The terms “landing page” and “homepage” are two SEO and Lakeland web design terms that are commonly confused for the other. It has come to the point where some people assume that one can be interchanged for the other with no consequence.
However, if you’re looking to market your website effectively, it’s very important that you learn the difference between the two. Read on to learn about the difference between a landing page and a homepage, and how you can use these two pages for your marketing strategy.
Homepage
A homepage is fairly straightforward. This is the page that serves as the starting point for any website. It allows you access to the rest of the website, and serves as the directory to help you find the information that you’re looking for on the website. They tend to be more complicated than landing pages, providing links to various locations on the website. Compared to a landing page, a homepage doesn’t have a central objective.
A good homepage provides a comprehensive overview into your website and your company, and provides information into what products and services your business provides. The navigation is usually very extensive, especially for larger scale sites, and there is a menu of links to choose from. The main point of a homepage is to direct a user to the page that they need to find the information that they’re looking for.
Landing page
On the other hand, a landing page is more targeted and is used to help users fulfill a specific need. The main difference between a landing page and a homepage is the simplicity of the landing page compared to the complexity of the homepage. Another significant difference between a landing page and homepage is that a landing page is specifically designed to fulfill an objective.
This page is typically used to convert users and contains a call to action. Whether it’s to sign up for the site, the newsletter, or to buy something, the landing page seeks out to convince users to do something.
As mentioned before, a landing page is supposed to be simple, and designed to fulfill a singular specific objective. One of the biggest indicators that drive the point of simplicity home is the lack of a navigational structure on a landing page. The last thing you want on a landing page is navigation, as this tells users to leave a page. The text on the page should be clear, concise, and must establish a clear connection with your users in order obtain that conversion.