You’ve most likely heard of a homepage. And a landing page? Is that the same as a homepage or are they completely different from each other?
There is much confusion about what is a landing page and a homepage. So which of the two do you need on your website? For starters, both pages have a totally different purpose.
The purpose of a homepage
The purpose of a homepage is to create a clear overview of the entire website.
This page acts as a kind of portal, a signpost for the entire website.
The homepage contains elements, such as the main navigation, the most important links, an introduction text, the header and the footer
Through the homepage, the visitor gets a good impression of the website and gets an idea what the next step or mouse click will be.
The purpose of a landing page
As the name implies, a visitor usually “lands” here after clicking an ad.
A landing page is marketing-oriented and usually has one goal: to make conversions.
A conversion is converting a visit into an action, such as making a purchase or signing up for the newsletter.
There are different types of landing pages, such as a click-through page, an order form, a newsletter subscription form or a registration form.
Also, a landing page always contains a Call To Action. A Call To Action (or CTA) is often a button with a short text, with which you try to persuade the visitor to take a certain action. Frequently used CTAs are buttons with “Sign up now!” or “Request a free quote now”. With this you entice the visitor to click on this button. Usually this is also accompanied by a freebie, like a free e-book or a discount offer.
Landing page vs Homepage
As you can see with Shopify’s landing page, it contains much less information as a homepage, as this would only creates a distraction. You only want the visitor to make a purchase or sign up, not to take other actions.
This is in contrast to a homepage, which often also contains a CTA, but also much more information.
A landing page is a useful addition to your website to reach your commercial goal.
There are plenty of tools that can help you build a landing page, such as Leadpages, Getresponse, Unbounce and MailChimp.
Are you already using a landing page for your website?
