’t need more than a page or two. 💻 Depending on how many pages you have on your website, you’ll want to approach your copy a little differently.
Who needs a one-page website?
There are many cases where a company/organization may only need a single page to cover everything they need on their website, typically places that aren’t aiming to sell anything online but rather direct visitors to their physical location or to direct contact.
Our surfing lesson business is a great example. 🏄 Let’s say this business has a physical location down by the beach, and they just want people to know what they offer and where to find them. All this information can easily be contained on one page.
Who needs a bigger website?
If you have a business that sells a lot of different things or offers a range of services, you will probably need more than one page to cover everything. Although it’s not always true, the more established the business, the more likely you’ll want more pages.
Think about our self-warming coffee mug company. ☕️ If they’ve been in business for a while and they have a lot of different versions of their mugs, a coffee subscription, as well as accessories or branded merch, they probably need a whole page dedicated to all the things they offer.
Making the most of your space
Let’s talk about how to optimize your website content depending on the size of your website.
One-page websites
If you have a one-page website, you likely still want to communicate information about your business/organization, your offerings, and how to get in touch or where to find you. The main difference is that you’re aiming to do all that on a single page. Don’t worry; that’s totally doable! 👍
For one-page websites, it’s especially important to keep your visitor’s attention span in mind. There can be a temptation to say too much in too little space, but this will really quickly overwhelm your visitor and likely cause them to navigate away and never come back. 😱
Remember: less is more and that’s especially true for your one-page website.
Some tips for writing
- Start with a list of the must-have information. 🗒️ As you work through the different sections on your website, make sure that those bits are the focus. This might be things like location, hours, or pricing.
- Write freely and then pare it down. ✂️ This approach won’t work for everyone, but if you find yourself struggling to write, let yourself just dump the words out and then go back and cut the stuff that isn’t necessary.
- Get a second opinion. 👀 Sometimes a fresh set of eyes can help with deciding what is too much (or too little). Ask a friend or family member to read over what you’ve written and let you know if they noticed anything that seemed too long or a place where you were lacking information.
- Test it against the 3-second rule. ⏱️ The 3-second rule can help us with more than just website first impressions; you can also use it to check the copy for different sections of your website. Take that list of important information and see if each section communicates the most critical information within 3 seconds. If not, you might want to edit it a bit.
Larger websites
If your website has more pages, it means you have more space to communicate the information you want your visitors to know, but this presents a new issue: what belongs where?
You want people to know where to find you; does that go on the Home page, the About page, or the Contact page? Maybe it’s important that your business feels very personal, so you got headshots taken and wrote a great bio for yourself. Should you put it all on the Home page or the About page, or should you split them up?
Some tips for writing
- Keep all the most important stuff on the Home page. 🏠 With more pages, it can be tempting to categorize your information, but your Home page should still be the place where visitors can get a big-picture view of your business/organization.
- Introduce on the Home page; expand elsewhere. 💁 Let the Home page be a little slim on the details; if you do a good job of telling a compelling story, folks will click through to your other pages to get the rest of the information.
- Make it easy to get to other pages. 😌 Don’t make your visitors work to find the information you’ve put on other pages. If you introduce something or hint at it, link to the page that has the rest of the story.
- Stay focused on the purpose. 🎯 When approaching each individual page, always keep in mind what that page is for. And if you have something and it doesn’t seem to fit anywhere, ask yourself if your site is missing an important page, or cut that content!