What is a website landing page? (And how to build one in minutes)

A website landing page is a standalone page built for one campaign, with one message and one action.

Unlike your homepage or other website pages, a landing page is specially designed to help a specific group of visitors take a specific step. For example, that could be buying a product, downloading a guide, signing up for an event or claiming a special offer.

In this article, you’ll learn more about how landing pages differ from other website pages, what to include on your landing page, and how to create your first landing page in minutes.

What’s the difference between a landing page and a homepage?

If you’re not sure about the difference between landing pages and other pages on your website, you’re not alone. To avoid any confusion, here are some simple definitions:

• Website page. This refers to absolutely any page on your website, including the categories below.
• Homepage. The main entry point for your website, with an overview of your business and navigation to other pages.
• Landing page. A highly targeted standalone page, with one message serving one campaign.

Your homepage needs to make sense for anyone who might visit your website. When someone clicks through to your homepage, they might want to learn more about your company, browse your products and services, download some resources or find your contact details. That means giving them plenty of different options and ways to navigate through your site.

On the other hand, a landing page is much more focused. It’s designed for one particular campaign or audience, with one clear next step.

Imagine sending an email to your list with a promotion for 20% off a particular product. You could include a link to your homepage, but then visitors would have to search through your entire website to find the offer. With a dedicated landing page, you could send them directly to that offer, with no extra hoops to jump through.

Here’s an example from Nori, a clothing-care brand that sells steam irons and related products. Here’s what you’ll see if you visit their homepage:

You can browse the products, learn more about their latest steamer, log in to your account, check your basket and more. Scroll down to the footer, and you’ll get even more options, with links taking you to different pages, from “How to Steam” guides to the company story.

However, if you click through to a landing page for the Nori Press, then things look significantly different:

There’s no main navigation menu encouraging you to browse the store. Instead, the page stays focused on the Nori Press. Every photo shows the product. Every button and link directs you to where you can buy it.

Put simply, your homepage greets anyone who visits your site. A landing page carries on a conversation that you’ve already started with your customers.

Why campaigns need their own pages

So, if every site needs a homepage anyway, why do the extra work of creating different pages that most visitors might never see?

Because a good campaign builds momentum.

Let’s go back to our promotional email campaign example, with 20% off a specific product. Someone reads your email, likes the offer and clicks the link. At this point, they know exactly what they’re interested in, and they’re expecting to get that juicy discount.

If you send those people to your homepage, you’re interrupting that journey. Instead of seeing the promotion they clicked for, they land at a crossroads. There are links for all your products, your latest news, your About page and a dozen other places they could go to, all vying for their attention.

If they’re particularly determined, they might look around and try to find the offer for themselves. In reality, they’re more likely to give up and go back to whatever they were doing before.

On the other hand, when you send visitors to a dedicated landing page, you make the whole process much easier for them. They instantly see the offer that persuaded them to click in the first place, with that 20% off promotion front and center. It’s also clear what they have to do next to redeem that offer, with a big “Buy now” button next to the product. It’s a consistent message, from click to purchase.

Rather than sending everyone to a generic page, you can tailor every landing page to the campaign and its audience. 

This might all sound like extra work, but if you’re already running email campaigns or paid ads, you’re already putting plenty of time and effort into earning those clicks. A dedicated landing page helps you make the most of the work you’re already doing.

Instead of buying more traffic or sending more emails, you’re giving the people who already clicked an easier path to the next step.

What a good website landing page includes

A good landing page doesn’t need to be complicated. In fact, the whole point is to keep things lean and focused.

Here are the essentials:

A clear headline that matches the campaign

Your headline should immediately let people know they’ve landed in the right place, continuing that conversation you started in your email or ad.

So, if you’ve promised 20% off your spring collection, your landing page should have that promotion in the headline. Don’t make people stop and wonder whether they’ve clicked the wrong link. The wording doesn’t have to be identical, but it should clearly match or complement the campaign that brought them there.

Short supporting messaging

Once you’ve got their attention, give visitors the information they need to take the next step. 

What exactly is the promotion? What exactly does the product or service do? Why should they act today?

Keep it focused. A landing page isn’t the place to tell your entire company story. Include enough details to answer any obvious questions or objections without distracting from the main offer.

One clear call to action

A call to action (or CTA) is simply the next step you want someone to take. 

For an ecommerce landing page, that might be “Buy now” or “Add to cart”. For other campaigns, it could be something like “Download your guide”, “Book a demo” or “Sign up”.

Whatever the action is, make it obvious and make it easy. If you need visitors to fill in a form, only ask for information you actually need. Every extra field is a barrier, lowering the chances that your visitor will actually complete the desired action.

No unnecessary navigation

Cutting out navigation can feel a bit strange at first. Normally, good website design means making it easy for visitors to explore. However, landing pages have a different job.

Instead of trying to give visitors a map of your entire website, the goal is to give them a clear route to a specific destination. Removing the usual navigation menu and any extraneous links or buttons means visitors are less likely to get distracted.

Here’s how Nori’s landing page does it:

The headline and copy stay focused on the Press, the prominent buttons direct visitors toward buying it and the usual store navigation is removed. That means the product and the next step stand out on the page.

How to build a landing page in minutes

For a long time, building a landing page was a significant project. 

You’d need to brief a designer and/or developer, wait a few weeks (or even months) for them to build the page, then engage in an increasingly frustrating back-and-forth to sort out any revisions before you could finally launch. 

If you were feeling particularly brave, you might try building one in your website’s content management system (CMS), the platforms used to create and update website pages, like WordPress and Wix. However, unless you were already an expert, putting up even a basic page could mean many days (and nights) spent fiddling with the software.

Fortunately, those days are long gone. You can put together a landing page by yourself in minutes, without touching a line of code, with tools like Transpond Landing Pages. 

If you’ve built an email in Transpond, you already know how to build a page. Testing a new offer becomes virtually free, so you can experiment with ideas you’d never have briefed out.

Here’s how it works.

1. Pick the campaign. Decide what this page is for, who it’s for and what you want visitors to do next.
2. Build the page. Add and arrange the content using the drag-and-drop editor.
3. Preview it. Check how everything looks on different devices. 
4. Publish from Transpond. Launch the page directly from the editor (no other tools required). 
5. Connect your email campaign. Link your Transpond email campaign to the new landing page. 
6. Edit and republish whenever you need to. Change the headline, offer or messaging without starting again from scratch.

That speed makes it much easier to act on an idea while it’s still fresh. Instead of deciding whether a new campaign is worth the time and cost of briefing out another page, you can build one yourself and get it live quickly. 

Your landing page can also connect with other Transpond features. Embed a Form and anyone who submits can go straight into an existing Automation, with no exporting or manual copying between tools. You can also add the Conversations chatbot directly to any page, giving visitors another way to get answers to their questions.

Try it out for yourself with a free Transpond account today.

How to know if your landing page is working

So, you’ve got your landing page all set up. You’ve started sending traffic to it. Now what? 

Publishing your landing page is the starting point. Like most things in marketing, you’ll get the best results when you can see what’s working, what isn’t, and use that information to make relevant changes.

You can see who opened your email, who clicked the link, landed on the page, engaged, and who took action, all in one place with Transpond Landing Pages’ built-in analytics and site tracking. 

Think of it as a science experiment, just without the white coat and test tubes. You come up with an idea, test it, then make changes based on the results. Did this offer get a better response than the last one? Did people click through but fail to take the next step? Is this a campaign worth running again? With Transpond Landing Pages, you get the evidence to back up your tests, so you’re not relying on guesswork and intuition.

And because creating and updating landing pages is so quick, you can keep learning from what works and use those lessons to make the next campaign even stronger. 

Build the rest of your marketing system

A landing page gives every campaign somewhere to send the clicks, but how do you get the clicks in the first place?

The SMB marketing blueprint guide covers everything you need to get started, from organizing your contacts to automated follow-ups, so you can get your business in front of the right people.

Download your SMB marketing blueprint today