- Over the last decade,
a lot of people have asked me the difference
between a landing page and a website.
So in this video,
we're going to talk about the exact differences
and when should you use a landing page for your campaigns.
Let's do it.
So what's a landing page?
A landing page is a webpage with a clear focus
on a single call to action.
A call to action could be,
that we want visitors to fill out the form,
or click through to the next page.
This is also known as a conversion.
You should be able to track the exact action or conversion
so that you can later improve your overall campaigns.
Now, as the definition is out of the way
let's look at some key differences
between a landing page and website.
Let's start with the main one, call to action.
Landing pages usually have one goal
or a single call to action, compare this to your website
on your homepage for example,
you can have a newsletter sign up
or a lead magnet form
or some other links.
On landing page however there's just one single goal.
No navigation.
Yes, I know it might sound surprising,
but landing pages have no links to any other pages,
their aim is to actually limit choice.
It's a proven fact that when people are given more choices,
they end up picking no action.
So having no links,
we focus all our attention on that one single goal.
A cohesive structure.
Landing pages should have a well-defined structure,
for a typical lead generation landing page
you can start with a benefit focus headline,
build up trust by showing social proof,
have features listed out in a way
that a user can easily skim through the content.
Compare this to a homepage for example.
On a website, the page has quite a lot of links,
it has summary of some of the services or products
which visitors can click through.
A homepage is more often a navigation page
it is good for directing visitors to certain areas
on the website.
I put together a template which you can easily download
to check what elements you should include
in your landing page.
Relevancy basically means you match your ad copy
with your landing page.
So let's imagine two scenarios.
First one, I type in Nike Air Force 1 in Google
and see an ad,
which says Nike Air Force 1 offers up to 50% off.
And when I click on the ad,
it takes me to a homepage with hundreds of product lines.
Now on this homepage
I'll have to navigate and click through
at least five different pages to reach the actual product.
Now let's take scenario number two.
In this scenario, we linked the Google ad, the landing page,
where we list all benefits, features, include a video,
show social proof, and also offer a 50% discount coupon
which users can easily copy.
Which of these two scenarios do you think
will have a better user experience?
Clearly is the landing page route
as the landing page is super relevant
to the search query of the customer.
Now let's take the previous example and expand it.
So if a visitor types in Nike Air Force 1 Junior,
then we can effectively copy the same landing page
and change some of the elements
to match that audience.
Because landing pages are built outside your website,
they're easy to update and deploy.
This allows marketers to create better quality campaigns
without the need of IT.
There are also clever ways with which you can dynamically
change the content of your landing page
using URL parameters,
we'll cover this topic in future videos.
So please do subscribe to my channel
by clicking the subscribe button below.
Since we've covered some differences
let's look at where you can use landing pages
over your website.
Paid traffic campaigns.
For paid traffic campaigns like Google ads or Facebook ads
I'll always recommend using landing pages
as you're spending money for every click
so every visitor is important,
with a clear focus and attention
you can get better results.
Promoting content on social media.
You can use specific lead generation landing pages
on your Twitter, Instagram bio to generate leads.
These are called lead magnets
where basically you exchange an ebook or a freebie
with your prospects email address.
SEO.
There's one area where I wouldn't recommend
using landing pages
because of the dynamic nature of landing pages
where you can do split testing
and keep changing the content,
I recommend sending organic traffic to your main website.
If you want to know more about A/B testing
your landing pages, check out my other video linked here.
Now let's look at some examples of Google ad campaigns
and check what's happening out in the world.
Are marketers is using landing pages
or are they sending paid traffic to the homepage?
So let's do it.
Let's check what industries are doing
when it comes to running Google ad campaigns.
So I'm going to use Ahrefs in this case
because I don't want to type things in Google
and basically for every click I make on Google
a client will have to pay for it.
So in Ahrefs they already have a lot of cache data
so that means I can look at all this information
look at whether what the ads are running
and for different landing pages
I can simply click on them
without costing anybody anything.
So let's start with one of my favorite campaigns,
dental implants.
So we want to click the search box here
and here when you look at this data
on the left side you will see ads history
when you click on it
you would see all the landing pages
which customers are running.
So let's look at the first one.
So ClearChoice.com.
So imagine now if I'm the customer
and I've typed in dental implants.
So obviously I'm interested in dental implants,
but what they're doing here is sending customers directly
to the homepage, which in my opinion
should not be the route because for PCC campaigns
as we discussed we need to have a very clear goal.
And here there's a lot of information
although it's relevant,
but it still is a lot of information.
And let's have a look
because there's so many call to actions here,
there's all these social links here,
there's links to other pages,
there's one big call to action which is cool
but there are lots of links
as we can expect from a homepage.
And if I, for example, click on Facebook,
oh, first of all,
they haven't actually linked their Facebook page correctly
so it's kind of showing me this error.
So now imagine if I'm the customer
or I'm now I don't have this good experience
that the Facebook page is not linked,
and also then Facebook draws me
towards checking Facebook in a way.
So if I see these notifications
I might click on them and then get sucked
into the world of Facebook
and then I would forget about why I was there
in the first place.
So the whole notion of like
you need to have customers or visitors staying on the page
gets messed up here as you can see,
so I can easily come out of the website in that case.
So let's have a look at the next example.
The next example I want to look at is for example
if I'm searching for a financial advisor.
I know this industry way well,
because in our agency we built tons of landing pages
for this particular category.
So if I type in financial advisor
I can see all these different landing pages,
and what I've done is I've opened a few of them
so we can have a look.
So let's look at the first one.
So this one is called Senior Financial Advisors,
and on this page if I'm looking for a financial advisor
I'm looking for a financial advisor near me
or near my location.
So in this case
then I'll have to enter my zip code
or in the U.K. will type in the postcode.
But notice how the page is structured is very cohesive
and there's social proof there's information here,
which kind of makes it feel
that, yeah, that's what I want to do
that's the route I wanna take.
And they've cleverly put all the call-to-actions here
so if I click Get Started it takes me back to the form here.
There is a phone number at the top
which is just kind of like a secondary zip conversion.
And so there's no other links,
there's no distractions
you can't go anywhere else
except for typing in the postcode.
So this is the paradox of choice
when you give people less choice
they actually make a choice and make a decision.
Now let's look at another example which is called,
letsmakeaplan.org.
This page although has more of a landing page look
and feel, so you have all these sections here
which kind of are the same ones
which we talked about these social proof,
there's a form here, there's a call to action,
but unfortunately they still have got the navigation bar
at the top, they still have some links here
which then point to some other pages
so effectively sending traffic to the homepage.
So if you compare now a visitor on this page
versus the other page
I personally believe that people
who are sent to the landing page will take an action,
whereas here there's so much choice
that you can basically leak visitors to other pages.
Finally, there's a third example
which is pretty straightforward.
There are no other links
the only search box we have here is Enter Your Zip Code.
So it follows the exact same principle,
there's a kind of a top line headline
which says Compare Top Financial Advisors
Who Meet Your Requirements,
and that's it you basically start your journey from here.
And that's the whole objective of this landing page.
I hope those examples help you differentiate
between what you should be doing
when sending Google paid traffic
because every click is expensive
and you want those visitors to convert.
Next up, let's look at some B2B examples.
I've noticed in this industry people do all sorts of stuff,
they use Google PPC
but send like high intent traffic to download eBooks.
Whereas I personally think if somebody
is typing in in Google search what they want,
let's give them what they want
other than we send them to a page which is not relevant.
So if I'm looking for software development
and I look at all these different landing pages
I've opened a few of them
let's see what they look like.
The first one from Applaudo Studios
it doesn't say anything about software development,
it just simply sends me to a page that says,
Build a tech project with us.
But I don't know anything about their company
or their brand.
So it's highly unlikely that somebody
is gonna fill out this form
without knowing any kind of background.
Of course they have some more information when you scroll,
but shouldn't this be the other way around
where the information which is relevant
that user should pay at first,
like there should be a benefit statement with a headline,
there should be information about what the company offers,
different services, social proof and all of that.
And unfortunately, in this instance
they've skipped everything
and this literally showed a big fat form
with all these different fields.
But there's good news there's other pages here
for example, one from OpenXcell,
this one although is not responsive I don't know why
please, I'll have to scroll here,
but it seems like they haven't made this page responsive.
I can see they're using relevant keywords in the heading,
which is software development company.
And then it's quite relevant,
it has social proof here from Clutch
and there's some brand logos of companies
they've worked with in the past.
This is all good stuff
and it also has awards and recognition.
There's information about pricing, technology stack
it tells me everything which I need to know
in case if I wanna take the action
and the best part is there are no links to any other pages.
So it's like one page
which has all the information you need
and the only call to action is,
you know, filling out this form
and starting your seven-day free trial.
So it kind of ticks all the boxes
for a good landing page in my opinion.
The next one is called ActiveLogic Labs
On this page again
we've been sent to almost like a landing page
which basically is their homepage
but it has no other links which is a good news.
And although I would change the call to action
to make it a bit more prominent
because at the moment it's black,
but it's kind of blending in with the background;
but there's a good headline here
with custom software development
or custom software as a keyword
which appears in the main heading
making the whole experience very relevant.
If I click Let's Discuss Your Development Project,
it's scrolls to the bottom of the page
where I can fill out the form.
And again, there's social proof here,
there's information about the team,
there's a Clutch badge.
If I click on it,
I open up in a new tab.
Although I would avoid opening up in a new tab
I'd probably have a pop-up in this case,
but it's still very relevant
and I think they've done a good job.
So let's look at some more examples I've got here.
This one is from Strypes.eu.
They sending again high intent traffic to their homepage.
So if I'm looking for software development
we have something that say software solutions,
but then this gets lost because there more services here
and there trying to sell everything on their homepage
which obviously is not a bad thing for a homepage.
But as we know I've typed in software development,
I'm interested in software development,
to show me a page which talks about software development.
So I have this concern that people still
although they are spending money on Google
they sending high intent traffic
to do their home pages.
And I've found another example, unfortunately,
their page wasn't up.
So to me this is like lost opportunity,
I don't know why this happens
where people use Google PPC
and send traffic, paid traffic to broken URL.
I hope there's a lesson out here.
I hope you got value from this video.
If you would like to watch more videos like this one,
please subscribe to my channel
and I'll see you next time.