Website vs Landing Pages: What’s The Difference?

The Internet is by far one of the most powerful tools that you can leverage as a business owner. We’ve even reached a point that running an entire business online is a viable option.

However, not everybody understands the basics of creating and managing their own business website. More specifically, they don’t know the difference between a website vs landing pages.

The good news is that these concepts are relatively straightforward and easy to understand. Let’s look at what you should know.

What Exactly Is a Website?

In this context, people generally aren’t confused about what a website is. More specifically, the typically do not understand the difference between a homepage on a website and a landing page.

In practice, a homepage essentially serves as a hub for the entire website. It provides an introduction into what that brand can offer its customers and also helps users navigate to different parts of the website.

It may also include a welcome message, recent, news about the company, etc.

This will often be the first page that people encounter when they make it to a particular website. As such, business owners need to place a heavy emphasis on creating a homepage that makes a solid impression on their audience.

The main issue with homepages is that they are not very effective at making conversions. This is simply due to the fact that people typically have a large number of different actions that they could take.

For example, the average homepage will have links to a contact page, an ‘about’ page, and numerous product or service pages. There’s no guarantee that users will eventually make their way to a product page and then make a purchase.

So, intentionally driving traffic to your homepage isn’t an ideal practice.

What Is a Landing Page?

In stark contrast to a homepage, a landing page does not have an abundance of potential options. In fact, it typically only has one possible action for users to take.

In many cases, a landing page will also open in a new tab. This means that clicking the ‘back’ button is no longer an option for the user.

Of course, it’s worth noting that this behaviour is not predatory — a user can always close the tab for them to leave the page.

A landing page is a specifically designed to provide useful and relevant information to an audience. For example, the landing page that an independent clothing brand uses could offer its audience the chance to enter a raffle for an unreleased hoodie.

In exchange for their entry, they will simply need to provide their email address.

Although this seems like a simple interaction, acquiring contact info is often the entire purpose of a landing page. This is so can then freely communicate with the individual in the future and send them offers that they may be interested in.

In particular, email marketing has been proven to be one of the most effective forms of converting leads into sales.

Landing pages also provide you with the opportunity to present highly specified messaging. This is because only a particular subset of your audience will ever make it to a landing page.

To elaborate, your audience will most likely find themselves on the landing page after clicking a link or advertisement related to your brand. By targeting your audience effectively, you can ensure that only certain members of your demographic reach this content.

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How Can I Incorporate Them Effectively?

In order to utilise a landing page effectively, you will need to accomplish two tasks:

• Ensure that you direct the proper segment of your demographic to the landing page
• Provide your audience with something of value

The latter point is particularly important, as you can’t expect your audience to take the intended action if you don’t provide an incentive for them to do so. In a situation where you wish to acquire their contact info, a best practice is to offer something useful for free.

This could include an e-book download, the opportunity to sign up for a weekly newsletter, etc.

To make a homepage effective, it will need to properly welcome your audience once they reach this page. A common mistake that entrepreneurs make is forgetting about the fact that a homepage needs to speak to the broadest demographic possible.

It should essentially be a detailed introduction to your brand that outlines who you are, what you aim to accomplish, and how you can benefit the user.

The homepage should also be intuitive to navigate, meaning that your audience should be able to easily find the area of the site they’re looking for. This can be easily accomplished by including highly visible links to a contact page, your online store, etc.

Website vs Landing Pages: Which Is Best?

Put simply, you’ll need to leverage these together to make the most of them both.

Having a website will give your audience more places to go once they reach your landing page and having a landing page will help you get more traffic to your website.

So, keep the above information about a website vs landing pages in mind while moving forward.

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