A landing page has one job.
A landing page is a page built for a single action: getting the visitor to book, buy, download or get in touch. This guide explains what a landing page is, how it differs from the homepage, which types there are, what makes it convert and how to measure and improve it.
Our view
A landing page shouldn't try to convince people of everything, only of the next step. Every link, field and message that doesn't help the visitor get there costs conversions.
What a landing page is.
A landing page is a web page visitors reach after clicking an ad, a newsletter link or a post, and it is built for a single action. That might be booking a meeting, downloading a guide, signing up for a webinar or buying a product. Everything on the page is there to get more people to do exactly that.
The term is used in two ways, and they are often mixed up. In marketing, a landing page↗ means a standalone campaign page like the one above. In analytics tools such as Google Analytics, the landing page is instead the page where a session starts↗, whichever page that is. The landing page report in GA4 therefore shows every entry point to the site, not just the campaign pages. This guide is about the first meaning.
Landing page or homepage?
The homepage and the landing page do different jobs. The difference shows in four things:
- Goal. The homepage helps visitors find their way among everything you do. The landing page has a single goal.
- Navigation. The homepage has a menu and links onwards. A landing page often has no main menu, so visitors aren't led away from the goal.
- Traffic. People reach the homepage from many directions. Visitors to a landing page usually come from a specific campaign or source and already know why they clicked.
- Lifespan. The homepage stays. A campaign page often only lives as long as the campaign runs.
A service page can work as a landing page for people searching for the service, but it has more jobs than that. An ad with a clear offer therefore usually benefits from a page of its own.
Common types of landing pages.
The type is decided by what the visitor should do. The most common are:
- Lead page. Visitors leave their contact details in exchange for something, such as a guide, an audit or a webinar. Common in B2B.
- Click-through page. Explains an offer and sends visitors on to purchase or sign-up. Common in e-commerce and for apps.
- Booking page. Leads to a meeting, a demo or a trial, often with the calendar right on the page.
- Product page. Sells a product or an offer directly, with price and a buy button.
- Event page. Sign-up for an event, a course or a webinar, with date and venue at the top.
- Thank-you page. The page shown after the form is sent. It confirms and shows the next step, and it is often used to measure the conversion.
What a landing page that converts contains.
No template fits everyone, but pages that convert tend to share the same building blocks, in roughly this order:
- A headline that repeats the promise. Visitors should immediately recognize the offer from the ad.
- An introduction that says what visitors get and who the offer is for.
- A clear call to action, visible without the visitor having to scroll. The button text should say what happens next, for example “Book 30 minutes”.
- Trust close to the button: case studies, reviews and clear terms, the things that answer whether the offer can be trusted.
- Answers to objections: what the offer involves, how long it takes and what happens next. Otherwise visitors may leave the page to look for answers.
- A short form. Every field is a question the visitor has to want to answer, so only ask for what you need in the first step. More on friction in forms and flows.
- An image or video that shows the offer, not just decoration.
The same promise all the way.
The most important principle is also the easiest to miss: the page has to keep the promise the ad or link made. Someone who clicks an ad for “Free shipping on winter jackets” and lands on the shop's homepage has to start looking, and many don't. The same words, the same offer and the same image as in the ad show visitors they've come to the right place.
In Google Ads it also shows in Quality Score, where landing page experience↗ is one of three components, together with expected click-through rate and ad relevance. Quality Score is a diagnostic measure and isn't used in the auction itself, but the same quality signals feed into Ad Rank and so into position and cost per click. How the auction works is covered in Google Ads.
How to build a landing page, step by step.
The order matters. Starting with the design often produces a good-looking page that doesn't answer the right question.
- 01Decide on a single goal. What should the visitor do, and how will you know it happened? That becomes the page's conversion.
- 02Start from the traffic source. Who is coming, from which ad or email, and what made them click? The page should pick up where the ad left off.
- 03Write before you design. Headline, promise, arguments and answers to objections first. The design should carry the text, not the other way round.
- 04Build for mobile first. Many clicks from ads and social media come from phones, so the button and the form have to work there.
- 05Keep the page fast. Every second of waiting costs visitors who were already on their way. More on speed in Core Web Vitals.
- 06Set up measurement before the page is published: the conversion as an event in your analytics tool and the traffic source with UTM-tagged links.
- 07Test and improve. Change one thing at a time and let the test collect enough data before you compare, when traffic allows. How that works is covered in A/B testing.
Landing pages and SEO.
A campaign page and a page meant to rank on Google are built for different traffic. The campaign page gets its visitors from the ad and can be short and have no menu. A page meant to be found in search instead has to answer in depth what the searcher is looking for, and it needs links from the rest of the site. How such a page is built is covered in on-page SEO.
Temporary campaign pages are therefore often kept out of the search results with noindex↗, while service and knowledge pages become the pages that receive search traffic. Campaign pages that stay indexed after the campaign can otherwise compete with the regular pages for the same keywords.
How to measure a landing page.
A landing page is judged on how many people do what it is built for. Track four things:
- Conversion rate: the share of visitors who complete the goal. It says most when compared with the same page over time or with a variant, because the level varies a lot between industries and offers. More on levels in conversion optimization.
- Conversions per traffic source. The same page can work for visitors from an ad and not at all for those coming from a newsletter.
- Where visitors drop off. How far down they scroll and where they abandon the form show where the page loses them.
- Quality afterwards. Did the enquiries become deals? More leads are only better if they are the right leads.
Common mistakes.
A few mistakes keep coming back on landing pages that don't convert:
- The page has several goals. Two offers and four buttons give visitors a choice instead of a next step.
- The form asks too much too soon. Phone number, budget and company size can wait until the conversation.
- The same page is used for every campaign, so it doesn't match any of the ads.
How we approach landing pages.
We start with the traffic and the goal, not the template: who is coming, what they clicked on and what they should do. The page is built to keep the ad's promise, followed up for each campaign and improved with tests when there is enough data for them. The measurement and the data sit in your accounts.
More about the work on the page for our conversion optimization service.
Want someone to read your landing page?
Send us the page address and the campaign that leads there, and we'll look at the message, the flow and the form. You get a concrete picture of what would get more people to do what the page is built for. It's free of charge.
Want to see the basics yourself first? Website Check runs a free analysis of the homepage in under a minute.
Book 30 minutes →Common questions about landing pages
What is a landing page?
A landing page is a web page built for a single action, such as booking a meeting, downloading a guide or buying a product. Visitors arrive from an ad, a newsletter or a post, and everything on the page should lead to that action.
What's the difference between a landing page and a homepage?
The homepage is the entrance to the whole site and helps visitors find their way among everything you do. A landing page has a single goal, often has no menu and receives visitors from a specific campaign or source.
How do you build a landing page?
Decide on one goal, start from what the visitor clicked on, and write the headline, promise and answers to objections before you design. Build for mobile, keep the page fast, measure conversions for each traffic source and improve with tests.
Does a landing page need its own domain?
No. Most landing pages sit on the company's regular domain, under an address of their own for the campaign. That makes measurement simpler and lets the page benefit from the trust the domain already has.
How many landing pages do you need?
One per offer and audience that differ. Campaigns with different promises need different pages, otherwise the page won't match any of the ads.
What does a landing page cost?
It depends on whether the page is built in your existing system or in a separate tool, how much text and imagery needs to be produced and whether measurement and testing are included. Its value isn't decided by what it costs to build, but by how many more people do what it is built for.