Landing Page Vs. Website: Which One Is Better?

Landing page vs. website is quite an important conversation for many business owners. Since online businesses are the norm now, it’s necessary to have a clear idea of what will work best for you. In some cases, a landing page is better than a website. In other cases, the complete opposite happens. Sometimes you might even need a mix of both.

So how will you decide which one you need for your business? By having a proper knowledge of what purpose each serves. In this article, that’s what we are going to talk about.

What is a Landing page?

A landing page is a standalone web page designed for the purpose of describing an individual offer, product, or service. The ultimate goal is to encourage visitors to claim those offers, drive sales, and capture leads.

Landing pages usually have a simple design and a limited amount of information. There is usually no navigation menu, nothing to distract the visitor from the offers promoted. The whole focus falls on the conversion, so that’s what the page is filled with.

If we’re talking landing page vs. website, a landing page is better in urging a visitor to become a lead. This is because a strong call to action is the main highlight of a landing page. Since it is built to drive the traffic of visitors towards a specific marketing campaign goal, this is quite necessary. The only thing you will do is inform the visitor and urge them to take action.

The action can be a sign-up process. Or it can be gathering information, or maybe selling a product of your business. It can also be claiming an offer like a discount coupon, ebook, demos, or a free trial. By taking these actions, your visitors will subscribe as a lead or convert into paying customers.

Your main task is to direct their attention to your offer. You can do that using an attention-grabbing copy, some eye-catching images, and large CTA buttons. Removing navigation bars is yet another strategy of keeping their attention focused on only one thing.

Learn about the Best landing page builder- Top 4 compared to build a best one for yourself.

When should you use a landing page instead of a website?

A landing page might be a better option for you than a website for certain situations and purposes. For example-

• Sending lead magnets: A lead magnet is any type of helpful content that your visitors can access by filling up a form. They will provide their name, email, and other info, then become a lead to see the content on the attached page for free. Landing pages are great for capturing leads because of this. So it takes a point here for landing page vs. the website.

The lead magnet can be anything like webinars, ebooks, free trials, guides, checklists, and such. You will have to design your landing page, especially for the lead magnet, then by focusing on the copy, form, and call-to-action.

You can even make different landing pages for different offers instead of editing the whole website. Unbounce and Instapage are both amazing tools that you can use for this whole thing. Especially if you want to capture leads with forms that have an easy format.

• Advertising purposes: Landing pages are excellent for ad campaigns. Making your page appear higher on the Google search results, the PPC ads should have relevance to the linked page. On a landing page, you can build a specific page around the ad. So you can ensure more relevance and precision compared to a general Products and Service page on your website.

In the ads, you can feature a new product, discounts, or an event. There are many kinds of ad campaigns you can carry out here. It can be the pay-per-click (PPC) ad to show an ad in search results related to your page. Or it can be social media ads where you will create Lansing pages for Facebook, Instagram, and such platforms to target users over there.

• For important announcements: Landing pages are perfect for giving your users and visitors certain notices. So if that’s your purpose and you’re debating between landing page vs. website, a landing page is the better choice.

For example, if your website is under construction, you can create a landing page to let visitors know so. Or, if you have a non-functional web page, you can make a 404 error landing page and redirect the user to a relevant page. You can also use it for Coming Soon notices and logins.

• Experimenting with ideas: Landing pages are only a single page, so it takes less time to work on them. Hence you can always test out new ideas using it and see which one works best. Maybe you can later create a website with the most effective idea. But experimentation is difficult on a website because you’ll have to edit everything and maintain consistency.

• Growing your email list: You can offer a resource incentive to sign-up for a specific offer or content. Since signing up is a simple job that takes only a few seconds, there’s a good chance that anyone who is interested will do it. So your email list will grow, which will help you monitor your leadership behavior and understand them better.

• Keep your visitor focused: As mentioned earlier, the best thing about landing pages is that it focuses on a single thing. As a result, anyone who visits the landing page will also remain focused on that thing. So if you’re advertising a certain product, service, or offer, the visitor’s attention will be 100% on nothing but those. By eliminating distractions, you can ensure a higher conversion rate.

• Directory of links: Between a landing page vs. a website, you might think a website is better because it can hold a lot of links. But a landing page can also work as a link directory. You can collect a bunch of relevant and important links related to your business there and urge the visitors to click on them for more details.

In that case, the landing page’s focus should be primarily on those links so that the visitors feel more inclined towards clicking the links and going to their next desired destination.

• Customized for different people: You can create multiple landing pages targeting multiple audiences. On one landing page, you can advertise the products which are more budget-friendly. In another one, you can advertise high quality and expensive products. In another one, you can advertise a specific product for specific demography.

And in another one, the focus can fall on the location. By appealing to certain market segments, you can attract customers from all sides instead of a single one. If you want to create and test custom landing pages, Unbounce is a great tool that you can use.

What is a website?

A website is a set of web pages interconnected through navigation menus and direct links. This integrated group of pages will be filled with details about your business. A landing page can be a part of your website too. In fact, it’s highly recommended to make it so in most cases.

Between landing page vs. website, the website has one extremely important advantage. Having multiple pages gives you the scope to neatly arrange all the information a visitor may seek. You can fill them with many things, such as what your business is about, what it primarily focuses on, what products and services it offers, and such.

It can also include blogs on topics that are relevant to your business matter. There can be a forum for visitors to discuss their questions and share their opinions. There can be a login page or some other particular function like online ordering, customer service, or access to research. WordPress is a famous website-builder that you can use to do all these things in the easiest possible way.

The purpose of a website is to introduce every important detail of your business to the visitors, who are also potential leads. After explaining your business, you can give users access to a service, product, or another function. The overall layout of the information should answer every question your visitor might have.

A typical website might contain the following web pages:

• About: Explain the business or company, the story, the mission, vision, etc.
• Products/Services: All the services a customer may expect from you and all products you sell. For landing page vs. website, this is something you can’t do on a landing page.
• Blogs: A set of informative articles on relevant topics.
• Contact: Mainly includes the information on how a visitor can contact you with the hope of becoming a leader.
• Homepage: This is the website’s main page, which consists of a basic introduction and the navigation menu leading to other pages.

Of course, there can be other navigation pages, too, all of which should be linked in the navigation menu.

When should you use a website instead of a landing page?

Just like landing pages, websites also serve certain purposes. In many cases, it’s better to have a website than a landing page. For example-

• Tell your story: There is not much scope for going into details about your business on a landing page. That’s what a website is for. You want your visitors to feel familiar with your business before deciding whether to become a lead or not. And in order to do that, sharing your brand story, your mission, vision, values, culture, and such things can be very helpful.

That’s what the About Us page is for, which is a strong, decisive point if you’re debating the landing page vs. the website. Because here you can write everything about what your business is and what it does. You can collect all the questions a customer might have and answer them here.

• Detailed descriptions of all products/services: Landing pages are only for advertising a single product. But your main website is where your customers should be able to browse through all the products and services you offer. They should have a full idea of your reach and extents, what you have to offer, and such.

• Communicate different messages: A landing page is focused on a single message because there is only one purpose. But through a website, you can convey different messages in different ways, with different photos. This is a great thing because since every customer is different, they will also have different messages resonating with them.

By having a variety of messages, you can convert a bigger number of leads. It’s also possible to ensure a personalized digital experience for your users. Using the automation tools and CRM, you can do that.

• Provide different functions: You can provide multiple functions for your visitors in your website, and you can keep these “gated,” as in only people who log in can access it. Some of them you can leave accessible for all visitors, but not all of them. Depending on what you need, the decision between landing page vs. website is easy.

A landing page only gives you enough scope to make a sign-up function. But in a webpage, you can have multiple web pages featuring multiple functions. These functions can include making online orders, scheduling appointments, and such.

You can share research papers that the leads can download for themselves. Not only leads but also staff and customers in general. Forums are another amazing function that can help your users communicate with each other and find solutions to their problems.

• Go higher on the SEO rankings: You want your users to find your business when they search for something related to it. Which is what Search Engine Optimization or SEO is for. Having a website allows you to have multiple pages targeting all the most valuable keywords in your industry. You can also have each page dedicated to a specific type of keyword.

But if it’s a landing page, simply filling it with hundreds of keywords won’t be effective at all. Hence, a major benefit of websites is that it’s easier for you to rank higher on the search results.

What if you need the functions of both a landing page and a website?

Landing pages and websites serve different purposes, but both of them are useful in their own ways. So what if you need the usefulness of both for your business? If you’re still confused between landing page vs. website, what should you do?

Of course, you can make landing pages and run a website side by side. Most of the time, that’s what you have to do. But if you don’t want to go through that hassle, something called microsite might just do the thing for you.

If you find yourself unable to decide between a landing page and a website, then a microsite is an option you can consider. These kinds of sites have a unique construction that bears similarities with both a landing page and a website. So how exactly are microsites designed? It’s like a single, long scrolling page.

Basically, just like a landing page, a microsite will describe a certain business, product, service, or offer. But landing pages are usually small and simple, which microsites won’t be. They are much longer than landing pages, and they will be filled with internal links. These internal links will take your visitor to different sections like About Us, Contact Us, and others.

Microsites are ideal for businesses that require the functions of both a landing page and a website. So you can use it for apps, for products or services you’re about to launch, and for large-scale promotional campaigns. Freelancers frequently use microsites for different purposes. This solves the landing page vs. website confusion in a simple way.

Now that you have clear knowledge about what a landing page is for and what a website is for, it’s time for you to decide. Which one will be best for your business goal?