A landing page and a home page aren’t the same thing. They have different goals. Each page online needs to play a role in your potential customer’s journey. You need pages to make people aware of your brand, to help people learn more about your products and services, and for the final purchase phase of the customer journey.
What is a home page?
Your home page is your online storefront. It’s the first page that your customers arrive on when they visit your website. It needs to be thoughtfully designed to give people a powerful first impression of your business. It usually:
- Has five or more pages
- Explains the business
- Provides all of the information the visitor needs
- Contains different functions
According to Google, a user will spend 10 seconds or less on your home page before deciding whether they want to exit or keep exploring your website.
So, your home page needs to provide a clear message about what you do or sell. Users need to see if you can provide the solution they’re looking for. If they don’t get this information as soon as they land on your home page, they will leave and check out your competitors’ websites.
Make sure your home page grabs their attention and directs them to either learn more about your service offering or convert.
As seen above, IEDM’s home page provides a menu bar for the user to navigate to other pages. And if you continue scrolling down the home page, there is more information for the user.
What is a landing page?
A landing page is designed with conversion in mind. It basically gives clients a short message about what they’re going to get and directs people to take action on the page. It usually:
- Is a single landing page with an attached thank you page
- Describes a specific product, service or offer
- Does not have a navigation menu or external links
- Has a form for visitors to fill in
A landing page’s goal is to generate leads. For this reason, the pages are simpler and have no distractions. These pages are usually created for users who are ready to make a purchase. They’ve visited your home page, scanned your social media pages, and done their research. Now, you need to lead them to a landing page so they can convert into a lead for you to nurture.
When a user lands on a landing page, they’re not steered to look at any additional pages. A landing page is built to drive traffic for a specific marketing goal, such as sign up, sell a product or gather information.
Landing pages can also help SEO efforts. By highly optimising and driving lots of traffic to a landing page, your page will rank highly on Google search results.
Martins Funerals‘ landing page provides no menu bar or links that steer the user away from the page. There is a clear action that the user must take on the site.
When should you use a landing page?
When you need to get your audience’s attention.
Landing pages contain no links, blogs or added distractions. So, you can direct the user’s attention to a specific purpose.
Lead magnets
Information is more valuable than ever before. In a world where everyone is fighting for data, people aren’t so quick to give it out. A lead magnet is a great way to get people to gladly give you their information.
What is a lead magnet? “A lead magnet is an incentive that marketers offer to potential buyers in exchange for their email address or other contact information. Lead magnets usually offer a piece of digital, downloadable content, such as a free PDF checklist, report, eBook, whitepaper, video, etc.” (Source: optinmonster)
You can send the landing page to an existing database, advertise the page on social media, target organic keywords or use PPC advertising to generate leads.
PPC Advertising
A landing page can ensure higher pay-per-click (PPC) ad quality. This is because you can build your landing page around your ads, making it more relevant than a general product page.
Events
Reach users who are looking exclusively for the event – but not necessarily your business – by means of a landing page.
Testing
Landing pages are easier to test than your website. You can continuously adjust and modify your landing page, making it more user-friendly.
Would you like to find out more about websites and landing pages? Contact IEDM today!