One Page Websites

There’s a lot of talk in the infopreneur world about the difference between a website with a dozen pages or more and a one page website geared toward selling a particular product. I’ll be discussing the pro’s and con’s of each type of site, and hopefully clarifying some of the current issues.

Portal Websites for Service Professionals

Most professionals I speak with have sites that talk about their services, how they help their clients, and the results they produce. Some of the better sites I’ve seen have articles, information, and audio-content free for visitors to download.

The goal of these multipage sites is, theoretically, to begin developing a relationship with the visitor. But rarely does this happen. Usually visitors look around and click away, forgetting all about you. That’s not the worst-case scenario, of course, because at least your site was seen. Worse than that, and far more common, is never being found at all.

Usually sites fail because visitors don’t know what to do next. The content is good enough, but there’s no clear action. Visitors who are only given the option to “call for a complimentary consultation” generally choose to leave rather than commit to a personal call.

The solution is to give your visitor an option to leave their email address, so you can continue following up. This optional sign-up box, or opt-in box, is a key way for service professionals to leverage their websites more effectively.

One Page Websites

These sites are designed to lead the visitor to take one action. Usually the action is to buy to product being sold—an ebook, audio set, membership, seminar or the like. These often read like sales pages, but because they’re so clear about the next action necessary, they can be very effective.

Well written websites are also very attractive to search engines, and can more easily be advertised through pay-per-click. For example, “Visit my portal website and see what I do as dog breeder!” is not as enticing a headline on Google AdWords as “The 7 Keys to Finding the Perfect Puppy!”

One page websites need to have extremely well-written pages to sell the product, because content is scarce. The promises on the page are what sell the product, much like a typical advertisement. There are no demonstrations of the product’s efficacy, just a guarantee that if you use the product as specified it should create results for you.

Hence, relationship building is not a focus of this type of website. For service professionals, this can be a challenge. We distinguish ourselves through greater connection with our prospects and clients. There are thousands of relationship coaches—ultimately a prospect will choose one based on the personal connection and trust level that has been established.

One page sites are built to sell a product, and get people into our marketing funnels. Over time, if our information is perceived as consistently great, a client may continue their journey with us all the way.

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