If you are a business owner who is looking to reach out to a wider audience, then building a website for your business is probably very high on your to-do list. Now, let’s say you’ve made all the necessary pages on your website, including a killer home page, but you’re still not getting the right amount of traffic to your website. Why is that? It’s because you forgot about creating a landing page.
Many business owners make the mistake of focusing solely on the homepage of their website without bothering about a landing page. But what’s the difference, right? Your prospective clients are going to visit your website’s homepage anyway. @ Here, we are going to take a look at some of the major differences between a home page and landing page, and why your business needs both.
What is a Homepage?
A homepage is the first page that you will land on when you reach a website. A well-designed homepage will give you all the information you need regarding the brand, products, or services along with the contact information, all on the first page. A homepage needs to offer easy navigation and drop-down menus so that visitors can find what they need without wasting any time.
What is a Landing Page?
A landing page is the page that invites you to a website. The main purpose of a landing page is to get viewers to take action – which, in this case, is visiting the webpage or product page to make a purchase. Landing pages do not have any navigation features or drop-down menus. It only includes a link that will get visitors to your home page or product page, either to find out more about your business or make a purchase.
So, now that you’re familiar with the basic use of a homepage and a landing page, let’s get down to the key differences.
The CTA (Call-To-Action)
One of the major differences between a homepage and landing page is that the latter is always action-oriented, as in, the sole purpose of the landing page is to get more visitors to your website. It does that by including a Call-To-Action. This CTA needs to be effectively worded and strategically placed in order to get people to take action. Whether your CTA involves a phone number, visiting a website, or simply buying the product, it needs to be effective and create a sense of urgency.
In contrast, a homepage does not need at CTA since the person is already on the website. However, the homepage is where you can make a great first impression by using attractive website design and useful and relevant content.
Content
Speaking of content, while the landing page might have the same information that’s on a webpage, it is important that it only contains information that’s specific to the product that the CTA is being used for. If you are using a CTA on the landing page to direct viewers to a particular webpage to make a purchase, then you should only include key points that are relevant to the said product.
On the other hand, if you are selling a single product or service, or have a main product, then you can use the homepage to provide visitors with more detailed information on the particular product or services.
Links
Another major difference between a homepage and a landing page are links. A homepage utilizes a navigation bar that helps the visitor find the information, product, or service they need quickly and efficiently as soon as they reach the website.
The landing page, however, has a very defined purpose. To get visitors to take action, whether it’s having them purchase your product or service on the landing page itself, or sign up for a service, or visit your website, which will require adding an external link. It’s best to use different iterations of the landing page you use to find out which one works best.
Purpose
Needless to say, both the homepage and landing page have a specific purpose. The landing page is the page that you land on when you click an ad. You know a person is looking for a specific product or service when they click on an ad that directs them to your landing page.
On the other hand, a homepage is the page where visitors land when they visit your website. This may be to find out more about your brand before they make a purchase or sign up for the product or service they need.
In this way, a homepage can serve two purposes of informing and selling, while the landing page solely has one purpose, which is getting visitors to take action.
