There’s been a steady increase in WordPress themes that are essentially a single page, with various elements floating about. From an aesthetics viewpoint they can look amazing and I expect make for a great presentation when viewed on a large Mac monitor.
But are they a good choice for those starting out? We don’t think so.
Poor Ranking
Firstly, if you want to get ranking in Google, then it’s all about have loads of pages or posts, each in their own category or silo. To give Google the idea that you know what you’re talking about, with new posts appearing each week. A single-page design doesn’t really allow this, at least not in a proper, structured manner.
Slow Site Speed
Secondly, because of all the extra javascript calls, imagery and coding overhead that give these sites the visuals, dynamic effects and slick navigation, response and loading times are terrible. If the theme also includes the popular revolution slider and fancy fonts, it gets even worse. I’ve known many older (3-5 yr) laptops lock up or go into max CPU activity when trying to load these sorts of slick sites, due to all the visual effects the browser and PC is asked to do. Developers using their fast computers seem oblivious to all this and don’t appear to care. They know most people buy on looks alone and these problems will only become obvious long after they’ve got their money.
As proof, here’s a theme providers demo site, along with a speed test and ‘waterfall’ diagram (right) revealing a nasty 10 second load time. Viewing on a mobile phone with a slow connection is likely a no go. Yes, they all boast being ‘mobile-responsive’ but are not really mobile friendly. No one I know likes waiting ten to twenty seconds for the home page to appear. 3 seconds is the limit for most of us.
Our advice? Unless it’s a special landing page for a specific adwords or similar promotion, to a market you know are using modern PCs plus broadband connection, such themes should be avoided. In fact why not use a normal html Dreamweaver-built site instead? Using WordPress for these things appears such a waste.
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