Whether you should use a landing page or a website comes up a lot nowadays. After all, it seems like there’s new software coming up every day that relates to either creating landing pages or websites.
Despite the fact that both of these tools have many benefits, you want to make sure that you capitalize on what makes them so powerful.
I’m getting ahead of myself though. Let’s begin by talking a little bit about both landing pages and websites.
Landing Pages And Websites
I imagine that you’re most likely familiar with what a website is. Just like what you’re viewing now, a website can be referred to as a central hub for information about a specific topic. Websites can be classified into two big categories.
- Niche website, which tends to be smaller.
- Authority website, which tends to be much bigger.
Niche websites zoom in on one specific topic, and they focus on it like a laser. Authority websites tend to focus on many related topics in a specific niche and are much bigger. Here are a few examples.
Niche Website Examples
- Email marketing for dads.
- How to increase your bench press.
- Building muscle for men over the age of 40.
- Weight loss for women who just had their first child.
Authority Website Examples
- Sports.
- Fitness.
- Finances.
- Internet marketing.
It’s pretty easy to see that authority websites can cover a wide variety of topics. Just think about how many sports there are out there.
- Golf.
- Tennis.
- Soccer.
- Hockey.
- Baseball.
- Football.
- Basketball.
- Skateboarding.
- And so on and so forth but I think you get the idea already.
Then there are landing pages. Landing pages can be about any topic but one thing typically remains the same.
Landing pages focus on only one important goal.
While a goal can be to communicate value, there are usually more important goals that someone might be looking to accomplish. Here are the three most popular ones that businesses are usually looking to accomplish.
- Get a response.
- Generate leads.
- Make a sale.
With a landing page, you’re not wanting someone to wander around aimlessly and click on many different links. That’s a big distraction and it takes away from accomplishing the main goal.
So now that you know the biggest difference when it comes to landing pages vs websites, let’s continue on with a few more details about each.
Website Benefits
There’s no doubt about it, websites are perfect for creating and establishing your expertise or authority. As stated previously, it’s a central hub where you can send your visitors when they need more help.
Maybe you wrote a blog post, did an amazing review, or put together a long list of resources that you’d like to recommend others. This is where a website can truly shine. It gets even better though.
Websites are one of the best ways to get organic traffic from Google. Depending on the keywords you target and how well written your blog posts are, Google has the power to give you more traffic than you could ever imagine.
In fact, many people make full-time livings by being able to utilize traffic from Google. That’s thanks to the power of a website, and you certainly wouldn’t want to do that with a landing page. Plus, there are only a few things that you need to get up and running when it comes to using a website.
- Hosting.
- WordPress (which is free).
- Domain (sometimes comes with hosting).
Setting up a website is certainly not going to break the bank, so because of that? You have yet another big benefit of being lean during the process of getting initial traction.
Lastly, websites are great for monetizing. This can be done through multiple ways which include affiliate marketing, banner ads, or even creating your own email marketing list. Granted you will need to do a little more work when it comes to emails, but the time is certainly worth the effort.
Landing Page Benefits
Landing pages shine where websites tend to underperform. When it comes to websites, they tend to have many options available at all times. If you’ve ever been on an annoying website then you’ll know exactly what I’m referring too.
- Banner ads all over the place.
- Menus with drop-down bars and multiple choices.
- Pop-ups distracting you from reading.
- Don’t forget about the annoying ‘recommended’ sponsored posts.
Put it this way: there are many paths (or options) that you can take when it comes to a website. Landing pages offer you only 2 options.
- Complete the goal that it’s looking to accomplish.
- Leave the landing page.
That’s it. Nothing fancy, and certainly nothing else.
For example, a lead generation page is also referred to as a landing page, and its main goal is to generate leads. On pages like this, there will be a section where you can enter in your email and then move onto the next page. That’s all.
This makes landing pages more powerful in the fact that there are fewer distractions for your visitors. This, right here, is the main reason why landing pages tend to convert so much better than websites.
So Landing Pages Or Websites?
There’s a quote that I really like when it comes to answering this question.
It’s not either/or, but rather instead, it’s both/and.
So when it comes to websites vs landing pages? I recommend that you use both. As talked about previously in this article, the benefits that come from each tool are very helpful, and it only makes sense to take advantage of both.
Plus, there are many tools out there that allow you to create both websites and landing pages. Two examples are Kajabi and Kartra and you can look at this article to see which software is the best option.
Conclusion
I hope that this article gave you a good idea of what both landing pages and websites are, and how they differentiate from each other. Here is one final tip for you.
If you plan on doing more writing along with training and tutorials? Go with a website. If you plan on doing more lead generation and selling? Go with a landing page. And if you plan on doing a lot of writing along with lead generation and selling? Then you already know what you need to do.
