What is a Landing Page, Why is it Important, and Why it Isn’t Your Homepage

Last Updated on March 3, 2024

It’s probably the verb “landing” that confuses people. Any page you arrive on after clicking a link is a landing page. You have “landed” on a “page”. However, while all cognacs are brandies, not every brandy is a cognac. Or putting it another way: every KPI is a metric, but not every metric is a KPI.

You can land on any page you like, but the page’s purpose separates the true “Landing Page” from its lowly cousin “Any Old Page”. Let’s see why that is.

• What are Your Landing Pages, and Why are They So Darn Important?
• How Do Landing Pages Work?
• 6 Tips on How to Build a Great Landing Page
  1. Writing a Compelling Headline for Your Landing Page
  2. Stating Your Offer: Make it Clear and Simple
  3. Build a Landing Page Form that Converts
  4. Remove Distractions from Your Landing Page
  5. Videos and Images Help Your Landing Page Convert
  6. Provide Reviews as Trust Elements in Your Landing Page
• Here is a Landing Page Template for You to Download and Use
• Where Can I Find More Information About Landing Pages?

What are Your Landing Pages, and Why are They So Darn Important?

A Landing Page is a page on your website. Is has one job. It is designed to convert visitors into customers or leads. The page is meant to attract both organic and paid traffic for a specific set of keywords.

Landing pages lead your visitors to a specific product or service or encourage them to take some other action. This page is an opportunity to create conversions and build your customer base.

Your paid ads will be linked to a landing page, as should your social media and email marketing.

A landing page is different from other pages on your website: it has a distinct and clear, above-the-fold call to action.

Your Homepage is Not a Landing Page. Nor is a Blog Post.

Why? Imagine entering a destination address into your navigation device. But instead of taking you to the street and house number you entered, your navigation only directs you to the entrance sign on the outskirts of town. Now you have to find your way to the house from there.

Website Design: When you are on a landing page, you know exactly what you are being offered and what you should do. In contrast, a homepage is more like the table of contents of your website.

Still unsure about what a landing page is? Below are two examples, albeit with distracting menues. The first one is a landing page for acquiring new customers (lead generation). The second image is a landing page for a specific product (online shopping).

How Do Landing Pages Work?

The AIDA principle helps us understand how a landing page works and why it’s important. AIDA stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action.

• + Attention: A customer becomes aware of a product or service (via advertising or social media).
• + Interest: They become interested in the product or service’s benefits & how it fits their needs.
• + Desire: They feel inspired and emotionally moved by the product or service.
• + Action: They purchase, support, or advocate it.

Getting Leads and Sales: The Conversion Process Explained

What is a Conversion? Landing pages help us optimise our conversions. In other words, they help users focus on what they want and how they get it.

There are macro-conversions and micro-conversions. Only you can decide which is which. In general, however, a macro-conversion represents your primary goals while a micro-conversion represents the steps that get people there.

Macro-conversion example: Purchasing a pizza.

Micro-conversion example: Clicking on your delicious-looking pizza post on Instagram.

Here are some other types of conversions. Which are macro and which are micro for your marketing and business goals?

• + filling out a contact form
• + registering to receive a newsletter
• + filling out an offer request in an online shop
• + downloading something
• + the purchase of a product in an online shop
• + the return of a reply postcard
• + the request for information employing a coupon
• + a phone call
• + submitting a support ticket

When landing pages fail, it is often because the different phases of the buying cycle that visitors are in have not been taken into account. In other words, macro and micro-conversions have not been understood.

SEO & eCommerce: A good landing page is important for anyone who wants to earn money with their website.

Hot Tip: Landing Pages can also be connected to social media marketing posts. In this case, your post itself can look like a landing page. Just make sure that your actual landing page reflects your social media post. Here are two examples:

How Does a Landing Page Support My Conversion Process?

A landing page is the main component of the conversion process, but it is one of three parts that will make your conversion successful.

Part 1: The Landing Page

The landing page is home to the form a visitor fills out to access the offer. Once the contact form is submitted, people should be redirected to an appropriate “thank you” page.

Part 2: The Call to Action (CTA)

A CTA (post, ad, or link) prompts your visitors to click. On landing pages, CTAs tell visitors where to click to access the offer. CTAs can also be found on other pages of your website. There should be only one call to action per landing page. A CTA can, however, be repeated. Often this is done three times: above the fold, mid-page, and at the bottom of the page.

Part 3: The Thank You Page

Thank you pages can include a further CTA to continue the conversion process to make other offers. Each thank you page should be unique to a landing page. This is important to reinforce the user’s decision and for the conversion tracking in your analytics.

Social Media and Lead Generation: Landing pages are an extremely important factor in social media to ensure your lead generation marketing is successful.

6 Tips on How to Build a Great Landing Page

A great landing page is simple, concise, and has one central call to action. There’s a trend to include two different CTAs, but you can test that yourself.

What makes a landing page great is that it serves its purpose — to gain signups, sell a product, or donate. Nothing else.

Your landing page can ( and often should) be unlisted on your website. This is ideal for search, A/B testing, search ads, and social media or email marketing campaigns. It shouldn’t be a part of your navigation.

Want to build a great landing page? Here are some best practices:

Writing a Compelling Headline for Your Landing Page

The headline answers your visitor’s needs. It explains why they are there and is the first thing they see when they get to your landing page. This headline should speak to the audience and motivate them. I love the free headline tool from Sharethrough.

Stating Your Offer: Make it Clear and Simple

Make the value to the visitor clear. You have about three seconds for someone to decide if they want to stay on your landing page. If they come from a search or an ad, you need to convince them to stay on the page quickly. Use clear language. Keep it simple.

Build a Landing Page Form that Converts

Collect just as much information as you need. Don’t overcomplicate your form – that can make a person leave your page. Most of the time, a name and email are enough. You must ensure you have a data protection note on your forms too. Don’t just trust that your form plugin works. Test it on mobile.

Remove Distractions from Your Landing Page

Your landing page shouldn’t include a sidebar, navigation, or unnecessary text. A call to action can be a form that allows you to exchange a visitor’s contact information in exchange for what you offer. It could be a download, for instance.

That form should be unique to your landing page. The landing page’s CTA can also be a “Get More Info” button.

A link is a distraction. When building a landing page, you want to remove any opportunity for your visitor to be distracted from your marketing campaign. This includes your main navigation and sidebars.

Videos and Images Help Your Landing Page Convert

Images allow the visitor to picture themselves in the shot. We call this image the “hero shot.” This featured image should show when your landing page is shared on social media.

The addition of a short, campaign-related video also serves to keep the visitor on your page longer. An image and a video together can increase your page retention by as much as six times over a page without them.

Provide Reviews as Trust Elements in Your Landing Page

Reviews are important trust elements. Who else purchased a product or benefited from your services? Constituent ratings, partner logos, and “faces of” are also good here if longer reviews are unavailable.

Hot Tip: Thank You Pages are Actually Landing Pages

Landing pages and thank you pages are like peanut butter and jelly. A thank you page, and a Landing Page CTA go together and should always be a unique pair. You’ll be glad you did this later when you set up goals for Analytics.

Here is a Landing Page Template for You to Download and Use

You may not be a web designer. Many of us aren’t. That’s okay because there are a lot of resources out there to help you. Honestly, a few WordPress blocks in the right place and you have a landing page. It’s not rocket science.

Option: WordPress landing page plugins

WPBeginner offers 6 of the best WordPress plugins for landing pages right here: https://www.wpbeginner.com/plugins/best-wordpress-landing-page-plugins-compared/

Option: WordPress landing page Page Builders

My partner Bridget Willard is also a big Beaver Builder fan, and she offers a Landing Page video tutorial right here: https://bridgetwillard.com/beaver-builder-tutorial-landing-page/#Easily_Replicate_a_Landing_Page_Template

Option: Make your own landing page with WordPress blocks

There are many great-looking and effective Landing Pages out there, but I find this layout to be quite good. It’s simple and can be put together quickly with a few blocks, or even HTML.

­­­­­­Where Can I Find More Information About Landing Pages?

Landing Pages for Google Ads:
https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/14086

Landing Pages for Shopping:
https://www.shopify.com/blog/landing-page

Landing Pages for Email Marketing:
https://mailchimp.com/de/marketing-glossary/landing-pages

Landing Pages for SEO:
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/best-landing-pages/494196
https://www.semrush.com/blog/what-is-a-landing-page

Landing Pages for Lead Generation, Social Media, and Support Queries: https://www.andrewswharton.com/blog/landing-page-best-practices

Examples of Great Landing Pages:
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/landing-page-examples-list

Don’t believe me? Check another article about landing pages: https://www.codeable.io/blog/howto-create-landing-pages-wordpress/
https://unbounce.com/landing-page-articles/what-is-a-landing-page

Landing pages are covered in special chapters of both my SEO book, and the Online Marketing series I did with Bridget Willard. They are that important. Check out the book that’s right for you!