What is a Landing Page?

image

In marketing terms, a landing page is a distinct page on your website that’s built for one single conversion objective. A landing page should be designed, written and developed with one business goal in mind.

This article will dive into the nitty gritty of “what is a landing page,” with real-world landing page examples, a few best practices, and a complete answer for the question, “What is a landing page?”

Something to Note…

Creating your own landing page can be a challenge. Because they’re so conversion-focused, getting something wrong is super easy. My recommendation is to look into the many landing page template providers out there – something that’s already designed by UX experts and professional designers. A good landing page builder (like Wishpond) makes something which can be overwhelming and complicated quick and easy.

What is a Landing Page?


In marketing terms, a landing page is a distinct page on your website that’s built for one single conversion objective. It’s a page within your website built with a one actionable “Ask” that facilitates the completion of that objective.

Some purists in online marketing would even suggest your landing page should be completely distinct from the rest of your website – with no navigation bar to distract your visitors from your sole conversion goal.

The most common landing page is a Google Adwords landing page. This is a landing page that people “land on” after they click on a Google Search Ad.

Common Landing Page Use-Cases:

  • Google or Facebook Ads: A landing page helps you get a positive advertising ROI by focusing your visitor’s attention on the specific thing or campaign you’re promoting.
  • Email-Gated Content: Landing pages are often used for lead generation, and make it easy for your business to turn visitors into leads by incentivizing them with an ebook, industry report, online course, case study presentation, etc.
  • Free Trial: If your business has a trial component, focus your visitor’s attention on that goal by using a landing page.
  • Product Page: Focusing your visitor’s attention on a specific product is a great way to improve the chance they’ll purchase it. The most successful ecommerce companies have individual landing pages for each of every one of their products.
  • Promotion Page: If you’re running a Black Friday campaign, spontaneously doing “Buy One Get One Free,” or giving a free year’s subscription to your software, the page you host that promotion on should be a landing page – focused only on that single conversion goal.
  • VIP Demo/Contact Us: For many businesses (real estate, B2B, SaaS, hospitality and others) the “contact us” page is actually one of the most financially important pages on their website. Consider using landing page best practices to optimize the Contact Us page experience.

Landing Page Examples

An Email-Gated Content Landing Page:

What is a landing page - An Email-Gated Content Landing Page Example

A Product Landing Page:

what is a landing page - A Product Landing Page example

A VIP Demo Landing Page:

what is a landing page - A VIP Demo Landing Page Example

Is a Landing Page Just Like a Homepage?

No! A landing page is not your homepage.

Why?

Does your homepage have…

  • One single purpose?
  • One focal conversion event opportunity (such as a single call-to action)?

Your homepage is the “node” from which your visitors find the thing they’re interested in finding.

It’s where you introduce yourself to your visitors and give a breakdown of your tools/features/products. Your homepage probably even has CTA buttons and forms (such as a ‘sign up’ form, ‘free trial’ button, product links and so on).

But your homepage is not designed to convert for just one single objective. Rather, it’s built to cater to several products and drive people to learn more.

Take a look at Amazon’s homepage. It has many clickable CTAs. But it’s not a landing page with one conversion objective that’s easy for a visitor to act upon.

what is a landing page - amazon homepage

Amazon does have thousands of landing pages – one for each of its products. Each product landing page is for the single purpose of the product, and has a focused conversion CTA (to “Add to Cart”).

what is a landing page - amazon landing page example

What’s the Point of a Landing Page?

Okay, so now that I’ve hammered what a landing page is into you, let’s talk a little bit about the point of landing pages, and what makes them such a valuable marketing tool.

There are essentially three types of landing pages, each with distinct purposes:

  • Direct sales
  • Lead generation
  • Relationship building

#1. Direct sales

Landing pages for direct sales are what most people I talk to understand. If you’ve ever ordered anything online, it’s likely you’ve used a product landing page.

A direct sale landing page is generally a product page (if you’re in ecommerce), an appointment booking page, a free trial and so on.

The sole purpose of a direct sale landing page is to get the sale.

You can advertise your landing pages, for example, to drive traffic directly to your page and to get an immediate conversion.

Here’s a free trial landing page example from Dollar Shave Club. The distinct purpose of the page is to get people to start a free trial, and it has several easy-to-click CTA buttons:

what is a landing page - free trial landing page example

#2. Lead generation

Also known as lead capture pages, lead gen landing pages are used to gather information about your visitor. The single business purpose is get contact information (such as an email), personal information (such as a name) and any other info that you can later use to further connect with and market to your prospect.

A lead generation page generally has a longer form to complete than a direct sales page, and includes form fields you can use to segment, personalize and nurture. Your lead generation pages should show the benefits of converting, and have a high enough value proposition to increase conversions.

A lead generation page could be for a:

  • Free ebook
  • Webinar registration
  • How-to guide
  • Newsletter sign-up

Here’s a preview example of a lead gen page from one of Wishpond’s landing page templates:

what is a landing page - lead gen landing page example

#3. Relationship building

Also known as click-through landing pages, nurturing visitors directly on your site is a more advanced marketing technique. They’re sort of a combination of lead generation and direct sales landing pages. Their purpose is to warm leads through a sales funnel directly on your site. They keep visitors clicking through and converting as you guide them through your on-site sales path. You don’t necessarily need a personalized, segmented email automation campaign you might implement with lead generation (or a dropped sales cart).

When a prospect converts on your first page, they can be segmented and directed to targeted pages to further drive them through your sales channel. They work because, well, contrary to what some inbound marketers believe – not every customer is ready and willing to buy from you or register for your event immediately after they’ve clicked on your PPC or social ad.

Click-through landing pages allow you to nurture your leads once they’ve landed on your initial marketing page. They increase conversions by captivating your potential customer’s interest directly on your site, and allowing them to gain familiarity before sending them to your ultimate destination landing page.

Your visitor has already acted on your asks – one more “yes” isn’t such a deterrent.

To Wrap Up…

Now that you completely understand what a landing page is, you’re ready to make use of a landing page tool to build your own. You can also see how they’re becoming an essential tool for just about any business’ online marketing success. They’re created directly on your own website. You can gain sales, generate leads and nurture your prospects through one landing page campaign.

I’ll bet you can even think of at least four ways your own business could benefit from them, can’t you?

A few things to remember when you’re asked “what is a landing page?” are your next marketing meetup:

  • Landing pages have one conversion goal
  • Landing pages have very limited links off the page, as they distract from the conversion goal.
  • Landing pages are often independent from the rest of the site, and are often built for advertising campaigns.
  • Landing pages can be optimized for conversion rate through A/B testing.
  • Landing pages are easy to set up without a developer, simply by utilizing the ready-made templates from a landing page tool like Wishpond.

Read more about landing pages:

What do you think? How many landing pages do you have on your website? How have they increased your online marketing results?

Want a hand creating your first landing page?

It can be intimidating. Don’t go it alone! Book a free call with one of Wishpond’s landing page experts to get a walkthrough of how your specific business can best implement landing pages.

wishpond

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *