One page or several pages: what a starter site needs

A one-pager is a website whose content sits on a single page. A short opening comes first, followed by sections for the service, the person or team, examples and contact details. The menu does not lead to other pages; it jumps to the matching section via an anchor, technically a link to an identifier such as #service. Visitors scroll from top to bottom through a story that ends at the contact form. On a smartphone this is convenient: swiping is the natural movement there, and anyone who only wants the phone number finds it with one tap in the menu.

Even so, a one-pager rarely stands entirely alone. In practice the legal notice and the privacy policy live on small subpages of their own, linked in the footer. German law requires the provider information to be easy to recognise, directly accessible and permanently available (Section 5 (1) DDG). A section at the very bottom of the long page can do that, but a dedicated footer link is what visitors expect and what reviewers look for first. Which details belong in it is covered in Legal notice requirements for your website.

A website with several pages, by contrast, spreads its content across addresses of their own. The service has its page, the team has another, the vacancies a third. Each of these pages carries its own title and description, can appear in search on its own and can be linked on its own. That is not an end in itself: more pages mean more text, more upkeep and more places where details can go out of date. The comparison shows how the two approaches differ in everyday use.

To search engines a one-pager is a single address. The anchor after the hash sign does not change that: Google advises against using fragments to change the content of a page, because Google Search generally does not support URL fragments (Google Search Central). As a result, the whole site appears in search with one title and one description. For a business with one service that is exactly right, because both can focus fully on that service. For a business with two services this is where it gets crowded: one title now has to name both, and neither search term gets the room it needs.

Google recommends writing a separate description for every page, because identical or similar descriptions are of little use to people in the results (Google Search Central). With several pages you get several chances to word a search listing precisely, one per service, per location or per vacancy. How to write both is shown in Page title and meta description: your own entry in search.

The choice also matters to people who use a keyboard or a screen reader. On a long page, headings carry the orientation: headings and labels describe topic or purpose (W3C, WCAG 2.2, criterion 2.4.6), and a skip link to the main content saves going through the menu on every visit. With several pages, each page also needs a title that describes its topic or purpose (W3C, WCAG 2.2, criterion 2.4.2), and there should be more than one way to locate a page within the site, for example the menu and an overview page (W3C, WCAG 2.2, criterion 2.4.5). Both approaches can be made accessible; they simply call for care in different places.

A painter who also lays flooring, a photographer who offers corporate portraits alongside weddings, a tax practice with its own payroll team: in each case a different group of customers searches for a different term. As long as both sit on one one-pager, the services share one title, one description and one address. Anyone arriving via an ad or a recommendation lands at the top of a page that may start with the other service. A page per service solves this: its own title, its own examples, its own questions and answers and a form that asks for the right details. The same pattern applies to several locations; when a page per place is worth it is covered in A page per location: when local pages work.

Not every additional service needs its own page straight away. A simple test: would you run a separate ad for this service or have a separate flyer printed? Then it deserves its own address too. If it is only about a time-limited promotion, a landing page that serves exactly one ad is often enough, without rebuilding the whole website.

As soon as customers book an appointment, reserve a table or order something through the website, a process with several steps appears: choice, details, confirmation. Such a process fits badly into a section between the about-us text and directions. It needs a page of its own that the home page, the business profile and the confirmation email can point to. In Bavaria, 27 percent of businesses with their own website offer such systems (LfStat Bayern). Those who sell online mostly do it through their own presence: one fifth of Bavarian businesses with at least ten people working sold goods or services via a website, app or online marketplaces in 2024 (LfStat Bayern), and 88 percent of them did so via their own website or app (LfStat Bayern).

Booking also raises a legal question. Germany’s Accessibility Strengthening Act applies to e-commerce services provided to consumers after 28 June 2025 (Section 1 (3) BFSG). This means digital services offered via websites and provided at the individual request of a consumer with a view to concluding a consumer contract (Section 2 no. 26 BFSG). Micro-enterprises providing services are exempt from the requirement (Section 3 (3) BFSG); a micro-enterprise is one that employs fewer than ten people and has an annual turnover or balance sheet total of at most 2 million euros (Section 2 no. 17 BFSG). Whether an appointment booking falls under this in an individual case is a matter for legal advice. An overview for small businesses is given in Accessible website: does the BFSG apply to small businesses?, practical set-up tips in Online booking: customers book around the clock.

Expanding is easiest when the one-pager was built for it from the start. That does not mean building more, but writing differently: every section gets a clear heading that would also work as a page title, and a text that makes sense without the section before it. Service sections name their own audience and their own next step. A section can then be lifted out later without rewriting it. The conversion itself follows a fixed order.

The fifth step is often forgotten. The part of an address after the hash sign is separated before retrieval and resolved by the browser alone (IETF, RFC 3986); the server does not receive it. A redirect from an anchor such as #jobs to a new vacancies page therefore cannot be set up on the server. If you keep the section with this identifier on the home page as a short teaser with a link, old bookmarks and shared links are still caught. For all other addresses the familiar rule applies: if a subpage is renamed later, the old address redirects to the new one.

The decision can be made with a few questions you can answer without specialist knowledge. Consider not only where things stand today, but also what is realistically coming up in the next few months.

If the answers are one service, one place, no recruiting, no booking and call or write, the one-pager is the right start. If one question brings a clear yes, plan that page from the outset or build the one-pager so it can easily be added later. With several yeses it is usually simpler to start with several pages straight away, because structure, menu and texts then fit together from the beginning. The decision rarely stays uncertain for long: the first enquiries soon show which questions visitors miss on the page. If you would rather not write the texts yourself, our website copywriting service can help.