A one-page website: who is it for, and how?

A one-page website holds everything at a single address: you go through it by scrolling, and a short menu leads to each section. For a shop, a practice or a craftsperson, that is often enough.

You still need to know where this format stops, above all with Google, and to build it for the phone, on which it will mostly be read.

Who one page is enough for

One page suits you when your business fits in one clear offer, one place or area, and a handful of recurring questions. For example:

• a restaurant: the menu, the opening hours, directions, booking;
• a bakery or a delicatessen: what people find there, the opening hours, the address;
• a craftsperson working in one area: their services, their area, their past work, the quote;
• a physiotherapy, osteopathy or speech therapy practice: the treatments, appointments, access;
• a photographer or a florist: the gallery, the packages, the contact;
• an event, a launch, a season.

Visitors find everything without changing page, which suits the phone well. A single page is also easier to keep up to date: there are fewer places where information can go stale.

Its limits for search

Google ranks pages, and each page has its title and its description. It recommends a title specific to each page, describing its content (Google, 2025). So a one-page website has only one title for all the searches it targets.

Anchors don’t change that. Addresses ending in “#prices” or “#contact” don’t count as separate pages: Google Search generally doesn’t support these URL fragments (Google, 2026). Google can, however, show under a result a “Read more” link that leads straight to a section, provided its text is visible as soon as the page opens.

In practice, a well-written page can come up for several close searches, such as “bakery Rennes center” and “sourdough bread Rennes”. It struggles more with distant topics. A plumber who wants to be found both for drain unblocking and for heat pump installation, in three towns, would do better to give each topic its own page. To get the most out of a single page, see how to get a one-page website found.

Its other limits

A page quickly gets heavy when it carries very different content. The Nielsen Norman Group, a leading usability firm, notes that a long single page demands a lot of scrolling and a longer load, which weighs most on mobile. It advises separate pages when topics drift apart from one another (2023). That is the case for:

• a catalog of dozens of products;
• a blog or articles published every month;
• a site in several languages;
• a business that runs unrelated trades, or at several addresses.

Building it for the thumb

Google indexes and ranks the mobile version of sites (Google, 2025), and 91% of French people own a smartphone (Crédoc for Arcep, 2026). So a single page is designed first for a phone screen, held in one hand:

1. The first screen says the essentials: your name, your trade, your town and an action button.
2. The call-to-action button stays within reach. A number people tap to call, and a “Book” or “Ask for a quote” button that comes back after the prices and after the reviews.
3. Touch targets are big enough. web.dev recommends about 48 pixels square, the size of a fingertip, and 8 pixels between two targets. The minimum set by the WCAG 2.2 accessibility guidelines is 24 pixels (criterion 2.5.8).
4. The menu is short, and says what it is. Four or five links with simple names: Menu, Hours, Directions, Contact. The Nielsen Norman Group advises flagging links that stay within the page, for example under an “On this page” label.
5. Each section has a heading. People scroll while reading the headings, and Google also advises splitting long content into titled sections.
6. Questions and answers can fold. Google accepts accordions on mobile, provided their text is already in the page: it doesn’t load content that only appears after a click or a swipe.
7. The page stays light. Compressed images, slimmed-down video: a single page loads everything at once. And it doesn’t force the scroll position on opening, which would break links to a section.

With the 29webs studio

This is the format the 29webs studio composes: animated one-page sites, built slice by slice from a library of blocks. The video background, filmed from the scene you describe, is re-encoded and slimmed down, without a sound track, with a poster. It fades away if visitors have asked for less animation in their device settings, and the poster stays. The call-to-action button leads wherever you want: a phone number, an email address, an https address or a section of the page.

In short: one page is enough when your business fits in one offer, one place and a few questions. It has only one title for Google: to target very different searches, you will need separate pages. Build it for the phone, with the essentials at the top, a call-to-action button within reach, targets big enough and a light page.