I see the trend now is to have a biiig, looong “one-page” website, that’s heavy on graphics, and somewhat “lite” on content. If you don’t know what I mean, here’s a whole page of them here.
So how do I feel about these kinds of pages? To tell the truth, I’m not really sure. I kind of like the way many of them look, and used cleverly, they can convey a nice message. But they also make me feel a little “cheated”, and, to be quite honest, the “stock” look of many of them turns me off.
Backing up, I’m quite certain these pages are the next step to “responsive” web design (where the web page is easier to browse on a phone). I do agree that “thinking about phones” is necessary in today’s world. I mean, my own site here is responsive. But these one-pages take it to an extreme – they are very phone friendly. Getting back to my opinion of them, I’m not sure that’s such a great step.
To begin, as a content writer, I am somewhat neutral on long content vs. short. I don’t charge by the word, so I really don’t care in a fiscal sense (in fact, many times, shorter copy is harder to write.) But I do know as a reader, your “short” copy had better really answer all of my questions, and it had better create some sense of who you are or what you do. These pages have a hard time getting that across. I almost feel (subconsciously) like many of the companies using these pages are “hiding” something. Like they just want to say as little as possible, and want to rush me to the buy or contact button. I don’t like feeling that way.
I will admit that sometimes, these pages can be very effective. I just did one for a company who made an app. I think these kinds of pages are fine for that. Or for a service that’s very self-explanatory, and really just needs to list a bunch of features and benefits. You can do well with a one-page website for that.
But, if your product or service (and/or company) needs to be “sold” at all, I’d really like something to actually read.