The Difference Between a Landing Page and a Homepage
As a Squarespace website designer, one of the questions I get asked is about the difference between a landing page and a homepage. Technically there is some cross-over! A homepage is a type of landing page. However, a landing page (when it’s not your homepage), is usually a page with a single “call to action” (or CTA). You can have a landing page specific to a service, an upcoming webinar, or promoting a singular product or freebie for your email list.
The goal of a landing page is to direct people to one single action. However, a homepage often has a “directory” of actions you want people to take. While a homepage should have one preferred “primary” action you want them to take, a homepage can (and should) often include additional information and links to your about/company page, secondary offers, and more.
This article will walk you through all of the commonly asked questions about the difference between a landing page and your website homepage. If you need help designing a homepage or landing page on your Squarespace website, reach out for some Squarespace help!
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What is the difference between a landing page and a homepage?
If you have a website for your business, chances are you’ve heard marketing experts use the term “landing page”. This term can be a bit confusing. In this article I will break down all the frequently asked questions about the difference between a landing page and a homepage. This will help you determine when and where to use these on your website.
What is a landing page?
A landing page is a page on your website that has a specific conversion goal. Typically business owners and freelancers will use a standalone landing page to sell a service, email freebie, product, course, or more. These pages have a singular purpose—to sell one thing. They are free from distractions and are designed to provide the user with information such as what is included, social proof (testimonials), a few call to action (CTA) buttons, pricing, and more. Sometimes landing pages are free of a header and footer.
If you are launching a new product, service, or branch of your website, you may be wondering "should I have more then one website for my business?". If you are serving the same audience, a landing page is a great way to A/B test a new product/service, or add services to your website. However, if you aren’t serving the same audience, it may make sense to build a second website for your business.
What is a homepage?
A homepage is the first page on your website. Typically, you want your homepage to showcase a few different items. However, the homepage of your website shouldn’t necessarily replicate your navigation. It is a great place to briefly introduce your brand and company, touch on some pain points, quickly let visitors know what you are selling, and encourage them to take specific actions on your website.
Your homepage should have just enough information to help your audience prioritize where they need to go without providing them every single link on your website. You can gently direct traffic with some service boxes or brief pieces of information that lead to other pages (such as a landing page).
Should my landing page be my homepage?
If you are just starting out and have a simple service or product suite, your homepage can double as a landing page. Remember that a landing page is directed towards one service or product and the conversion goal of making a sale.
In most cases, you will want to include more information on your homepage. Typically a conversion on a homepage is a click to another page (such as a landing page), and then the conversion goal of said landing page is a sale or signup.
What is the difference between a landing page and a starting page?
A starting page is a term sometimes used to reference the homepage. However, it could be in reference to the entrance point on your website. Visitors that find you on Google may enter your website from your blog or another page.
Either way, you can follow the same principles discussed above to determine the difference between the first page on your website and any landing pages you need to create.
What is the difference between landing page and interior page?
A landing page is often free of a header and footer and simplified down to direct traffic to a sale. Interior pages can lead to other pages or act as a landing page. It depends on the purpose of the page. If you have an interior page on your website that has one sale conversion goal, that can double as a landing page. However, if your interior page directs traffic to several services and products, or other pages, this wouldn’t be considered a landing page.
What is considered a landing page?
A landing page has one sale conversion. It is a simplified page that just sells a product or service. It doesn’t direct to any other internal pages on your website. Landing pages may or may not have a header or footer.
Why would you use a landing page?
Landing pages are great for selling a service, product, or freebie. These are simplified pages that focus on one conversion goal. This makes them extremely effective when converting traffic into a sale.
Do I need a landing page if I have a website?
Some businesses will test a product or service with just a landing page before building a full website. This is a great way to do some market research. However, if you already have a website, you may or may not need additional landing pages.
For example, if you want to promote a digital download for your email list, a specific product or service, or sell a course, you may want to try a landing page. This would be a simplified page on your website that you send traffic directly too. In other words, you wouldn’t send them to your homepage, but directly to the landing page.
If you don’t want traffic getting distracted, you can remove the header and footer. In Squarespace you’ll need the business plan or higher to implement a little CSS on the page code injector.
What is another name for a landing page?
Landing pages are on occasion referred to as a lead capture page, single property page, squeeze page, destination page, or static page.
Where should a landing page be on a website?
A landing page doesn’t have to be connected to your navigation. Often landing pages are created as backend pages that are public, but not include in the main navigation. This means, only people with the link have access. However, you can create landing pages as part of your website structure and list it as a service or product page in your navigation. It depends on what you are selling and if you want it to be part of your regular website traffic flow.
If your landing page doesn’t have a header and footer, you may want to hide it from search engines so that users don’t land on it out of context.
To do this in Squarespace, click on the gear icon on the page and navigate to “SEO”.
Scroll to the bottom and you’ll see a toggle to hide the page from search engines.
Do I need a website or just a landing page?
If you are just selling one thing, you can start with a landing page. This is a great way to test a new business, product, or service. However, you will eventually need a website. A website is a place where you can provide more information about you and your company, a full product suite, resources, branding and messaging, and a blog. A full website will perform better in search engines results (SEO) because it will contain more content. Landing pages won’t rank on their own unless they are part of a full website. Learn more about how to get your website to show up on Google.
What is the first page of a website called?
Typically, the first page of a website is called the homepage. This is different from an “entrance page”. A homepage is the page of your website assigned to your primary URL. For example, mywebsite.com.
An entrance page is the first page where people enter your website. Often this will be the homepage, but if they find you via Google search, it might be a service page or blog post.
Need some help building a Squarespace landing page?
Check out my Squarespace help services. We can knock out a landing page to help you drive traffic to a particular call to action, convert traffic into sales, and/or promote a free offer or your email list.
