This is one of the most common questions we get asked when someone gets in touch to ask us about a website they are looking to have designed.
The answer we give depends on a few different aspects, which can be unique to each client, and include:
1) Budget
2) The business expectations from the website
3) The type of website - e.g. brochure, e-commerce, portfolio
There can be a conflict between 1 and 2 above; if the budget is small but expectations are high, then it's going to be hard to meet both of these, however competitive we aim to be with our pricing. Generally, if you are looking for page 1 search engine results, it is unlikely that a two page website is going to be enough unless you have few or no competitors.
If we ignore budget, and look at this question from a best-practice perspective, then our advice is always to consider a separate page for each service area of your business. If you run a business offering cleaning services, then consider breaking this down into a website page for each type of cleaning you offer - perhaps carpet cleaning, furniture cleaning, kitchen cleaning as three example pages.
There are a few reasons why we suggest a single page per area, but the strongest reasoning is for search engine optimisation which we have covered in more detail before. In short, search engines like to present specific page links in results, but if you have a single page covering all of your cleaning services, your keyword targetting and landing points on the page from a search result click are going to be less than ideal.
If you have a brochure website, one which introduces your company and services, then this is all part of the website design and build process. If you have a website involving e-commerce then the pages become 'categories' - e.g. Shoes, Jumpers, Socks as three categories - each will be a separate page to view, but an actual page will not need built, instead each category will be created through the website administration panel, which the website will then display automatically on the front end for visitors. Each product also gets added through your admin login, and becomes an automatically generated website page for visitors to view.
The same goes for a portfolio section - perhaps it is split into categories - Paintings, Sketches, Photographs. Each new project is added to a category in the administration login and automatically becomes a page for visitors to view that individual project and group of images.
This one reason why our pricing for brochure style website designs is different to that for e-commerce web design - they require a different approach from us, and involve differing levels of work. An e-commerce website may end up with dozens of categories and products once you begin to populate it, but since we don't need to create these pages as part of our design process, we don't need to charge for each page in the same way we would for a brochure website where we need to design each page.
Overall, we always include a main home page and dedicated contact page, then recommend a page for each service area or product/portfolio category. This makes navigation easy and clear, whilst ensuring you make the most of your website for search engine optimisation reasons.
Sometimes breaking your business down into these service areas can seem difficult, but part of our service is to help guide you through the process, so please get in touch if you have any queries or questions!