Business owners spend a lot of time thinking about their home page – after all, it’s the company’s virtual business card and your first chance to impress potential customers. However, after accumulating some online marketing experience, you hear about landing pages and wonder when you should use one and when you should use the other. First of all, let’s see what a home page and a landing page exactly are.
Homepages
Their primary objectives are informing visitors on what your business does and to inspire those visitors to stay on the website and go to another page. A good home page should be connected to other informative pages and encourage potential customers to connect with the company in other ways such as on social media or getting in touch in person.
Landing pages
Unlike home pages, they are not necessarily permanent. They can be activated for a limited period of time. These pages receive traffic from sources such as ads or emails (this is why they are called landing pages) and prompt visitors to take a certain action. Landing pages focus on a single topic and have limited navigation options.
So, both pages are necessary for a good and effective website. You can’t imagine a website without a home page, but landing pages are also great to have for the significant benefits they bring:
Targeting your offer
If you have different audiences, you can create different offers for each group; by placing links to landing pages in ad campaigns and emails. This way you can communicate your offer to two or more target audiences and increase your conversion rates. On the other hand, trying to communicate multiple messages to different audiences on your home page is very ineffective and will lead to poor results due to message confusion.
Selling the benefits
If the website is for building your brand reputation and highlighting the value your business provides, the landing page is that place where you can openly sell and ask people to buy your products and services without fearing you are being too salesy. Trying to sell on the homepage looks cheap, but a landing page will allow you to shout from the top of your lungs “Buy, buy, buy!”
Growing your email list
Landing pages are not necessarily used to sell, they can also help you collect leads and add more entries to your email list. You can determine people to provide their contact information by offering an incentive such as a free eBook, 10% off first purchase or a free cost estimate.
Improving conversion
Conversion is the act of encouraging a customer to take a specific action. In the context of e-commerce, conversion means transforming a visitor browsing the website into a paying customer. Since landing pages prompt people at taking action and strongly communicate them to subscribe, download free resources, or buy something, this type of page has a major impact on your conversion levels and allows you to increase your company sales.
Increasing credibility
Landing pages can be a way to increase credibility because they repeat the core message of the website and use elements that foster instant recognition and the confidence that you are in the right place. Some of the elements that support your call to action and improve its odds of helping with conversion are genuine testimonials, certification logos, having a phone number present, endorsements, terms and conditions, and offering something valuable for free.
In conclusion, your homepage should always come first, but landing pages increase conversion rates and acquire a base of paying customers. The main reason for this is because that targeted campaign or product specific landing page are focused on a single objective that matches the intent of the ad that your visitors have clicked on to reach your page in the first place. What do you have to lose, test out a landing page and see the results for yourself!
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