There seems to be a little confusion…
Many businesses will contact an agency like ours and ask for a Landing page to be created. When we start to talk to them, what they really want is a one-page website and they are just calling it a landing page.
A one-page website, full website, and landing pages are all different things that have different purposes. Let’s dive into what each one is, how they fit into the buyer’s journey, and what each one does.
Understanding the Buyer’s Journey
The three typical stages of the Buyer’s Journey, which is how a person moves from a potential customer to a loyal brand ambassador, are Awareness, Consideration, and Decision.
Awareness means they have no idea who you are. They need to be made aware of your business and what you can do for them, sure, but this stage is more about making them aware of the problem they didn’t know they had. More importantly, the problem they didn’t know they had NOR did they know that you can solve for them.
Consideration is the stage where a potential customer knows they have a problem that you can solve with your product, but they are now researching and considering options on how to solve it.
Decision is the stage where they have decided already that they need to solve the problem and are ready to do so. They just need to know what to do next. Where do I click to get started? These are the potential customers who are ready to become customers.
So, let’s see how websites, one-pagers, and landing pages fit into those stages best.
Full Site
A full-blown website can support a buyer in any of the three stages. However, these are far more expensive to create and require daily maintenance and updating. Within a full website, you will find some pages that function as one-page websites and some that act as landing pages.
These sites will have full navigation that includes everything you do as a company and will contain multiple action items throughout the site. They are very useful and versatile and every business should try to create a full website eventually. If your site contains more than one to two pages, it’s a full site.
One page
First, it’s exactly as it sounds: one page. Companies who are just starting out can get a one-page site live quickly so that they have a way to connect with customers and send potential customer traffic to it.
These are often confused with landing pages since both have one call to action instead of multiple CTA’s like a full site. However, the type of CTA is what is different because they are intended for two different stages of the buyer’s journey.
A one-page CTA is aimed at those in the consideration phase. This site is for those who are trying to research what you do and need to learn as much as they can about you quickly.
This type of site will take the customer on a journey down the page as they scroll which explains why they need your services and what benefit there is for working with you. There will be one call to action placed in multiple places as they scroll down the page, but they all do essentially the same thing.
Landing Page
The landing page is for those ready to make a decision now. The call to action for a landing page has to do with one particular offer or product and that’s it. All of the other marketing, selling, and convincing have been done elsewhere. The only reason they are on the page is because they willingly navigated there from an ad or social media, so they are ready to buy now.
Capturing email addresses, giving away freebies, or making a sale are typical purposes for landing pages. These do not typically have any navigation or anything else that might allow visitors to easily click away from the page.
So what do you need?
So, knowing what these things do, how can we help you? We can create any of these for you that will help you convert, delight, or educate your audience. Let’s talk!
