It's been a long time since I last blogged on design topics, but I think it's time to break that streak. This post focuses on a design style that's both retro (it's been around a long time) and emerging (the popularity, at least to me, feels like it's on the rise) - the single-purpose homepage.
In the above design, Spokeo has just one, singular, all-consuming goal - get your email address so they can show you how their product works. There may be a few secondary links for registered users to login, access to the blog and about pages, and some logos to help improve credibility, but basically, we're looking at remarkably driven intent behind the design.
With only a single headline and call to action, visitors quickly parse the critical message you're attempting to push. In longer, more complex pages, designers and marketers constantly have to worry about the percentage of people who are actually exposed (in any meaningful way) to the intended triggers.
This singularity of messaging also means that the language, words and images chosen have to communicate simply or risk failure. Simplicity in web design has proven itself over and over again as a driver of success, and simple messages are the easiest to understand and to transmit virally - a marketer's dream.
When external forces compel us, we tend to find our greatest strength is all that remains. That principle is in clear effect with these designs, as the unecessary is completely stripped away, leaving only those items (graphics, font, layout, links and messaging) that serve the singular purpose of the page. If you've ever fought over which ten things to put on the homepage, get ready to trade that in for which ten words can express the entirity of your business (not necessarily an enviable trade, but it can be a net positive).
Visitors who reach this page will instantly know whether the product is for them or not. The uninterested are immediately disengaged, leaving only true potential candidates for marketing and targeting. This means every piece of data you can collect and refine about your remaining audience is precious -- but it does remove the "noise" that's often mixed in with an unfocused audience.
If you're doing lots of A/B and multivariate testing (and if this doesn't convince you that you should, abandon all hope), the simplicity of having only a few input boxes, links and headlines is a miracle. Tests run faster, produce more compelling results and give you the focus you need to improve click-through and conversion rates efficiently. Tiny changes in these percents are frequently responsible for millions of dollars of revenue (which is generally a good thing).
It depends... If you have the type of site that's very product focused and single-purpose in nature, this can be an ideal page type. Even if you run a blog, promote articles, or have other types of secondary content, you can always embed links to them in smaller, more background-style fonts and retain crawlability and good information architecture.
The only real trouble may come from the homepage's loss in ability to send traffic to more viral, less product-specific parts of the site (which will then cost links, which will in turn cost SEO opportunity). If this is a danger, it may be a viable reason not to implement this style of design. You also definitely shouldn't be using this style if it doesn't fit with your strategic goals - publishers, blogs, newspapers and most retailers probably don't want to go this direction (though taking cues from it in deeper, more focused pages is probably very wise).
The URL shortening service j.mp (run by Bit.ly) is remarkably focused on helping provide their product with little surrounding clutter. I particularly like the approach of stretching the URL bar so it's always the dominant focus - and once you use j.mp, you'll never go to any other service (part of the reason they can focus so heavily on getting the product used in the first 5 seconds of the first visit).
Shopify employs simplicity and text-based callouts to highlight its messaging. I like the layout visually, but I wonder if they've done extensive testing about the impact of the three text boxes.
Although Silverback's homepage is a bit long-form vertically, the message is singular - convey what the app does and why you need it, then get a click on that download link. I'm not sure if they have tested it, but I'd love to see a version that puts the "What does Silverback do?" graphic in the text bubble spoken by the Gorilla.
Popular travel site Kayak technically has multiple foci, but the strength of the homepage's conviction that you want to find airline pricing and their ability to stick with it for so many years (and probably through hundreds of rounds of testing) illustrates the single-purpose homepage brilliantly. It's also in sharp contrast to their competitors in the travel market, who insist on promoting specials, deals, partnerships, news, reviews and a thousand other disparate items that distract from the intended goal of both website and visitor.
Gist plugs your email in with the web's social features to help give context and content around your inbox and contacts. It's a pretty spiffy piece of software, particularly for those in sales, and the homepage does a good job of conveying the value proposition quickly and simply.
Hello, Simple sites while on the rise I think fit into a very specific niche. It doesn't seem from an SEO stand point to be a very effective method. Looking at Umbrella Today, it wasn't in the first ten pages on Google when I searched "Weather Forecast". Taking this approach makes it hard to live by the Content is King rule and while conversion and A/B testing maybe easier with less variables (which seems obvious) A/B testing also appears much easier with less traffic; less traffic can lead to poor choices. My next thought typically applies to human action but I have always used it from a sales perspective regarding web traffic. 20% of Traffic of a well optimized website will never convert, 20% of traffic will always convert and 60% may or may not convert. Increasing the the number of conversions from the 60% chunk is the goal of on page optimization and A/B but another key ingredient is good marketing copy. If Spokeo had more information maybe they could increase conversions from the on the fence group (60%ers). This website is like going to a website that sells a size 10.5 red soccer shoe and asking does this work for you? If not scram.
My favorite single purpose site by far is getdropbox.com. The homepage is simple, elegant & very effective, and their very first sitelink in the SERPs goes to the download page where it starts automatically (which would be sketchy if what they're offering wasn't free & awesome). Add to that the simplicity of installing the product, sharing it with friends & joinging their affiliate program...they're doing it right.
I strongly agree with you Rand, not only are they on the rise, but they also convert pretty well and with A/B testing you can see an increase in conversions pretty quickly. I must say i am a sucker for these types of sites, a few fields to try something out for free? Hell ya.
BTW because of this post i have checkout out The Resumator and Gist, good call!
I signed up for Gist as well. Thanks for the exposure to a cool service.
Twitter.com does the same thing. I think this is great and definitely advocate the test early and often methodology with this.
Speaking as a user and not a SEO practicioner here: I don't like these sites. I don't like being "funneled." I usually can't tell what the site is REALLY about if I don't already know about the company.
Some business models don't really benefit that much from SEO. Any business that doesn't have clearly defined keywords suffers from this issue because people don't know what keywords to type to find them.
Most of the examples above fall into this category. They don't have much to lose by designing their sites this way and I think it works great for them. I wouldn't recommend that an e-commerce site do the same.
I almsot fell over when I saw I had a design related blog post in my reader from SEOMoz. Great articel Rand.
Very timely post Rand. I've been thinking a ton over the past few months about how connected Design, SEO and Usability are these days.
Bringing this topic up on "SEO"moz just underscores my opinion that the three disciplines are really closely intertwined.
Nice post and great examples. I love the simplicity of the sites. Easy to follow and straight to the point.
Simplifying and removing "fluff" is very rarely a bad strategy. While keyword density isn't all it's cracked up to be, my observations support the assertion that focussed content works well.
I don't have great evidence at this stage, but I argue that search engines (particularly that googly one) seem to understand synonyms and related terms. If you're using a bunch of related words to naturally speak to people and explain your product simply, you'll do well.
Websites that work (ie. those that get you to click through) are going to be more attractive to search engines than those that send people bouncing.
As a bonus, this kind of approach is rather trendy at the moment and websites designed in this fashion are more likely to see link-juice from high PR galleries and design sites.
Interesting - as usual! Liked the exampels.
So, nearly 2 years on - how relevant are landing page / homepages today?
All of the examples that I clicked on from the post have changed their landing pages!!
Is the concern about the three-column layout for Shopify because of the single purpose of the site or is it a concern about three-column layouts in general? So many sites do it but is it not creating a single action item for the user? Is it too 2008?
great examples of single-purpose homepages. another excellent example would be Apple's homepage. even though they have a full range of products, their homepage is usually dedicated to one product that they're trying to push.
As a web designer, I'm very interested in the new trends of single purpose page, specially on the (dark)side of visual design.
In fact, in my opinion, is very efficient in managing and exhibit online our best works (...yep!... "our Portfolio").
As regards to B2B portal sites, they are always packed with products and leads, it is very difficult to implement a single purpose homepage despite the fact that SPH's very good to new users. Any thoughts on this?
in my experience single pupose pages are tough for to PPC successfully with, especially AdWords.
I love to see the blended gray line between search and design, fully exposed for all to ponder, on SEOmoz. Good post.
I love simple home pages like that, however I think it's definitely something that needs to be used wisely. Company with multiple areas of business and types of customers I think would have a hard time fitting their site into this.
I like these design Posts Rand, I hope you do some mroe of these as they work as great discussion starters.
Good post Rand. It matches completgely with a book I've read recently called Laws of Simplicity, which I highly recommend.
Single purpose page seems to be the most converting landing page as well. On every Multivariate test I heard from, and the ones I ran, the results showed that the less option you give to visitors, the more likely they are to convert.
I have to say, it's something I've noticed but not taken note of. They work too - it's the exact reason I signed up to Facebook, and why I use bit.ly. Although j.mp is even shorter so I might try that one out too!
"Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life"
The sites simple sign up box is classic focused design.
I am actually working on a redesign of my car accessories website, and I am torn over this. In one respect, I have thought of utilizing this approach and having a single focus design including only the search by car/make/model box on the homepage, but then I look at the giants in the industry like JCWhitney or AutoAnything, and they have been very successful with lots of content on the homepage. I personally like the idea of a more simplistic approach, but I am not sure if I will be on the "Leading Edge" or the "Bleeding Edge" of the industry taking this approach.
My thought is that if I can shorten the process of showing customers what actually fits their car, then I will convert better, but this is a bold tactic for an e-commerce website. I might just give it a shot and run an A/B test on it. Anyone have any examples of e-commerce stores that are doing the single purpose approach?
Finally!!!!! i was getting impatient here. We are going back full circle to the old advertising concepts. Simple, basic and to the point. It's really advertising 101. I better go back to honing my dormant design skills.
I have an overall confusion about simple homepages. Sure, it's pretty straight-forward but does it provide enough information for unique visitors to decide if they want to go further into this site? And doesn't Google first look at the homepage first to see if it's relevant to certain keywords. Sure, keyword density isn't the whole point here, but with a limited amount of text, it does make it a bit more difficult to provide relevant content.Looking at other successful sites with more "white space" on their homepage, I don't doubt their effectiveness. In fact, the Google Website Optimizer even encourages it. And we can't deny the results SEOMoz yielded with www.conversion-rate-experts.com's help in revamping their homepage. I just still haven't figured out the rhyme/reason how both sides work together though they seem opposed to each other.
I believe there is a difference between simplifying the focus of a page and removing content. You can still have enough text to explain the product. Shopify (an example above) is probably a fair example.
This really works for local seo. I worked with a company that had great info on their site for their junk yard but the couldn't get emails or calls from their website. We actualy took out alot of usefull info off the site and added a large "contact us" box.
I felt bad at first because Im used to adding content to the web but the whole business model of the junk yard was to get the client to the shop. It worked really well and they are now calling us when they dont get emails and calls from the site.
http://www.metalmovers.net/ is the url check it out and tell me what you think. I am thinking of sugesting this style of site to some other brick and morter shops Im working with.
Simple home page are good . They convey the message effectively to targetted audience.
Buit if you are a newbie , are low on rankings , then this is not a good idea.
Home page is generally the biggest landing page and should try to get maximum possible juice out of it.