If you've ever asked a web designer for a quote, there's a good chance they came back with something that included a home page, an about page, a services page, a contact page, maybe a gallery, maybe a blog. Five to ten pages as standard. And a price tag to match.
Here's something most people in my industry won't tell you: the majority of local businesses in the West Midlands don't need all of that. Not even close.
I build one-page websites. That's a deliberate choice, and I want to explain why - honestly, including the cases where a one-pager isn't the right answer.
What a one-page website actually does
A one-page site puts everything in a single scrolling layout. There's no clicking through menus to find information. You land on the page, you scroll, you find what you need, you get in touch. Done.
For a local business - a plumber in Wolverhampton, a beautician in Sutton Coldfield, a dog groomer in Lichfield, a builder in Coventry - this is usually all that's needed. Customers have simple questions: What do you do? Where are you based? Are you any good? How do I contact you? A well-built one-page site answers all of those in under a minute.
One-page sites also load faster, are easier to keep up to date, and tend to look cleaner and more modern than sprawling multi-page sites that were built piecemeal over years. They're also considerably cheaper to build - which is why I can offer a professional site from £175 rather than charging thousands.
The hidden cost of building more than you need
There's a pattern I've seen countless times. A local business pays for a five-page website. The designer builds it. Six months later, three of those pages still have placeholder text, the blog has two posts from the launch week and nothing since, and the gallery hasn't been updated because nobody can remember how to log in.
Every extra page you don't maintain is a small signal to visitors that your business isn't quite on top of things. It's a bit like having a shop front where half the displays are empty. The effort of keeping a bigger site fresh adds up fast, and most small business owners just don't have the time.
More pages also means more decisions during the build - more back and forth, more delays, more things that can go wrong. The simplest website that does the job properly is almost always better than a complicated one that does the job badly.
When you actually do need multiple pages
I said I'd be honest, so here it is. There are situations where a one-page site genuinely isn't enough.
- You have a large number of distinct services that each need proper explanation - for example, a law firm handling family, commercial, and property work, each of which has its own audience and questions.
- You run an e-commerce operation with products to browse and buy. That's a fundamentally different kind of website, and a one-pager won't cut it.
- You need to rank in Google for multiple different search terms - say, a Birminghambased company targeting "office fit-out Walsall", "office refurbishment Dudley", and "commercial interiors Coventry" as separate searches. Dedicated pages for each location or service can help with that.
- You're running a content-driven business - a magazine, a membership site, a resource hub - where the content itself is the product.
In those cases, a multi-page site makes sense. But notice that none of those examples are a local tradesperson, a small retailer, a personal trainer, a therapist, or a café. For the vast majority of small and medium local businesses in the West Midlands, those exceptions simply don't apply.
But isn't a one-page site bad for Google?
This is the most common objection I hear, and it's worth addressing clearly. For local search - "roofer near Cannock", "accountant in Walsall" - a well-built one-page site absolutely can rank. What Google cares about most is relevance, speed, mobile-friendliness, and trust signals like reviews and consistent contact details.
A fast, clean one-page site that clearly states what you do and where you do it will almost always outperform a clunky, slow, five-page site that was thrown together without much thought. Page count is not a ranking factor. Quality is.
The honest bottom line
WestMidsWeb builds one-page sites because, for local businesses, they work. They're faster to build, cheaper to buy, easier to maintain, and simpler for your customers to use. I'm not pushing them because it's less work for me - a well-crafted one-pager takes real skill to get right. I push them because after 25 years in this industry, I've seen too many businesses pay for websites they never actually needed.
If you come to me and your situation genuinely calls for something bigger, I'll tell you that too. But nine times out of ten, a focused, well-built one-page site is the thing that will actually make a difference to your business.
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