Single-page or multi-page? A small-business decision tree.
Most small businesses overbuild their website. Here is a simple decision tree: single-page works for 80% of cases — and the 20% that need multi-page have a recognisable pattern.
The default assumption in most small-business website projects is that more pages equal more credibility. That assumption is wrong for the majority of cases. Most small businesses convert better on a focused single-page site than on a fragmented multi-page one.
Single-page works when your business has a single buying decision, a single audience, and a small number of services or products. A restaurant, a freelance consultant, a single-location boutique, a small B2B agency. The user lands, scrolls, decides. There is no second page to navigate to. Conversion paths are linear.
Multi-page becomes the right choice when one of three patterns shows up: (1) multiple distinct audiences who need different content (B2B and B2C, for example), (2) a product or service catalogue large enough that one page becomes overwhelming (15+ services or 20+ products), or (3) regulatory or trust requirements that demand specific dedicated pages (law firms, financial advisers, healthcare).
If none of those three patterns apply, you almost certainly want a single-page site. If you are not sure, default to single-page — it is faster to ship, easier to maintain, and converts better for most users in the first 90 days.
The decision is not permanent. Many of our clients start single-page, run it for six months, and expand to multi-page only when they have data showing which pages users actually need. That is a much better order of operations than building 12 pages upfront and discovering 9 of them are dead.