Understand Your Website – The Difference Between Home & Landing Pages

For many of us, website design is a mysterious process. It’s a combination of coding, graphic design, and information architecture–a component of the user experience. Quite a lot of thought and effort go into building a website. But the more you know about the process and the types of pages, the better you’ll understand your digital marketing campaign.

If you’ve used a web developer or a digital marketing agency before, you’ve likely heard of something called a “landing page.” But what is a landing page, and how can it help you drive conversions in a way that homepages, service pages, and blog pages can’t?

Let’s dive in.

Everything You Need to Know About Websites & Landing Pages – A Dapper Guide

At Dapper Market Solutions, we leave no stone unturned in the pursuit of client visibility and customer conversions. To put your business in front of as many people as possible, we employ a diverse range of website pages–some permanent, some temporary.

Deciding when you need a landing page, and to what end, can be tricky in its own right. So let’s explore what makes landing pages a vital part of any targeted marketing campaign. Before that, let’s take a crash course on traditional web design. 

Website Design & Sitemaps in Digital Marketing

Clients come to Dapper Market Solutions at all stages. Some businesses already have a website, but it may be getting old. Some are brand new and seriously need to boost their online visibility. 

Regardless of your company’s age, a website is an indispensable part of doing good business in your service area. 

The Traditional Website Philosophy

It helps if you think of your website as a nesting doll–consecutive versions of the same painted wooden figure, all nestled one into the next. In this analogy, the outermost doll would be your homepage. 

Homepages are the gateway to your business. They inform customers about who you are, what you do, where you do it, and about your general business ethos (i.e., how you treat customers, what your values are, etc.). Most importantly, homepages should make it as easy as possible for visitors to find what they need. Navigation is of the utmost importance.

After the homepage, you’ll find other top-level pages, including:

• About Us Pages
• Contact Us Pages
• Meet the Team
• More

These pages are mostly intended to inform customers about who you are and how you provide service. The information on these pages creates authority with the site visitor, reinforcing the notion that you’re a legitimate business staffed by real people and committed to providing good work or products.

Parent Pages, Child Pages, & Grandchild Pages

After the top-level pages come various takes on services pages. These are where you actually advertise your goods or services while explaining advantages and encouraging outreach. 

Here again, like the nesting doll, these pages fit one into the next. Parent pages may contain several services in the same category (e.g., AC services including repair, installation, and maintenance). From the parent page, visitors can click on the service they need, which will take them to a child page (e.g., AC replacement). 

Grandchild pages may include additional information pertaining to the service in question. To use our AC services example from before, an example of a grandchild page may look like “The types of AC Units we Install.” 

Where Do Landing Pages Fit In?

Each of the pages in your initial sitemap are intended as permanent fixtures. By using search engine optimization and keywords, each of these pages should drive traffic year over year. But while promotional, a website page of any variety can have several purposes. 

The best landing pages, meanwhile, have one express and ultimate objective. Businesses use landing pages to:

• Promote seasonal or limited-time discounts & offers
• Encourage newsletter subscriptions
• Promote an app 
• Push one service or product specifically
• Invite interested parties to find you at a trade show
• Encourage contact, demos, and education
• More

Landing pages are generally combined with a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign. In PPC campaigns, businesses use targeted ads on third-party websites (LinkedIn, Google, and other relevant publishers) to attract users of a certain kind. When a user clicks on your ad, you’ll pay a fee, hence the name “pay-per-click.”

When combined with PPC, landing pages may be temporary, especially when used to drive seasonal offers. But in some cases (such as when promoting an app or newsletter subscriptions), landing pages may stay up for some time. 

When to Use a Landing Page

Business owners and their representatives know more about product/service seasonality and revenue than anyone else. You know what you sell, when you sell the most of it, and who you mostly sell it to. These are the starting points of landing page optimization.

In the HVAC industry, for example, business owners can expect more AC services in spring and summer and more heating services in fall and winter. A dermatologist may perform more skin cancer screenings in summer and fall. A med spa may push laser hair removal in mid-spring, just before beach or lake season. 

To increase timely visibility for popular goods or services, a landing page is ideal. By paying a little extra for page design and PPC, you can drive conversions in a way that other website pages don’t. 

This is the power of a landing page. It’s a timely, targeted promotion deployed to the right audience at the right time. Your website may be permanent, but even with SEO copy and blogs, the traffic you achieve may not be enough to create the kind of revenue you want. Landing pages serve as extra insurance, putting you in the best possible position to convert with customers.

Build Your Landing Page Today with Dapper Market Solutions

Got a new product you can’t wait to promote? Looking to drive app downloads? Or are you trying to capitalize on a seasonal increase in interest? A landing page from Dapper Market Solutions can help you do all this and more.

Websites are crucial, but landing pages go where websites can’t to achieve a single, specific goal. Before your next big business boom, speak with Dapper about your goals. Let us design a landing page to fit your next campaign.

Go Beyond Your Website to Encourage Conversions & Conversations

Without a website, businesses hardly exist. But with a website alone, you may be missing out on valuable and timely revenue. From visibility and app downloads to seasonal offers and trade shows, landing pages can do what you need when you need it. Speak to Dapper Market Solutions today about your next PPC campaign and landing page.