How do you know when to use your website and when to use your landing page?
What is the difference and do you really need them both?
These are all questions I first asked myself when I started my journey online and for a while, I thought that one could replace the other.
But the reality of it is where one lacks the other makes up for and vise versa.
Utilizing both where each one of them excels will give you the ability to maximize your presence online.
Landing Page VS Website | What’s The Difference?
The main difference between a landing page and your website is that a landing page is a singular web page usually created around a promotion that clearly directs the visitors to take a specific action. Whether that is entering their contact information, schedule an appointment, or make a purchase. The design of landing pages requires your visitors to either do what is prompted or leave, which could be viewed as a linear traffic source usually ending with a sale. Whereas your website is more of a central hub where your visitors can branch off to various different sections and different categories that comprise your entire website. This could be viewed as a spider web as it is usually possible for all of your traffic to land on different web pages no matter where they arrived on your site from.
Throughout this blog post, I’m going to highlight the benefits of landing pages as well as traditional websites.
As there isn’t any cookie-cutter answer, and one isn’t better than the other overall.
However, each does outperform the other in certain areas.
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Landing Page VS Website | The Key Components
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What Is A Website?
I personally like to visualize a website like a spider web.
It is usually comprised of various web pages that are all interconnected with one another.
Generally, a website will explain the purpose of the site, services offers, products that they sell, and a section for customer reviews or a blog.
The main purpose is to describe and explain your organization or business. Which is used to build your brand and customer relationship.
Website Features:
- Describes business features, Products, Or Services Offered
- Uses various pages that are interconnected with Menus
- May provide more information, used for building brand awareness and establishing professionalism
- Can contain pages and links out to various other channels that are utilized by your website (social media, Youtube)
- Sometimes will have a section that leads to your landing page, however, I like to keep them separate.
Related Post: Can ClickFunnels Replace Your Website?
What Is A Landing Page?
A landing page could be visualized like a line that is always heading towards a singular point.
Which is usually capturing a lead or making a sale, It might have additional webpages between each step as an upsell or a downsell but the visitors that land on your landing page are going to be required to go through it in a sequential way to get to the end.
A well-optimized landing page is usually created around a specific promotion or offer, leaving very little room for the visitor to do anything other than what is prompted.
Landing Page Features:
- Describes a specific promotion, offer or service
- Has a clear call to action (Sign up, Purchase, Learn More, Etc.)
- Very rarely has a navigation menu, will require you to do what is prompted prior to moving onto the next section.
- May utilize up-sell and down-sell features between each step.
- Will have a section where visitors can claim their offer
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Landing Page VS Website | When To Use Your Website?
Telling Your Story
Utilizing an About Us Page, sharing your companies values, if you have different locations and a way to contact you is where your traditional website is going to excel.
As it can act as a hub for everything about you and your company. (It doesn’t have to be a physical business, these same principals can be applied even if you’re branding yourself and your name)
You can use this as a space to answer any questions that your customers might have, and help alleviate any types of aversion that one might have towards doing business with you.
It is also going to make you look more professional, even if you’re not utilizing every feature on your website having one up will allow you to refer someone to learn more about you in one convenient location.
Explain Products Or Services Even More
Remember that your website is going to be better suited to inform visitors rather than converting those visitors into sales.
Not that you shouldn’t have a few places throughout your website that give them the option to make a purchase or schedule an appointment, however, your sales should usually be reserved for your landing pages and sales funnels to do the heavy lifting, as they’ll have a much higher conversion rate.
People who land on your website are most likely going to required additional information on products or services prior to actually making a purchase.
Or if they landed on your website from searching something in Google, they will most likely require more in-depth explanations.
Relate To Customers
Having a website gives you a place to share your companies values, style, culture, and establish your brand’s voice.
It is a place for you to connect with your customers in a non-pressurized setting that isn’t about making sales.
You can use it as a place to talk about what inspired you to start doing what you are, driving factors, history, what it would be like working with you, Etc.
Rankablity (SEO)
For those of you that aren’t aware of what SEO stands for its search engine optimization.
Which is where your website will rank on a search engine for specific search terms.
Very similar to how you landed on this blog, or how you’ve landed on any other site that you’ve looked up.
SEO is a very important aspect of digital marketing, and as you could imagine it is highly competitive.
With the millions of websites created every day it is getting harder and harder to get your website to appear at the top of the search results.
Having a website gives you multiple pages to create and have relevant content on which greatly increases your chances.
Ranking a landing page can be quite difficult, as you can’t really put enough content on it to achieve great results. You would end up with a landing page that is so long that no one would probably ever even take the time to scroll to the bottom of it, or even wait for it to load.
Related Post: Sales Funnel VS Landing Page | What’s The Difference?
Landing Page VS Website | When To Use Your Landing Page?
Paid Advertising
If you’re planning on doing any type of paid advertising it is highly recommended that you only pay to drive traffic to landing pages specifically created around your advertisement/promotion.
This is because it keeps the pages that your visitors are landing on very relevant, giving them exactly what they’re looking for without them having to do any additional research to find what they need.
Overall a landing page will have a much higher conversion rate for sales, appointments, and leads as there aren’t as many distractions compared to your website.
This will result is it costing you less money to acquire new clients and leads, as you won’t be paying for visitors to land on pages that aren’t relevant to the promotion.
Lead Magnets
Using landing pages to build your email list and having some type of lead magnet in exchange for contact information is where your landing page will really start to shine.
Designing a landing page around a specific lead magnet (Something to exchange for contact information) is very effective at acquiring leads and building your own email list.
Some examples of thing’s I’ve personally used as lead magnets: 180 Done-For-You Email Templates, List Of My Favorite Affiliate Programs.
Both of these things were very effective at generating leads and they didn’t cost anything, but they added perceived value to my visitors.
Which you could get a copy of each of those above to use as your own lead magnet if you’re in the make money online industry or affiliate marketing.
And no I won’t require your email address to get them!
Split Testing
If it were as easy as setting and forgetting sales processes and your landing pages every business would be generating millions of dollars with ease.
To establish a strong online presence you’re going to be required to test different variations of landing pages to see which one is performing better.
As the number of things that you’ll need to test will vary greatly depending on what industry you’re in and who your dream customers are it is ultimately about leveraging human psychology to achieve the greatest results.
Since the design of landing pages is created around specific promotions it is easier to test things against one another as you don’t have something on a page that isn’t relevant to that offer that is negatively affecting your sales.
Controlling Traffic
Unlike a traditional website, you’re able to control the way your traffic is going on a landing page.
The layout and the way it is created you’re able to direct your visitors towards a sale at all times without the option of much else.
It is cleary stated what is needed from the customer and they’ll either take action and do what is prompted or leave.
Whereas your website has very little direction and doesn’t tell the visitor exactly what to do but leaves them to roam around freely doing and going where they please.
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Website VS Landing Page | Do You Need Both?
Ultimately, both are very beneficial to growing a business and building your online presence.
And since having both up and established are both fairly inexpensive there isn’t any reason to have one and not the other.
Use Your Website For:
- Establishing Professionalism
- Building Your Brand
- A Hub For Your Customer To Learn More About You And Your Business
Use A Landing Page For:
- Any Type Of Sales, Lead Generation
- For All Of Your Paid Advertising
- Testing Which Offers Work Better
Want To Learn How To Fill Your Website And Landing Pages With Your Dream Customers? Check Out This Post!