A “Landing Page” is a website page that attracts a new visitor to the website. It’s where the Internet user “lands” when they arrive on the website. As you might imagine, this makes the landing page very important. It’s important because the better the landing page, the more traffic it will attract and the more it will help convert that traffic into paying customers.
A “Sales Page” is a website page that sells a person on the company’s product or service. A sales page can be a landing page. But it often isn’t a landing page. Sometimes a sales page is the second or third page a visitors visits on a website. Sometimes it comes even later in the sales process for the website. But the main goal is always to sell the product or service.
Landing Pages: When To Use
Landing pages are perfect for using to attract people to your website. This can be through a variety of avenues including:
- SEO
- Social Media
- Guesting
- Direct
- And more…
Each avenue might require a different type of landing page. And even within those avenues there are often different landing page requirements.
SEO, for example, is a channel that presents a lot of different opportunity. There are a lot of people searching for longtail content. They’re asking questions to find answers. They might ask, “What is the best color for a dog?” or something similar. They will likely find a “top of funnel” piece of content like a blog post or video or even a guide. These will all be landing pages.
Someone using a search engine may also search for something like, “blue dog collars”. In this case, they are probably looking for something that is more like a sales page. Or perhaps a search results page on a site like Amazon that offers a wide variety of blue dog collars. Even that is still considered a sales page. Actually, it’s both a landing page and a sales page.
With paid advertising, you’re often directing people to a combo page that is both for landing and for sales. But some paid advertising, especially on social media, is aimed just for landing pages. Those landing pages are then give the task of satisfying the new visitor and getting their continued attention and long-term sales commitment.
If you’re looking to attract people to your website, use landing pages. Of all kinds. Usually top funnel focused.
Sales Pages: When To Use
I’m a believer that people are only in buying mode for anything about 3% of the time. If you strictly use only combo sales and landing pages, you’re missing out on 97% of the time when people are looking for other types of content.
But that 3% is a really important 3%. Because that’s when you’re able to take a person through the sales process and close the deal. This is why sales pages are so important. As soon as someone shows interest in moving through your sales process, you want your sales pages to be killer so you can get that conversion.
My favorite method for creating sales pages is to learn as much about what’s actually happening in the sales process as I can. That might mean documenting a real life conversation that leads to a sale. And those that don’t lead to sales. You can do the same with sales phone calls. And now you have software that shows how people interact with your website and app.
Map out your sales process. Find what it actually is right now. Then see if you can make improvements. Then create your sales pages.
Your website is basically your online salesperson. The process may change slightly, but it’s likely very similar to how you sell in person or on the phone.
Talk to your best salespeople. See what they do. Learn from them. Then let that guide what sales pages you create and how you create them.
Sales pages are all about conversion once someone is interested in buying.
Landing vs. Sales
On the surface, it can seem like sales pages are more important than landing pages. Heck, many sales pages are also landing pages. Marketers love them because they often directly lead to sales conversions. You get a new visitor and a sale all in one page.
What’s better than that?
Well, if you want to focus on the 97% of the time when people aren’t in buying mode, those types of sales pages aren’t as appealing. That’s where landing pages come in. The kind that focus on top funnel content. The kind that aim to answer questions people are asking online.
The reality is that the most successful businesses often have a good mix of sales and landing pages. They have some that are the same and they use them that way, but they also create standalone landing pages because they want that traffic. They’re playing the long-term game that can come from that early sales cycle visitor.
Conclusion
What types of landing pages and sales pages work for your business? It really depends. The frustrating thing with business is that it takes a lot of iteration to figure out the best nuances. What works really well for one business might work just okay for another. The good thing with online marketing, though, is that you can create a lot of content. You can create a lot of different pages. And you can change the pages you have. You can test, experiment and learn over time.
That’s the best strategy with landing and sales pages. They’re never “done”.