How Landing Pages Are Different Than Websites

All business owners and managers, whether operating a large or small business, know how important web presence is for any organization.

However, implementing a web presence for a small business can be challenging as not all managers and owners have the knowledge required to build compelling websites and landing pages. At your local Chamber of Commerce, we realize that this knowledge gap needs addressing for our members, so we aim to support them with some blog posts outlining some basic concepts. We begin by discussing the difference between landing pages and websites.

What Is a Website?

A website is designed for exploration; when someone comes across your website or homepage, they may not have a specific purpose in mind. Therefore, the homepage will contain a little information about your company, its goals and general services, with links to more detailed information, such as contact sections, “about” sections and landing pages for specific purposes, as we will outline in the next section.

What Is a Landing Page?

In short, a landing page is a conversion page. This is the place where you want your customers to come to learn about your products and services and hopefully make a purchase or send in an inquiry. A landing page is fantastic for describing exactly what your business is about and invites visitors to take action. How often it achieves this is called its conversion rate.

However, conversions are not necessarily sales. Instead, you might use a landing page to test new ideas for your business. For example, you can use one to test out a new offering. If the offering doesn’t come across very well and you don’t get many conversions in the form of inquiries or requests for more information, you might want to tweak it and change the landing page. This relatively inexpensive way to test out new offerings can provide invaluable data.

What Makes a Good Landing Page?

A good landing page will have a familiar, simple layout that is easy for visitors to follow with content writing that puts over the information they need succinctly and accurately. Most visitors to landing pages have seen many landing pages before and will, on some level, have an idea of what to expect and where the important information will be.

A standard landing page will be constructed like this:

A Navigation Bar (or navbar) with links to other parts of the website at the top.
The Hero Section. Use this section to briefly explain your offering, what problem it solves and how it does it.
Social Proof. In this part, your landing page needs to convince visitors why they should believe in your offering, with evidence to back up your assertions, such as testimonials and outside links.
Call to Action (CTA). This will be a compelling piece of copy inviting visitors to do what you want, such as buy your product, ask for information or send an inquiry.
Features. This will include more details on your offering, usually broken down into small sections.
CTA. Repeat the Call to Action above.
Footer. This is where you will find various links to other parts of the website.

Keeping all the information on your landing page concise and clear is essential to achieving the conversions you are looking for. By doing this and keeping to the structure above, you will be able to make the most of this powerful, multi-use business tool.