Landing page and website - The most important points in brief: |
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Confusing: website, webpage, homepage and landingpage. What is actually what? The many different terms for pages accessible on the internet can be confusing. The terms website and homepage are often confused. Homepage and landingpage can be a webpage of a website. A website, on the other hand, is not a webpage or landingpage, even though the latter can appear like a website.
Still, scratching your head? Then you should definitely keep reading because we’ll explain it to you.
The website is the digital presence of a company. It contains all essential information about the company itself, its products and services. Thus, the term “website” refers to the entire online presence. The primary purpose of a website is to generate and strengthen the interest and trust of website visitors in the company. The website thus serves branding purposes.
A website usually consists of several sub-pages, the webpages. Such can be:
The homepage is the starting page of a website. If the user enters www.localup.io in the browser window, for example, he or she lands on the LocalUp homepage.
The homepage serves to provide an overview and orientation for the user. It should already answer important questions such as “What is it about?”, “What is precisely offered?”, and “Who can I contact if I am interested?”.
Important elements of the homepage include a header with an appealing image and company logo, a clear menu bar to facilitate navigation, highlighting the unique selling points, contact options, and trust-building elements such as verification seals, certifications, and customer reviews.
The About Us page is one of the most visited pages on corporate websites. It serves to strengthen the trust of potential customers in the company, but also to arouse the interest of potential applicants for open positions. On this webpage your company presents itself as such. Contrary to the hard facts of the offer, you can present yourself here as humanly as possible. The employees are introduced and also a corporate philosophy may not be missing, since customers pay more and more attention to topics such as the sustainability of products or the social responsibility of companies. Here you will find valuable tips on how to design your About Us page.
Many companies demonstrate their competence by setting up an additional webpage for case studies. Here, previously successful projects are described. This offers future customers the opportunity to get an idea of the company’s work. The case studies page is perfect for a call-to-action since website visitors who like the case studies can be picked up immediately and inspired to make initial contact.
Having a blog on the website pleases not only the SEO department, but also the customers, as it adds value. Here you can provide useful information related to your company’s industry. For example, at https://www.localup.io/de/blog/ you can find LocalUp’s blog, which is about topics related to the online marketing world, since we are a company that offers marketing automation. A company offering beauty products could focus on everything related to body care in their blog, while an electronics retailer could always describe the latest technology trends.
While the contact page serves the simple purpose of allowing customers to get in touch with your company, it shouldn’t be too plain. In addition to the various ways of contacting the company, such as via a form or chat, all relevant contact persons should also be listed so that the customer can immediately reach the department of the company he wants to contact. Forms can include a pre-selection such as “Reason for your contact request” with several answer options, such as “New customer”, “Support”, “Complaint” or “More information”. Of course, a visually appealing list of all contact persons is also suitable.
Here you can find examples of successful contact pages.
Many companies also offer a newsletter. This is ideal for generating customer data and staying in touch with customers, informing them regularly about news in your company. The newsletter page allows customers to sign up for the newsletter. A suitable form for this is a contact form that customers can fill out. The newsletter page itself can also be a landingpage, more on that later.
Of course, a website should also have its own product or service webpage or even its own onlineshop. Present your offer as attractively as possible, with professional photos, informative texts and all important information.
Every website must also have webpages with the terms and conditions, imprint, data protection information and the like. It is important to comply with the general legal situation, which may vary depending on the country. It is best to seek advice from an expert on this.
In summary, a website is used primarily as a holistic marketing product. It rarely pursues a single goal. Instead, it tries to cover the needs of all users. From potential applicants to existing and new customers to potential partner companies, the website must provide the most important information for everyone and should leave no questions unanswered.
A landingpage can be a webpage of the company’s website or stand alone. The user lands on it, for example, when clicking on an organic search result or a paid ad in a search engine, or they can also get there via banner ads or links in social media posts. The landingpage is also called a destinationpage because it does not provide general information, but should lead the user to a specific goal, such as a purchase or signing up for the newsletter. Accordingly, the structure is precisely geared towards this goal. Distracting elements such as ads, other offers, unrelated information, and even website navigation are omitted.
A good landingpage should contain the following elements:
The headline must be meaningful and arouse interest. The offer is communicated strongly, precisely, and appealingly. The user’s attention span is extremely short. If the headline doesn’t appeal to them, they won’t linger on the landing page.
The subheadline is the subtitle of the headline. Here you can explain further advantages of your offer. These should also be formulated as clearly, briefly, and comprehensively as possible.
Of course, images should not be missing on your landingpage. Whether you choose professional photos or graphic elements is up to you. In any case, it should match your corporate identity and be as uniform as possible. Make sure the images are relevant to the offer and that they look professional.
The text on your landingpage should be clearly worded, professional, and clearly demonstrate the benefits of your offer. Structure the text into easily readable paragraphs so that the customer can quickly see the key facts even when skimming the landingpage. Don’t write more text than necessary. The average user doesn’t want to read long texts. Clear lists (bullet points) make it easier for users to read quickly.
Show how good your offer is by presenting customer testimonials, certifications, seals of approval and awards on the landingpage. Have you already worked with well-known companies or brands? Then, with their permission, add their logos as well so that potential new customers can recognize them at first glance.
Contact forms should be clear, understandable, and attractively designed. Request only the necessary information and indicate why you need it. If you want too much data from users, it is discouraging and reduces your response rate.
Of course, a landingpage should also include a call-to-action. However, avoid including too many CTAs. Landingpages with only one call-to-action tend to be more successful than those with two or more CTAs.
Make sure your offer can be shared on the most popular social media platforms. This not only gives you more visibility but also strengthens trust in your offer.
Provide the privacy policy on your landingpage as a link or download. This also increases trust in your company and your offer.
As already explained, a landingpage is designed to bring the user to a specific action, whether it’s signing up for a newsletter, contacting you, or even buying a product or service. To measure the achievement of a landingpage’s goals, necessary technology to track conversions should not be missed, such as the Facebook Pixel. Thank-you-pages are very helpful for this purpose since they are only shown to users who have subscribed to the newsletter, submitted a contact request, or purchased a product, and can be unambiguously attributed to successful conversions. A/B tests are always worthwhile for landingpages. Here, you can test what works best for the user. Does he prefer graphics or photos? Which font is better received by the user? Even different offer packages or names can be tested.
Homepage, webpage and landingpage are usually all part of the corporate website.
In online marketing, websites are primarily used for branding, while landingpages are used for targeted conversions. Because of these different areas of responsibility, it is advisable in most cases to rely on both. Make your website the flagship of your company, independent of ongoing advertising campaigns or product promotions. On the other hand, use landingpages to promote new products, promotions, newsletters and current campaigns.
While a company usually has only one website, there is no limit to the number of landingpages. So, theoretically, you can create a separate landingpage for every single offer.
LocalUp has its own website, of course, where we not only introduce ourselves as a company, but also present our marketing automation. Now we are launching a new product called jobfire. jobfire is also a marketing automation, but specifically for recruiting. With jobfire, thanks to geo-targeting, it will be possible for companies to play out individualized and personalized job advertisements hyperlocally and in the company’s own CI precisely in the vicinity of the locations or branches where new employees are being sought. Since we naturally want our new offer to get a lot of attention, we decided to build jobfire its own landingpage. We can then advertise it specifically on Google and in the social networks and thus get potential new customers to take a closer look at our offer in order to contact us. Here you can find the new landing page. We look forward to your feedback on it.